Contents
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\hout this Book
2
\\ho '\eeds Genres? Before Genre: \lelodrama
YII IX
2<)
Part 1: Classical Paradigms 3 The Western: Genre and Histon -+ The \ I llsical: Genre and Form ), The \\ar/Combat Film: Genre and '\ation fl, The G,l11~ster Film: Genre and Societ~ Part 2: Transitional Fantasies 7 The Horror Film N, The Science Fiction Film Part 3: Post-Classical Genres t), 10,
II,
Fillll .\011'
The .\ction Blockbuster Genre: Breakin~ the Frame (!) Docllmen tary (ll) Holocaust Film (III) Porno~raphy
12,
(~onclllsion: Transg:enre?
Bihliog;raphy Index
2IO
233 2.17
257 262 26 7
273 279 2
Preface
I I
The concept of gCllrc - a French word meaning 'type' or 'kind' - is used throughout film culture: in film production, in the popular consumption and reception of films ,1I1d in academic film studies. Yet the \\ays in which genre is understood arc anything but consistent across those different constituencies. :\t a more fundamentalleH~1too, genre remains a perplexingly c\'asi\c .tnd. philosophically speaking, idealistic entity. On the one hand, no individual genn.' film can ncr embody the full rang;e of attributes said to typify its genre; hy the same token - as \olumes of frustrated critical cff(lrt attest - no definition of a genre, hO\\e\cr t1exible, can account equally well ftH' e\cry genn.' film. For newcomers to the field, it must often seem that, as with (intrude Stein's Oakland, 'when you get there, there's no "t here" there.' This book proposes that, such problems notwithstanding, genre remains an essential critical tool ftlr understanding the ways that films are produced and consumed, as well as their broader rclations to culture and society. Howe\ cr, the shifting \alences, relations and definitions of the concept of genre pose ob\ious problems ftlr students, who must additionally halance abstract ,lnd/or g;encralised categ'ories- in 'defining' indi\idual g-cnres and in underSLlllding the underlying principles of g;cncric classification as such - on the one hand against their realisation (or repudiation) in any given film on the other. Rather like the barned private eye Harry \loseby in the 're\isionist' genre film Sip)iI\!o;:'cs (l(n~), anyone studying g;enre is prone to encountering; an unexpected complexity in apparently common-sense categories II hel-C even. new turn threatens further consternation. Harr\ . eVloseby . ends lip lJuite literally going around in circles. Students risk a similar btl'. The aim of this book is to make that dismal outcome less likely. Focusing nLlinly on the best-known and longest-liyed Holly\\ood genres - those with rOots in the classical studio era, eyen if like the action film they haye taken on a different generic char,leter and a hugely expanded industrial importance in
VIII
FILM GENRE
the post-classical period I hale tried to shOll the \\ays in \\hich film genre theory has informed the most influential accoul1Cs of major genres and lice \ersa. In some GISeS, students may find that their prior assumptions about what makes films generic, or hO\y indi\idual genres \\ork, are challenged ..-\s disorientin[?: as this mig'ht sometimes he, it seems nonetheless ,111 appropriate dimension of learning to understand \yhat arc after all complC\ entities \\ith widely ramified connections to film, social - and critical history. Such ramilications defeat Harry i\loseby, \\ho at the end of the film \\e lea\e adrift in a hoat named Po III I or 11'(,11'. Ylp,ll/ .\10('('.1' lel\TS it deliberately ambi[?:uous \\hether I-Iarry himself lacks a point of \ie\\ or is baffled by too many contlictin[?: ones. The reader of this hook \\ill I hope be able to understand the reasons for the contrO\Trsies and conflicting' \'icy\s of film [?:enre and genre lilms, and throug'h such understandin[?: de\elop a critical perspecti\ e of their own. Books, like films, are collaborati\T productions. Thanks are owed to many colleag;ues and under[?:raduate and post[?:raduate students, and to Ro\al Holloway, Cni\Trsity of] ,ondon, \\'ho ha\T in a \ariety of formal and inf()rmal contnts helped formulate and refine the ideas about lilm genre explored in this book. J haye also had the benefit of airing some of these ideas, notably on Westerns ,Illd on Holocaust film, in papers deli\Tred at conferences in the Uk and the United States: I am grateful to the conference organisers I(JI' those opportunities and, once again, to numerous colleagues for the responses and insig'hts they ha\'e \,(llunteered. Some material is based on essays pre\iously published in 1"11111 [;) IIlslor]' and the ]ol/rnill or 1I01IICIIl/SI 1;'d/lCIIllolI. My editor at Edinburgh Uni\Trsity Press, Sarah Ed\\ards, expertly co,I:\l'l1 the book thnlu[?:h the initial proposal and then waited (and waited!) p,ltientl~ for the cyentual arriyal of the manuscript. \ly L.Imily had to li\e \\ith an increasingly reclusi\T and grouchy author as his deadline first approached, then passed, They did so \\ith a good deal more [?:race than he did. In particular, without the support, tolerance and keen editorial eye of m~ \1 ife Carole Tonkinson this book \\ould not hale been possible, and it is dedicated with I
About this book
The o\erall approach of FIIIII (;Cl/re: HoIIJ'II'IIIIIIII/ld fJeJ'ol/l1 situates [?:enres in their historical - primarily, cultural and (film) industrial conte:\ts; the O\erarching context of the book is the transition from the 'classical' Hollywood system to a 'post-classical' mode that extends to the present day. [n making this separation, I neither explicitly challen[?:e nor endorse arguments Jbout thc extent to \\ hich 'post-classical' Holly\YooJ represents a qualitati\eh different set of yisual stylistics in Holly\Yood film, or is essentially continuous in formal terms with the 'classical' Hollywood cinema (see Bord\\ell, Staiger and Thompson, r9k); Bordwell, 2002). It is clear enoug'h, as numerous studies ha\T no\y established, that the relati\'ely standardised mass-production of lilm entertainment that typilied the studio era until shortly ,ll'tcr the war has been repLlCed by a Ell' more dispersed and heterogeneous Illechanism (this does not mean of course that the outcomes are equally heterogeneous), and thus the structure of contract artists stars, \\Titers, directors, set and costume designers, composers, etc. ,studio b,lcklots and standing sets, ,1I1nual release 'slates' and \ertically integTated corporate org'anisations that collecti\ eh comprised \\hat .-\ndre Bazin GIlled 'the genius of the system' and 1\ hich supported and encouraged genre production, has gone. Some g'enres, like the musical and the "'estern, seem I(JI' a \ariety of reasons to hale been so much a part of that system that they could not easily sUl'\iYe its passing', \\ hile others, like .film 1I0ir and the action blockbuster, arc in different ways clclrly outcomes of a different order of production th,\I1 the Holly\Yood studio S\steIll and may usefully be considered in the context of a post-classical cinema. In any eYent, [ haye arrang;ed the genres discussed in the book into three categories - classical, transitional and post-classical. Like other boundaries discllssed in this book, these too are porous and certainly open to challenge: they are intended as heuristic tools rather than Jefiniti\e statements, LICh chapter addresses both genre histol'\ and some of the principal
X
FILM GENRE
critical approaches each genre has invited. Histon' and criticism are at e\-cry stage interlinked: it is easy enough in genre study' to lose the wood for the trees, and so I have not attempted either to cover e;ery major crirical approach to every genre (a task in any case undertaken mag'isteriallv bv Steve '\Jeale, 2000), nor h,l\'e I aimed to prO\ide in each case a comprehen-siv~ genre history, as this can easily end up simply offering; lists of insufficiently differentiated film titles. Each chapter docs, I hope, give a reasonably clear picture of a genre's historical de\'e1opment while also engaging with those critical perspectives that seem to have the most direct bearing either on the current state of crirical understanding; of a genre or its location within genre studies as a w'hole. In citing genre critics and theorists I have maintained a slig'ht bias towards recent research to reflect the current state of play and new critical directions. Each chapter concludes with a brief 'case study' of a genre film or pair of films. These films ha\-c not been selected fflr either their 'classic' or their representative status, but simply as films that can be and have been firmly located within the genre in question, whose more detailed consideration seems to me in useful ways to complement or amplify the issues raised in the main section of the chapter. The account given of the film(s) is not intended to be comprehensive, nor could it be in the space a\ailable: the clements highlighted arc those that bear most directly on genre history or genre theory. Genre studies has historically been dominated by analysis of the major Hollywood genres, and this book is principally about Hollywood. H()\\C\cr, the subtitle JJII//J ' /I'III)(/ allr! RC)'III/{/ reflects firstly my own concern to indicate that Hollywood genres not on Iy colonise the rest of the world, but arc and ha\c been open to it; secondly, the stream that in recent years has hecome a flood of critical studies of the popular cinemas of other nations and their genres; and third, that e\cn .\merican g-Cl1lCS arc not and ha\-c not been exclusi\-cly produced by I Iol1~ WoOl\. The first concern means that, where relevant (ff)r example, the horror film and ji/II/ IIl1lr) influences on Hol1y\\ood from other national cinemas and cultures arc considered in their proper place in the main hod~ of each chapter. The second is inadequately - ffn- reasons of hoth space and in many cascs the limits ofm~ o\\n expertise - cO\ered in a concluding section to each chapter (har Chaptcr .=; on thc war/ comhat film, which, to highlight the interaction of genre and nationhood, proceeds on a comparati\c international basis throughout) which briefly indicltes some of the wa~ s rhat major J Iol1ywood gelllTs ha\-c also figured importantly (sometimes under IIol1ywood's influence and sometimes \\holl~ separately) in other national cinemas. l'\on-Hol1yw ood ,\merican genres like documentary and pornogTaphy arc discussed at somew'hat gre,llcr length in the final chapter.
C1L\PTER I
Who Needs Genres?
, ~
'I
\01(:
Films arc listed \\ ith their \ car of release on their tirst citation in al1\ indi\ idu,d eh'lpter:
the eountn of
ori~in
is assumed to be the L'S unless other\\ ise indiL',nnL
hinking' about why we might 'need' genres means thinking' about the uses to which w-c commonly put genre concepts and the value we derive from doing so, Thus wc can focus on genre's role as an active pror!uccr of cuI rural meanings and film-making' practices alike. The provisional answ-cr to the question 'who needs genres?' is 'E\cryone but in different wa) s, and not to the same degree'. For film-makers, organising prod uction around genres and c~ cles holds out the promise of attracting and retaining audiences in a reliable way, so reducing commercial risk. For audiences, genre categories provide basic product differentiation while the generic 'contract' of LI1l1iliarity lea\cned by novelty seems to offer some guarantee that the price of admission wil1 purchase another shot of an experience already enjoyed (oncc or many times) hefore. For scholars, genre provides a historicall~ grounded method of establishing 'Lunily resemhlances' betwcen films produced and released under widely differing circumstances, and of mediating the relationship hetwcen the mythologies of popular culture and social, political and economic contexts. L nlike many topics within academic film studies, the basic concept of genre is readily grasped and widely used in the larger contemporar~ film Culture, as a visit to any video rental store readily illustrates. In my own local outlet in South \Yest I ~ondon, ff)!- nample, videos and ))Y))s arc arranged into the fol1
T
JI
I
2
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
FILM tiENRE
history, for example, plays some role in these classifications, the oyerarching principle is not a historical one. Nor does the notion of the 'auteur' playa terribly yisible role: although the identification of (usually) the film director as principal creatiye agent has become an interpretatiye norm for broadsheet and specialist magazine film criticism, directors in general feature only marginally in the promotion or classification of yideos. This of coursc tells us nothing about the percentage of customers who enter the store to find a particular film, or a film by a particular director, and are thus uninterested in or uninfluenced by the genre categories: indeed, as we shall see, genre theory generally has found it rather difficult to establish \\ith any certainty how Elr the film industry's categories map onto, let alone determine, audiences' actual experience of mo\"ie-going. Stars, another major focus of academic film studies, playa much more yisible part in the promotion of indiyidual films - 'abO\e the line' talent usually features prominently on yideo or DV]) cO\crs and is clearly a major bctor in attracting audiences. Yet stars as such do not comprise generic categories. Film students, indeed, may bc surprised to see that star personae a major force in film production and consumption since the I()I0S, \\hen public demand forced reluctant producers to identi(y their hitherto anonymous performers (and pay these nc\\ 'stars' accordingly inflated salaries) are also suppressed as a criterion for classification. Industrial changc has clearly played a part here: no longer salaried contract players assigned to seyeral different film roles annually within the studio's O\crall release 'slate', today's film stars are frec ,lgents, leading industry players in their 0\\"11 right, and usually haye their own production companies to orig;inate film projects and bring them to studios f(lr financing and distribution deals. A.ctors today are accordingly much freer to diyersify and extend both their acting range and their star inuge; they need not be pigeonholed in just one style or genre of film. In the classical period the interplay of star, studio and g-enre \\",IS complex and not necessarily unidirectional: Sklar ([()()2: 7+ 106) argoues that rather than hiring performers to meet pre-established generic needs (let alone compelling actors against their \\ill into restrictiye genre roles), ha\"ing Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney, both actors \\ith 'tougoh' urban screen personae, as contract players encouraged vVarner Bros. to make a speciality of the crime thriller during the [(nOS and I9+os. Eyen the \Vestern Tlte O!... !a!zol/la Kid (HU9) \\holly conforms to the template established in other contemporary Cagney and Bogart gangster films like. ill/!,e!s Willt Dlrly FI/as (I93 g ) and The ROllrillg T77'i'IIlies (1939). "-\s usual, Cagney (much the bigger star at this point) plays the hero- here in the 'pro-social' gangbusting mould into which his early I930S gangster persona had subsequently been recast (see Chapter 6) - and Bogart the underworld boss 'heayy' in a narrati\c that
3
simply transposes the racketeering/syndicate g,lI1gland template of G-Mell (1935) to the 'wide-open town' Western. In general - and with different approaches from one studio to another - the bigg'er the star the greater his or her opportunity for diyersification: thus Cagney in the I930S played not only gangoster parts but musicals (Foolhj!,/II PI/mde, 193+), ayiation films (Cei!ill/!, /ero, 19.'1) and eyen Shakespeare (-1 oHidsllllllller Nigltl'S Drel/III, 1935)· \)orem"er, star personae could transform oyer time, as with Bogart's own transition from second-lead heayies in the I930S to the ideal romantic leading m,ll1 for the \\Oar-torn I9+os. But the studio system generally made casting a much more reliable guide to the nature of a film than today: whereas fans of Errol Flynn in Tlte .-1(l<'i'IIllIres or Robill l100d (HjJg) could be reasonably confident that Tlte Sell HI/ JI'/'" (r 9+ I) would ofler similar pleasures - and that this \\ ould be true e\'en if the generic mode shifted from swashbuckling actioll-adyenture to \Vestern (Tile)' Died Hillt Tltor Bools 011, [()+I) or war film (Desperale ]OUrtlC)', 19+2) - admirers of Tom Cruise in Top GUll (19X6) or \l Issioll !I/lpossi/J/e (1996) may be surprised, disappointed or eyen outraged by his per!(lrmanCe in A1agllo!i11 (11)1)1)). The moyement of a contemporary star like Julianne "'loore between large-budg-ct popcorn spectaculars like ]lIrmsll Pil d' 1/: Tlte Losl World (H)97) and stylised independent films like FI/r Frol/l lfel/7'l'1I (2002) offers audiences little clear g-eneric purchase. o-\rt\\ork on film posters and ()VD jackets typically relies at least as much on sending' out generic signals .- typically b~ means of ilollo/!,rl/p!lI( conyentions (see belo\\") - as on star personae, \\hich arc indeed often modified or gcncricdly 'placed' by such imagery ..\rnold Sch\\arzenegger grins goofily in lincn lederhosen on the front of TJ7'ills (I9gX); on Killdcrgllrli'll Cop (1990) he gurns in cxagger.lted alarm as he is assaultcd by a swarm of pre-schoolers. Both films arc comedies and both images kno\\ingl y playoff the unsmiling, tooled-up .\rnie fenurcd on the publicity filr the techno-thrillers Tlte TerJ/IIl1lllor ([()X+) or Eraser (1996). Yet as centLJ! an ,1spect of film consumption and reception as genre may bc, another look at the yideo store's gcneric taxonomy quickly rcyeals what fi'om the perspectiye of most acadcmic g'Cnre criticism and thcory look like c\ idcnt '1l1omalies. For example, \\hile some of these genres - action, thriller, horror, science fiction, comedy - match up f~lirly well with sLmdard g;enre headings, the \"ideo store omits se\Tral categories \\iuely regarded as of central importance in the history of genre production, such as vVesterns, gangster films and musicals (examples of all of these arc dispersed across dr,lnL1, action, thriller and 'classics') - let alone more controwrsial yet (in academic discussion) ubiquitous classifications as .fi/III I/O/!' or melodrama. Other categories are uncanonical by any standard: 'btest releases' is selfc\identl y ,1 time-dated C1'oss-g;eneric category; 'classics' is generically probIcmatic in a different \ray, since it apparently combines both an e\aluati\e °
4
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
FrLM GENRE
term ('all-time classic', 'landmark', etc.) with a temporal one (the small and seemingly random selection of pre-lIn5 films available for rental arc automatically classified as 'classics', regardless of critical standing). The 'Lmli1y' category combines G-rated films from a number of conyentionally separate genres (animated films, comedies, Disney Iiye-action adyenrures and other children's films). 'World cinema' is used, not as it is in academic film studies (somewhat reluctantly, given its implicit Euro- or .\nglo-centrism) to designate film-making outside of North America and Western Europe, but rather includes any subtitled film, most independently produced CS films and British films - for nample, the films of Ken Loach - that fall outside recognised and bmiliar generic categories like the gangster film, romantic comedy, etc. Nor arc these categories stable in themseln:s: all nell titles nentuall~ mutate from 'latest release' into one of the other backlist categories; those (English-language) films that last the course may in due course be eleyated to 'classics'. Anomalies of course beset classificatory programmes of any kind, In a celebrated example (much quoted by critical theorists, most Lrmously \lichel Foucault, IlnO: XI), the .\rgentini,m Llbulist Jorge Luis Borges quotes a 'certain Chinese encyclopedia' in Ilhich animals arc diyided into '(a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling' pigs, (c) sirens, (I) Llbulous, (g) .stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification ... ' and so on, concluding in 'in) that hom a long Ilay off look like flies', The 'IYonderment' of this taxonomy, ,IS Foucault puts it, consists less in its sheer heterog"Cneity per se since it is precisely the function of cOl1\entional lists to enumerate similarities and discriminate differences than in the epistemological and ontological incompatibility of the categorics: 'the common ground on Ilhich such meetings arc possible has itself been destroyed' (Foucault, I(no: xYi), While film genre criticism 1\()lIld seem to ayoid such difficulties, many studies of g"Cnre including the present one - combine II ithin their pag'es genres II ith rather different standing's: those that haye ,I long and yerifiable (for ex,lmple, through film-makers' correspondence or trade paper reyiews) history of usage as product ion categories II ithin the film industr~ itself", such as \Vesterns, musicals or war films; those II here industry uS,lg'e differs m,lrkedly from critical usage, notably melodrama (sec Chapter 2); and those that ,liT largely a product of critical intel"\cntion, pre-eminentl~ .//111I IIl1ir. The histon of early cinema memlyhile rneals that film distributors in moying pictures' first decade tended to classify films under such heterodox (by tOlby's standards) heading's as length (in feet of film) and duration LIther than the content-based generic categories that emergcd by 1 l) 1 O. E yen the most uncontrmcrsial categories remain heterogeneous: Iyar films and \Vesterns are identified by subject matter, the gangster film by its protagonist(s), thrillers and horror films by their effects upon the yinYer,jillll IlOir by either ,
,
5
its 'look' or its 'dark' mood, Studio-era producers, in addition to the familiar genre categories (usually referred to in the industry as 'types'), used the ;'(lIIlIIIIlIC category of the 'prestige picture' to denote their most expensiye, hig'h-profile and (hopefully) profitable pictures - Iyhich could of course also be'long to one or more of the staI1lbrd types, but Iyhose audience appeal I\ould be expected to break out beyond that type's core market. Our sojourn in the yideo store illustrates aboye all that genre is a proccss LIther than a LICt, and one in Iyhich different perspectiyes, needs and interests can and do deli\er Iyidely yarying' outcomes. Genres arc not born, they .IIT made. The store manager explained to me that the 'classic' category combines iI1lliyidual preference Iyith institutional supen-ision: that is, while store m,ll1,lgers h,1\c Iyide personal discretion in assigning 'classic' status to imlilidu,tl films, corporate policy mandates that if one film in a series is categorised as a 'classic', other series entries must automatically be filed alongsidc. Thus since Die lfilnl (Il)HH) is (so I Iyas informed) '<m obvious classic', Die Hard: Willt il 1 ('lIge(/II«' (rl)l)S) ,t1so has 'classic' status thrust upon it. This bears out James '\;aremorc's (1995 <)6: q) obsenation that 'indil idual genre has less to do Iyith a group of arteLICts than with a discourse a loosc tyolying system of arguments and reading's, helping to shape the coml11crci,tl strategies and aesthetic ideologies.' (One might note that the k'CII,ly this system ,Iffords indiyidual managers brings into play the social categories through which contemporary cultural studies eng-ag-es popular media tC\.ts LICe, g'ender, ethnicity, sC\.uality, elcn age. The lideo-rental busiJless is, ,IS Kelin Smith's microbudget indie film ClericS (199-1-), testifies, domin,IlL'l1 by young- Iyhite males: the 'classics' section abounds in stereo1.1 piulh 'male' genres like \Vesterns, action films and science fiction, Iyith a striking deficit of musicals or family melodramas.) 11011 mig:ht any of this be relnant to genre studies; In relation to the last C\amplc, genre critics and theorists h,lle in recent ~ears laid increasing importance on institutional discourses and pLlCtices, broadly conceiYed II hat StCI e '\ealc (Il)()3, citing Greg-ory Lukow and Stel e Ricci, I<)H-I-) desig:n,Iles the industr~ 's 'inter-textual rela~ " comprising- both trade journalism (1 ariel)', FillII Dill/)' and so on) and nelyspapers as Ilcll as the Lmguag"C of film promotion ,1I1d publicit~ as a means of locating- in a determinate if ,1l1Ia~s changing' historictl context the understanding's of g-eneric categ'ories UpOJl II hich g-enre criticism in turn bases itself For such catef!;ories, hO\ye\er 'lpparenth dcceptilcly solid 'in theory', often prole surprisingly e1usiye in hoth industrial, and hcnce critical, practice. These 'historicist' approaches to ~L"nre studies h,lye in some clses - notably the \\'estern ,Iml melodrama sig n ificl11th extendcd the historical horizons and cultural contexts for understanding' genres and productilcly prohlemOltised cOl1\cntional critical accounts. Tqday's genre-constituting 'relay' includes such yenues of film consumption
6
FILM GENRE
as the corner yideo store, \yhich occupies an important place in the global and yertically integrated 'film industry' - not in fact the singular and unified entity that term suggests, but a complex network of cross-media enterprises mostly clustered into a few \cry large transnational corporate enterprises, for whom a film's performance in ancillary (but no longer secondary) markets like home yideo prO\ides a gnl\\ing share of its profitable return on imestment. As Christine Gledhill (2000: 225f.) points out, the empirical history of industry relays neither defines nor exhausts the terms on which audiences engage with genre texts . .\loreO\cr, film genre studies today itself constitutes its own 'relay': the terms and categories that haye de\cloped through decades of analysis and theory about inui\idLul genres and genre in g;eneral h,I\'e established meaningful contexts in \\hich genres and genre films ,liT understood today. This process of generic legitimation is the principal reason this book generally cbl\cs to 'canonical' genre categories like the \"estern, the combat film, etc. \Vh.1t on the other hand I ha\c tried to a\oid is any sense that such categ'ories .Ire more th.m prO\'isional or that generic identities can be fixed, IHl\\C\er critically comenient such fixity \\ould undoubtedly be. If am thing, genres may intermittently stabilise in the sense of becoming for strictly delimited periods carriers of particular mcmings or yehicles through \\hich specific issues may be negotiated (for example, '\\hiteness' in early \Vesterns (sec Abel, 1<)<)1\), or 'technoscience' in the contemporary science fiction {ilm (see Wood, 2002)).
THE SYSTEM OF GEI\JRES Cenre, as a police detectiye in a (British) crime film might say, has form. Aristotle opens his PIICI/(S, the foundational \\ork of \\estern literary criticism, by identifying it as a \\ ork of genre eriticism: 'Our suhject being Poetry, I propose to spclk not only of the art in general but also of its species and their respecti\(: capacities' ([()I[: 3). By [(JOI-2, \\hen Shakcspcare's JIIIII/Iel was first performed, genrc cltegories - and thcir ahusc \\erc clearly 'hot' issues. In 1I1I1I/1cI, .\ct 11, Scene ii, the busybody court ier Poloni us excitedly announces the arri\al of a troupe of tra\elling pbycrs. PLlisingtoday we \\ould say hyping their abilities, he declares them 'the best actors in the world, either f(lr tragedy, comedy, histon, pastoral, pastoral-comical, his torica 1- pastora I, tragica 1- historica I, tragica I-comica 1- his \(lrica I-pas tora I, scene indi\isible, or poem unlimited' (I. 39 2f1. ). Shakespeare here is clearly making fun of Polonius' ludicrous attempt to pigeonhole, ratif~ and standardise the aesthetic realm to \yithin an inch of its life; howe\'er, he may also be targeting for satire the
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
7
th
8
WHO :'\lEEDS GENRES?
FtLM GENRE
revamping, Todd Berliner (2001) has argued that even 'revisionist' genre films 'bend' rather than 'break'- that is, manipulate and modify, but do not \\holly dispense with - generic conventions as they seck to engage their alilliences in a more conscious scrutiny of genre conventions and the values they embody. l'or most film genre theorists, the concept of 'genre' has implied a great deal more than simple conventionality. On the contrary, genre was historicallv an important means for writers interested in popular, and abO\e all HI;lIvwood, cinema - as distinct from, for n:amp1e, European art cinema (tho~gh sec Tudor, [Il)731 11)76; i'\eale, tl)l)I) - to establish the value and interest of their chosen field of critical enq uiry. This was an important mme because some mid-twentieth-century critiques of popular/'mass" culture tended to blur the lines between genre, formula, stereotype and simple cliche as part of a critical project to deprecate popular culture generally on grounds of unoriginalitv and derivativeness. Those popubr cultural forms to vvhich genre is ~nost ~vidently indispensable vvere on that v"Cry ,1ccount discounted: for carl\" twentieth centurv modcrnists, for C'\ample, this included such Victoria~ relics ;IS the bout:geois nmcl and theatrical melodramas both of which C'\erted a strong shaping influence on early cinema .Ind so to speak helped damn it by association. Such deprecations of the popular/mass may partly be attributed to the cultural privilege attached to 'orig;in.dity' by post-Rolllantic literary theory. Whereas earlier ages had judged works of literaturc 'lccording to their upholding or replication of, and consistency vvith, pre-existing standards of artistic e\.cellence and \lecorum', from the late eighteenth ccntury onvvards aesthetic theorv laid increasing stress on the irreducible particularit~ of the artwork that 'is, the vvays in vvhich it stretched or transgressed the '1.1\\ s' of !.!,'ood taste, craftsm'1I1ship, and so forth (see l(ress and Threadgold, ll):-;:-I). In ~he age of industrialisation, a growing divide grevv up betvveen the 'merely' workmanlike or 'well-crafted' arteClCt - vvith the implication that such vvorks vvcre the products of apprenticeship and the aL'l]uisition of essentiall~ mechanical skills and the 'true' vvork of art; the latILT vvas increasingly seen as the product of inspiration not perspiration, of gTnius not hard graft. .-\rt, in short, was henceforth to stand IIlIlsldc rules and com entions: th.1I is vv hat made it art. Writing in the I{!30s, Walter Benjamin (I lln(l! 1<)7 0 ) noted that the vvork of art had come to acquire an 'aura' born in part of its uniqueness and indivisibilitv, an 'aura' th;1I f:lcilitated art's institution.llisation as secuLlI' cult. !\ dclini;ion of art th'lt places such heavy emphasis on originality and selfexpression vv ill inc vitably tend to dev'alue vvorks that appL';lr to be produced through collectivc rather than individual endeavour, and .1long quasi-industrial lines: this vvill be all the more true vvhen the resulting artefacts themse1vTs seem to manifest qualities of repetition and stereot~ picalit~, or vv hen they seem to have been designed vv ith an existing template in mind. Questions of
l)
;luthorship are implicitly invoked by such critiques of genre - for in the new .Iesthetic orthodo\.y that emerged out of Romanticism, the individual author had become the best guarantee of a vvork's integrity and uniqueness. So it is vv holly logical that it vvas through the category of authorship that the first serious critical attempt to recover Hollywood genre te\.ts like \Vesterns and I1lusicals for the category of 'art' vvas undertaken, in the French auteur criticism of the ll)~os.-\uteurism seeks to (and claims to be able to) identify submerged patterns of continuity - them<1tic preoccupations, characteristic patterns of narrative and characterisation, recognisable practices of 1111.1('-('11s,':lIl' and the like - running through films with (usually) the same director. Est.lblishing such individuating traits makes a claim for that director's creative 'ovvnership' of the films he has directed: the director earns a status as a creativc originator - an {II/Il'llr - along; the traditional lines of the lone novclist or painter. Thus, for C'\ample, John Ford's films can be seen to work through .1 repeated pattern of thematic opposition between vyilderness ano civilisation ('the desert ano the g'arden '): this is Ford's auteurist 'signature' (sec Caughie, Il)NI). .\lthough the limit.ltions of auteurism arc often correctly identifieo as an important factor motivating the development of genre studies, without auteurislll it is doubtful genre vvould h,IVC made it onto the critical agenda at al1.-\uteurism provcd particularly effectivc in establishing the serious critical reputation of directors vvho had rarely if ever hitherto been conceived of as artists becllIse their entire careers had been spent filming \Vesterns, gangster pictures, Illusicals and the like· quintessentially disposable US junk culture. The\lllerican .luteurist critic .\mltTvv Sarris proposed a model of 'creative tension' hetvv een the creativc drivT of the film director and the constraints of the cOlllll1Cl-cial Illedium in vyhich he vv orked. Thus, fill' Sarris, vv hether a director (()1I!d st.llllp his myn artistiL' persOIulity and concerns on essentiall~ stereotvpical Ill,lterial vvas in a sense the qualifying test fill' being avvarded auteur stat us . .\uteurislll at least dn:vv g'enre tnts vv ithin the scope of serious critical attention. I Imyevcr, within auteur criticism gUlre itself remained nTv much the poor rdation - since the unspoken assumption in Sarris's schel~1a that aut curs vv CIT more desen'ing of crit ical consideration than non-a uteurs (or as Fran~'ois TrufLllIt notoriously classified thelll, mere 'lIIl'!!mr,H'II-S(;1/l") relied 111 turn on the claim that vv hat distinguished an auteur vyas precisely his ~rallsjilrl1l.ltion of formulaic gTneric materi,d into something pnsona1. Genre thus in some measure the culture· like a petri dish on which genius feeds, rat her than meaningful material in its 0\\11 right. Directors and film's thl1 . ag'amst ' . or b rea k t Ile I"lmlts 0 f' t I ' gl\cn . . .st'lam le11' !.!,'CIllT are thus evaluated as \uperior' to texts that remain unashamedl; and 'unproblematically, eyen hanalh. generic. In this vvay auteurislll recapitulated the birfurcation, i~lll1iliar
1:
10
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
FILM GENRE
as we have seen since the early IRoos, of (true) 'artist' and (mere) journeyman, It was the transcendence, not the comfortable inhabitation, of genre that marked the auteur (as I1IJun:lle I'ague film-makers, the orig'inal French auteurist critics mostly used genre as a fi'amework for transgressi \e indi\idualising gestures), Obviously, such an approach will discourage sustained attention to the particularity of genres themseh'es, other than as tedious normative values for the inspired artist to transgress or transcend, The desire to find a means of talking about the things that typified com-entional commercial narrative film as well as those that challenged or sub\'erted it, \\as a gO\erning factor in the emergence of genre studies in the late H)60s and early 1970s, Early genre critics stressed auteurism's inability to e\:plain such important questions as why genres t10urish or decline in particular cycles; how spectators relate to generic texts; how genre artefacts shape the \\"Orld into more or less meaningful narrative, moral or ideological patterns - in other \vords film genre's history, its aesthetic C\"olution, its social contexts, The problems [ICing early film genre theorists \\ere not especially recondite, and indeed ha\'e not changed fundamentally in the thirty-five years since Edward Buscombe first tabled them:
IT]here appear
to be three questions one could profitably ask: first, do genres in the cinema really exist, and if so, can they be defined? second, what are the functions they fulfill? and third, how do specific genres originate or \\hat causes them? (Buscombe, 119701 1995: I I) c
-
-
Most accounts concur that generic labelling historically preceded organised genre production in early cinema, with distributors prior to H) 10 classifying films in a variety of \\a\s including length as \\ell as topic for the benefit of exhibitors, Duri~g and :lfter the First World War, \\ith film production in all national cinemas increasingly concentrated in a small number of studios and feature-length narratives becoming the norm, more closely defined and conventionalised generic categories started to appear. .-\ltman (I 99 S: 16-23) suggests that the crystallisation of a genre may be traceable in its e\ohing nomenclature, as the defining term moves fi-Ol11 adjecti\al and modifying (as in 'Western melodrama') to substantival ('/he Western'), This shift also seems to mark a shift of emphasis in terms of production, as genre concepts move from the descriptive to the prescriptive: a '\\-estern melodranu' is simply a melodrama (a term generally used by exhibitors before the First World \Var to describe non-comic dramatic narratives of any type) set in the American West; a 'Western' is a film set specifically in the his/orical \rest that also involves certain strongly comentionalised types of cluLICters, plots and, rather more debatably, thematic motifs or ideological positions,
II
Since such a degTee of comentionalisation ob\iously happens over a larg'e number of films, the concept of film genre in turn implies a system for something like the mass production of films, The studio systems that developed in Europe as \\ell as the CS.-\ during the 1920S all relied on genre production in some measure, but it \\as in the American film industry, the world's hll'gest, that genre became most fundamentally important. Most theories ofr film gcnre are based primarily on analysis of the Hollywood studio system, Contemporary theories acknO\dedge Tom Ryall's (1975) argument that g:enre criticism needs to triangulate the author-text dyad in which auteurism conccin:d meaning by recognising the equal importance of the role of the
12
FILM GENRE
individual genres and the social funcrion of genre in general, \vithin broadly consensual generic definitions and canons - principally, through .malyses that understood [!;enre in terms of either ritual or ideology (as we shall see, there is some overlap between the terms). Alongside int1uential \\"Orks of genre theory, mostly in essay fi)f\11, se\cral book-length studies of individual genres, each informed by a distincti\'e understanding of genre but tending to follow either the ritual or the ideological approach, were produced in this period, including Basinger's (H)H6) study of the war/combat film, Sobchack's (I9Ho, 19H7) study of science fiction, analyses of the Western by Wright (H)7S) and Slotkin (1992), Doane's (lgH7) study of the 19-+os 'woman's film', Altman's (lgH7) book on musicals and Krutnik's (lgg1) study of/illll /1(11,., FinallY (to date), more recent scholarship, as part of'l generally renewed interest aC1:oss film studies in understanding film historically and reacting in particular to what has been seen as the second phase's at times essentialist and decontcxtualiseu accounts of g'enre idcntities, has focused on the hislonm/ (1iI/le.\"/s of genre production the forms inherited from other media like the novel and the popular theatre, and the institLltional practices (studio policy, marketing anu publicity, modes of consumption, .Iml so on) through which genres become available, in .111 senses of the term, to audiences, The ven earliest studies of film genres, of which probably the best-known arc ess.l\S '1)\ Andre Bazin ([ 1<)561 I(nll on the "'estern, and by Robert Warsho~ (I ;g-+31, u)7sa, [Il)5-t1 Il)75b) on the Western and the gangster film .\ were onlv indirectlv concerneu to define their novel objects of stuuy: that'is, in the 'very act (;f arguing fill' the serious critical consider.ltion of popular film genres they were necessarily performing some basic ddinition.d work. Like many later wTiters, RlZin set the Western \\ithin existing mrrative traditions,
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
13
years of \Vestern genre production before Slagccoac!z (fi)r more on problems of sampling and genre history in relation to the \Vestern, sec Chapter 3). .\lost fundamcntally, while Bazin and \Varsho\\ both insisted on the integrity and distinctiveness of generic character, their project did not extend to considering the means whereby indi\idual \Vesterns or gangster films can be identified as such in order to then be periodised, classified or evaluated, Setting the terms for such recognition then became the project of the first \\a\c of genre theorists proper starting; in the late 1960s.
PRO B L E 1\1 S 0 F DE FIN I T ION Fairlv early in the dC\elopmcnt of film genre theory, Andrew Tudor succinctly nailed an incscap'lble and basic crux in trying to definc individual gClllTS, '-.'oting that most studies of this kind start out with a 'provisional' notion of thc ficld thcy .Ire working' on that they then set out to define more clcarly, he suggests there is ~l basic problem of circularity: To LIke a gcnre such .IS the 'wcstern', analysc it, and list its principal characteristics, is to beg the question that we must first isolatc the body of fIlms \\'hich arc \\cstcrns', But they cm only be isolated on the basis or the 'principal charactcristics' which can onh he disCll\cred from the films themsehes after they ha\c been isolated. (Tudor, 1I<)731I<)7(): 135) Onh \ery recently has the fClCUS on industrial discourses .\Ild 'relays' su[!;gesled <1 means of squaring this circlc. .\luch prC\ious \york on genre definitions cither ignores the problem or proposes itself as an empirical approach that nonethcless c1carly begs the questions Tudor asks, In his uno essay quotcd abo\(.', 1-:dwanl Buscol11be proposed to identif~ gen res I hrough their illl/lrlgra pli J' (a term deri \ed from art theory) - their Ch.1LlL'teristic 'yisua I cOl1\cntions', such as set! ings, costume, the typical pl1\sical at tributes of characters and the kinds of tcchnolog'ies ayailahle to the characters (six-shooters in the \,"estern, fill' e\ample, or tOl11my-g'uns and \\hite\\<1lkd motorcars \\ith running boards in the g;angster fIlm). These IC(l11o:,;raphic conyentions WClT to he seen not only as thc fCJrln.l1 markers of .J gi \ ell :,;enre, but as important vehicles fill' explicating its core themat ic m'Herial: in a celebrated passa:,;e, Buscombc ([ uno] 1<)()5: 22--+) analyses the Opening of S.lm Pedinpah's Ride I/Il' fhgli CO/llllr)' (LI(: G/II/S III IiiI' .1jicr1/1}l11/) and notes h()\\ the juxtaposition of cOl1\cnlional and non-col1\entional (a policeman in uni!i)rm, a motor car, a cllnel) \\estern clements, with the non-col1\entiOlul ones nrioush signihing lJrogress or at least ch.\l1ge, by <1St llrbing the genre's standard iconographic balance communicates the ]'
,
,
"
c
,
,
14
FILM GENRE
film's 'essential theme', the passing of the Old West. Iconography was also central to Colin McArthur's (U)72) Clldenl'urld Us.oJ, a book-length study of the gang'ster film. Iconographic analysis is as subject to Tudor's circularity charg'e as any other, hut its taxonomic yalue is apparent: an empirically deriyed set of generic attributes helps both to establish the domin'lOt yisual motifs and by extension the underlying structures of a genre, and to determine membership of that genre, A particular strength, as Buscombe pointed out, is that iconographies are grounded in the yisuality of the film medium: they are literally what \\'C see on-screen. Nloreoyer, as the cOl1\cntional meanings that audiences understood to inhere in iconographic de\ices (for ex'lmple, the Westerner's horse) deriyed not from the genre alone, but from the interplay between common-sense understandings of their \'alences and their specific generic usage (as Buscombe notes in his analysis of Ride the High CUlIllt':)', in Westerns the horse is 'not just an ,l11imal but a symbol of dignity, grace and power'), iconogTaphy potentially established a porous fi'ontier where the genericltcxtual and the social interacted \yith one another- hence a basis for discussing a gcnre's larger socio-cultural currency. Finally, inasmuch as iconographic analysis took its force from those clements that \\cre repeatedly or consistently present in genre entries, it centred on those yery qualities conyentionality and repetition - by \\hich genre as a \\hole is typified. One limitation of iconographic analysis \las its limited applicability. Buscombe and McArthur focused on the Western and the g-angster film, well-established and Clmiliar g;enres that both lend themsehes particularly well to iconog-raphic interpretation. Ho\\e\cr, .IS se\'Cral writers \yho haye tried and biled to disC()\ er such \\ ell-defined and defining- \isual cOI1\cntions in other major genres (comedy, biopics, social problem films, etc.) haye noted, the \'Cry consistency of their iconog-ra p hic con \cn tions makes these genres atypical of film genre generally; the \\'estern is particularly unusual in haying such a tightl~ defined physical and historical setting (sec Chapter 3). Also, iconography's interest in film as .1 yisual .Irt form, a considerable Yirtue, stalled in the pro-filmic (the space fi',lI11ed by the camera) ,lI1d Cliied to engage \\ith yisual style (ClIllera mO\cment, editing, etc.), :\or did it seem to offer a means of identifying and discussing narrati\ e structures, although narratiYe models - such as the musical's basic 'boy meets girl, boy dances with girl, boy gets girl' template - probabl~ f()rm as or more important a part of the audience's expectational m.ltrix than abstracted iconographies. An issue to which the discussion of iconog-raphy interestingly relates is that of generic \crisimilitude, since one function of yisual cOI1\entions is to establish .1 representational norm, de\iation fi'om \\ hich constitutes generic discrepancy (which can of coursc also be generic iI1I1o\'ation). These norms are in turn hound up \yith our sense of \yhat is likely or acceptable in the g:iyen generic context, \\ hich mayor m.1Y not relate to our underst.lOding of
WHO "JEEDS GENRES?
From
S"" II! FIIIIIA'<'I/s!<'111
15
(193<)). Reproduced courksy Cni\Tl'sal/The Kobal Collecriol1,
What is possible or plausible in our liyed reality, Regimes of\erisimilitude arc generically specific, and each hears its own relation to reality as such. ,Many genres include 'unmarked' \crisimilitudes like the laws' of the physic;1 unl\ erse ", whose obser\ance can simply be taken for granted and establishes the continuity of the generic \\orld with that of the spectator. On the other hand, the suspension of those laws (teleportation, trayelling t:lster than light or through time) may form a basic and recog'nised element of the Yerisimili-
From. fill 0/ Fralll.:wslein (1939), Reproduced courtesv Uni\'ersal/Thc Kobal Collection,
16
WHO
FILM GENRE
tude of an outer-space science fiction film. As discussed in Chapter 4-, the classic Hollywood musical has its own quite distinct, specific and readily recognisable verisimilitude. Altman's summary of the genre audience quoted above suggests that the audience's willingness to 'license' certain departures from what would normally be considered desirable and/ or believable behaviour constitutes an important part of the generic contract. (For fuller discussions of genre and verisimilitude, see Neale, 2000: 3 1---<); King, 2002: 121 f.) Considerations of verisimilitude extend iconography's implicit socialisation of genre convention further into the domain of the everyday and this has important implications for discussions of generic meanings (see below). Clearly, too, while iconographic conventions are entailed in verisimilitudes, so are the narrative dimensions iconography lea yes out. Yet lifelikeness, even conventionalised lifelikeness, is not the principal agent of generic form. The model for genre analysis proposed by Rick Altman (llqR4-] H)9), Iq R7) seems usefullv to combine many of the strengths of each approach. Altman argues that ge·nres are characterised, or organised, along two axes which he nominates, employing linguistic terminology, the semantic and the syntactic. If the semantic axis imolves the 'words' spoken in a genre, the syntactic concerns the organisation of those 'words' into 'sentences' into meaningful and intelligible shape. Every film in a particular genre shares a set of semantic elements, or components: these certainly include traditional iconographic aspects like setting, costume and the like, but range more widely, taking in characteristic narrative incidents, \ isual style and even (as hard as this mig'ht be to quantify) typicli attitudes. A contemporary action blockbuster like PiI(e! O/n J()q7), then, might number among its semantic components port.lble armam~'nts ranging from automatic pistols to light artillery, car (or bo.lt or plane) chases, large set-piece action sequences usually involving; explosions and/or the destruction of buildings and expensive consumer durables (the aforementioned cars, boats, planes), and a distinct disregard for the v,due of human life. Genre films' svntactic dimension imolves their characteristic arrangement of these semal;tic elements in plots, thematic motifs, symbolic relationships, and so on. (FiI(e! O./.( shares a recurrent motif of H)l)OS action films: the hero's defence or reconstruction of the f~llllily through, paradoxicallv enough, ever-greater violence to <1nd destruction of people and objects see C:hapter 10.) Altman (Iq<)6: 2R.1-4-) adds that \\hereas semantic elements usuallv deri\ e their meaning's from pre-existing soci'll codcs, generic synt<1X is mor-e specific and idiosyncratic and thus more fully expresses the meaning;(s) of a given genre. The major problem of Altman's interpret<1tive matrix, as\ltn1<1n himself acknowledges, is knowing where to draw the line bet\\een the sen1<1ntic and svntactic. For example, if as suggested ,Ibove spectacular action seq uences are a' semantic 'gi\cn' in the action film, it would be highl~ surprising if at least
~EEDS
GENRES?
17
one of these did not occur at the climax of the film and resolve the central n<1ITative connict in other \\ords, enter into the syntactic field. Q_uestions of definition cycntually became somewh<1t discredited as insufficiently critical and inertly taxonomic, and g'enre studies st<1rted to focus increasingly on the functions of genre. Recently, ho\\-e\cr, genre definition(s) h,l\c been put back into critical play. Collins (uN3) and others have argued that postmodern tendencies to generic mixing or hybridity e<1ll into question the tr.lditional fixity of g:enre boundaries. 4 Perhaps partly in response to this, ,I historicist trend has emerged - Gledhill (2000) compares it to the innucnti,il 'ne\\ historicism' in literary studies in the late IqRos - that has used the empirical anahsis of hO\v genre terms \\cre and are used \\ithin the film industn itself (by producers and exhibitors) to reassess traditional understandings of and claims about the historical basis of genres. This has indeed challenged some fundamental assumptions about genre stabilit~ and boundaries, and suggests that much of the postmodern preoccupation with gcneric h~ bridit\ relics on a historically unsupported notion of classical genres as ElI- more rigid .lnd secure and much less porous and prone to generic mixing th'lll \\as actualh the case. One docs not have to deh'e very deep into genre historY to find ex'lmplcs of g'eneric mixing: for example, a quick scan reveals \\estern musicals (ClilillIIl!y .JiI/le, 1<))3; PilllI! }-o/lr II ilp:r!ll, ({)6(»), \\estern melodramas (/)/ld III !lie S/I/I, 1<)4-6; .JolillllY GIII!ilr, {(ISO), /loll' \\ esterns (Pllrs/led, I<)4-R; Tlie 1"111'11'.1', 1<):")0; RiI/lrI/1i .Vo!rJr!o/lS, 1<):")2), horror\\"esterns (HilI)· !lie kid ,'.1'. /)1'110111/, H)(»; Grilli Prairie Tilles, 1<)<)0), even science fiction \\esterns (Gene .\utry in nrc PI/il/r!olll fllljJ/re, HU)). "eale (2000: 4-3) argues that the industn's 'inter-textual rela~' (see abO\c) must constit ute the primary evidential basis both for the existence of genres :Ind fi)r the boundaries of any particular g-cneric corpus: ... it is only on the basis of this testimon~ that the history of anyone genre and an analysis of its social functions can begin to be produced. For a genre's history is as much the history of a term as it is of the films to \\ hich the term has been applied; is as much a history of the consequently shifting; boundaries of a corpus of texts as it is of the texts themselves. ("eale, 2000: 4-3)
PRO B L L\I S 0 F 1'1 E A "J I l" G \s \\e have seen, earh ozenre studies, in aiminoz to introduce and identifv the core groupings of films in kev genres, also made obsen-ations about the function of genres; indeed, the~e ~)la\'ed .In important part in their argument for the value of genre texts. Ho\\c\cr, they typically stopped short of theories •
...
"-
w
Ii{
FILM GENRE
of genre as a whole. Subsequent critics advanced various theories of the kinds of meanings that could be deri \'ed from the genre text. Despite diverse approaches, they commonly centred on an understanding of genre as a form of social practice - as ritual, myth or ideology. All were motinted by the conviction that film genre offered a privileg'ed insig'ht into 'hmv to understand the life of films in the social' (Gledhill, 2000: 221). And all proceeded from a shared basic assumption about hmv that insight \\as generated. Genre films by definition are collective rather than singular objects: their meanings arc comprised relationally rather than in isolation. Whereas to attempt to 'read off social or political debates in the broader culture onto individual films is thus likely to prO\e reductive and speculative, the sheer number of films in a given genre means that changes in generic direction and attitudes across time may reasonably be understood as responses and/ or contributions to the shifting concerns of their mass public. Genre films solicit audience approval throug'h both continuity and \ariation; audience responses encourage genre film-makers to pursue existing generic directions or to change them. The closely linked concepts of 'myth' and 'ritual' aim to relate this transaction to the underlying desires, preoccupations and L\ntasies of audiences and to ascribe these in tLIrn to the social and cultural contexts in and through which film genres and their audiences are equally constitLIted. In the standard anthropological sense, 'myth' denotes something like an expression of archetypes on the part of a particular community (grounded in that community's social experience of the natLIral world and/or its collective human psychology). Sometimes 'myth' is in\Oked in genre critil'ism in precisely this sense: in his study of the \Yestern, Wright (r<J7 5: I H7) states that 'the \Vestern, though located in a modern industrial society, is as much a myth as the tribal myths of the anthropologists.' ~lore often, as applied to popular media fi)rms, myth in its most neutral filrnlulation designates fimns of (culturally specific) social self-representation, the distillation and enactment of core beliefs and values in reduccd, usually personalised and narrative, fimns. Myth is also characterised by specific kinds of filrlnal stylisation, filr example extreme narrative and characterological COl1\ entionalisation. The strongest influence on mythic readings of popular culture is the structuralist anthropology of Claude r,c\i-Strauss, which argues that the role of myth is to embody in schematic narrative form the constitutive mntradicrions of a society - typically in the fimn of pairs or net\\orks of strongly opposed charactersh'alues - \\hile throug'h the stories \\0\ en about these oppositions, and filrnlally in the Llct of their integTation into mythic narrati\c, partially defusing their potentially explosive force. Thus in film genre theory, 'myth' broadly desig'nates the ways in which genres rehearse .1I1d \\ork through these shared cultural values and concerns by rendering them in symbolic narratiws. 'RitLIal' mean\\hile redefines the regular consumption of genre films by
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
19
a mass public as the contractual basis on which such meanings are produced. The ritual and mytholog'ical models of genre quickly encounter genre theory's characteristic problems, noted earlier, \vith the audiences whose participation in g'eneric ritual plays so central a role. Thus although mythologiGd analyses frequently pay scrupulous attention to individual genre texts a~d Glrefully differentiate their negotiations of generic conventions, the audience features as a homogeneous and largely notional presence. The pre\ ailing assumption appears to be that audiences seek out, and respond to, the mytholo!:6cal address of the genre film - \\hat the Marxist theorist of ideolog'y Louis .c\.lthusser would term their 'interpellation' - in the same ways. There seems little possibility of concretising this claim, at least as regards historical audiences. Box-office popularity·· of individual films or of entire genres - is sometimes cited as an apparently objective criteria filr demonstrating the popularity of a genre - hence of the values sedimented within it. Yet to purchase a ticket fill' a film of course docs not (as academics studying popular films \\ ould certainly have to acknmdedge) necess'lrily prove assent to all or indeed any of a film's ideological content. It is also enormously difficult to compute popularity: \Vesterns, filr example, were by no means universally popular and \\ere sho\\n by audience surveys in the 1930S to be strongly disliked by a considerable proportion of mmie-goers. Regular Western LlI1s, ho\ve\cr, \\cre dedicated filllO\vers of the genre and likely to see most or all the \Vesterns that made it to their local theatre: thus the reliable market that supported the huge number of 'B' (or series) Westerns produced during' the 1930S. Docs this nalTO\\ but deep audience base make the \Vestern more or less representative of the national temper than a genre with a broader but perhaps less 'committed' filllowing, such as scre\vball cornel"'? To complicate matters further, recent research has sho\\~ how even the most apparently orthodox and classical genre films \\ere not necessarilv uni\crsally percei\cd in that \\ay at the time of their orig'inal release. Lelan~1 Poague (ZOOT H9) demonstrates that SlagC(lIac!" partly to counteract the \V estl'rn 's recei \ed image at the end of the I930S, a decade dominated bv 'B' \\esterns, \\as publicised in \\ays that de-emphasised the film's generi~allv '\Vestern' aspects (\\hich \\(mld limit its appeal to exhibitors and aUdience~, especiall\ in metropolitan areas) in f:lvOur of elements of broader appeal such as the dramatic interactions of a disparate group of characters in enfilrced proximity ('Grand Hillel on \\heels', as a contemporary review put it) or the ~hardly realised) promise of sexual tension among '2 \\omen on a desperate Journey \\ith 7 strange men!'. While the expectations created around a film do not of course exhaust its range of possible meanings, such examples II1(lIcate that large assertions about the ritual function of individual genres are eqllall~ incapable of dealing with the range of responses audiences may bring to he,ll' on any single genre film.
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
Claims that the \Vestern or the musical articulate dominant or f(lUndational paradigms for American national identity also need to take account of the presence within the same industry at the same time of genre films that seem directly to challenge those yalues: jillll lIoir, for example.' In the most int1uential argument for genre as ritual, Thomas Schatz (H)X I, rqX 3) partly addresses the latter question by identif\ing different genres \\ith different sets of key American ideas and dilemmas. Each g'enre has its o\\n 'generic community': thus what emerges as a social problem (or dramatic conflict) in one genre is not necessarily a problem in another. I,a\\ and order is a problem in the g'angster film, but not in the musical. COlWCl"Sely, courtship and marriage arc problems in the musical but not in the gangster and detectiye genres. (Schatz, ]()Xr: 25) In so far as these problems arc discrete, each genre has its o\yn specific set of concerns and per/l)rms a particular kind of cultural \york; in so Llf as these issues arc generally relc\ant to :\merican life, the system of Holly\Yood g"Cnres as a \\hole enables a kind of ongoing l1
21
foundational text of semiotic analysis, indeed, Roland Barthes (r (57) names the per\"asiYe ideological fictions in contemporary capitalist culture as, precisely, 'mytholog;ies'. Place (197X: 35) states that popular myth 'both expresses ,Ind reproduces the ideolog;ies necessary to the existence of the social structure'. Yet in general myth is, as :".'eale obsenes, ideological criticism minus the criticism: that is, \\hereas writers such as Judith Hess Wright (I I<)7-J.) 19<)':;) identif~ genre's ideological dimension with its prO\ision of imaginary and bogus resolutions to the actual contradictions of liYed experience under capitalism, proponents of genre as myth tend to a more neutral deseriptiYe account of hmy genres satis6' the needs and answer the questions of their audiences. In other \\ords, they do not stigmatise such satisbctions ,IS delusion designed to maintain iIllIi\iduals and communities in acquiescent ignor'll1ce of the real conditions of their oppression. wloreoYer, the dialectical n,lture of the J ,c\"i-Straussian schema implies that underlying social contradictions arc less resol\"ed a\yay than repeatedly re-enacted and thus - at least in principle exposed by their mythic articulations. Initial ideological accounts of gTnre like Wright's often imputed a someI\hat monolithic character to the ideolog;ical work perfllrIned by genre films. .-\s products of a capitalist film industry, genre films must necessarily produce meaning's that support the existing social relations of power and domination: their ideological function, in bct, is precisely to organise perceptions of the \\ orld in such a \yay as to elicit acquiescence and assent to the proposition that this is not onl\ the \\ay the world is , but the way. it OLwht to . . b be - or e\en the only \\ay it e\er could be. In Theodor Adorno and Nlax Horkheimer's excoriating' account of the 'culture industry' ([ ]()HJ H)7Z: l2o-(7), the standardising imperatiYes of genre production signified the absolute unfiTedom of contemporary mass medi'l fl)rms (and conYCfseh the rclatin: and onl\. rclati\e - truth-content of their mirror-imao'e cou~1tert' parts, the recondite practices of high modernist art). On all ideological analysis, genre closes off alternati\es, resists multiple nwanings and symbolically resohes real contradictions in imaginary (here meaning illusory) \\ays. Specific generic outcomes (like the gangster's nempLIn LlIe reiterating' that 'crime docs not pay') also work to promote a larger pattern or acquiescence in conyentional and rule-g'()\"erned methods of 'soh ing" problems. One \\ould ha\e to say that if the genre system is as secure and sealed as this \ ie\\ holds, it is hard to see \\here the impetus fill' any kind of change Comes fi-om- still less \\hy a genre mig'ht be mo\ed to perform the kinds of quite Lldical sclf-critiq ue undertaken by numerous Hollywood \V esterns, l11usieals, gangster films and other tradit ional g'enre films during the 197os, a '" . Ience and racl
/:'i/s)'
22
FILM GENRE
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
23
---------------------------------Rida, I<)69, or the contemporaneous 'Vietnam Westerns': see also helO\\} Of
course, American society and the core ideologies sedimented in its principal cultural f(lrmS confi'onted a major crisis of legitimation in the late I960s; but with contemporary opinion polls shm\-ing a majority of Americans still su pporting consenatiye positions on \\ar, race and sexual! gender issues, genre films ought to haye heen \\"(lrking harder than eyer to sustain rather than to challenge the status quo. Ideological analysis also seems to haye difficulty acknmdedging the real differences het\yeen genres: eyen if the 'affirmative' nature of Westerns and musicals is granted, this still leaves unaccounted for the strongly critical charg'e of much .lillll 1/011', to say nothing of the gangster film's historically well-attested ideological amhiyalence (see Chapter 6). In this sense, ideological criticism's yinY of genre is hoth too reductive -- in that all genre films are held to relentlessly promote a singular message of conf()rmity and not reflecti\-e enough - in that it seems not to allow filr the possihility of interference in core g'enre propositions by changes in social and cultural contC\t such as those pm\Trfully at \\ork in ,\meriean society from the late I960s ol1\\ards. The \irtual disappearance of the 'woman's film' since the I960s, to take ,mother C\ample, seems hard to account f(lr without ackno\\ledging the impact of the \\omen's moyement on traditional concepts of gender roles (sec Chapter 2). Ideological criticism in the later I970S generally started to modify the inflexible model inherited from Alth usscrian ~ larxism, inspired in particular by the rediscmTry of the writings of the Italian .\ Luxist .-\n tonio Gramsci in the 1920S. Gramsci's concept of 'hegemony' reinscribed ideological domination as an ongoing process in \\ hich dominant orthodoxies continually stru[!;g-Jcd to retain their mastery mer both residual (older and outmoded) and emergent (newer and potentially n:yolutionary) positions..-\pplying this to the study of popular culture allowed critics to trace the fractures and contradictions in the apparently seamless structure of classical Holly\\'Ood, and thus to discmer ways in \vhich e\Tn the genre film could perhaps unconsciously - take up positions at variance \\ith dominant ideology. \luch contemporary film analysis remains rooted in the critique of ideology, in f~let, in the sense that it addresses itself to the ways in \\-hich films \H)rk through (or act out, to use psychotherapeutic terminology) the values and interests of different groups in society. An increasing dissatisfaction \yith the older monolithic models of ideological domination, ho\\c\ er, as \\ell as the \\aning of explicit Marxist critical affiliations, means that analyses f()cused on issues of gender, race, ethnicity or sexuality - and on the ways that the popular media structure attitudes t()\\-ards minority groupings - are less clearly marked as ideology critique in the older sense,
PROBLEMS OF HISTORY The 're\-isionist' tendency e\-ident across se\Tral major Hollywood genres in the 19705 (including the Western, the gangster, pri yate-eye and police thriller, and the musical) impelled se\eral genre theorists to propose 'eYoJutionary' models of generic deyelopmenr. .-\ccording' to John Cawelti: One em almost make out a life cycle characteristic of genres as they 1110\e fi'om an initial period of articulation and discO\cry, through a phase of conscious self-a\yareness on the part of both creators and audiences, to a time \\-hen the generic patterns ha\-e become so wellknm\Il that people become tired of their predictability. It is at this point that parodic and satiric treatments proliferate and ne\\- genres generally arise, (Cmelti, I H)791 I995: 2++) Schatz (I9i\I: 3 6-+ I ) deyelops this theory of generic e\olution much morc systematically - indeed, naming' it as such - yet f()lIows the same hasic outline, \\hile gTounding his account in his 'ritual' thesis. Thus 'at the earliest stages of its life span' a genre expresses its material in a direct and unsclfconscious manner - hecause 'if a genre is society speaking' to itself, then any stylistic flourishes or f()rmal self-consciousness \\ill only impede the transmission of the message', .-\fi:er this experimental stage \yhere its con\Tntions are established, the g'enre enters its classical stage (a phase heloyed of genre theorists since RlZin). This stage is marked by ~/;mllilllrill/SpilrCl/{y. Both the narratiye formula and the film medium \york togTther to transmit and reinf(lITe that genre's social messagT ... as directly as possible to the audience' (emphasis in original). Eyentualh, the genre arri\Ts at a point \\ here 'the straightfonYard messag'C has "saturated" the audience': the ~lutcome is that the genre's 'transparency' is replaced by 'opacity', manifested 111 a hig-h degree of f(lrmalistic self-consciousness and retlexiYity. Schatz Suggests that both the musical and the Western had reached such ,~ stage by the earl~ 1950S, and he cites as examples such 'self-reflexiYe musicals' as The BarNc)'s oj Broad/pay (I9+()) and SllIi~/II' III Illc Ralll (J().:;2) and 'baroque :' esterns' like Red Rlc'a (I9+i\) and Tlte Sl'iIl'dlas (I95S), .'\t this stage the unspoken' conyentions of the genre - the centrality of the courtship ritual to the musical, the heroic indi\idualism of the Westerner - themselves become narrati\ ely f()regTounded, From today's perspecti\l\ howeyer, the Il):;OS seems yen t:lr from the ultimate dnelopmental stag'e of either the 'Yes'tern or the m~sical. . .JII Tltill .~( ~~ (l<)i\o) and J1em'el/ '.I' Gille (I 9i\0) are \ery differen t fi'om .JII _-llllerloill III fal'/S (I9.:;I) or Tile Seanltas (U).:;.:;), and .HUIIIIII RUllge (200I) and Tlte - \II.\.\III,~ (200+) are different again. So to be \vorkable the nolutionan model
24
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
FILM liEN/U.
would at least need extending: one would probably want to differentiate a further stage where 'opaque' self-consciousness intensifies yet further and mutates into outright genre 'revisionism': this period may also often be accompanied by a slowdown in the rate of production of genre films. 'Revisionism' implies that traditional genre attitudes may be seen as articulating a worldview no longer applicable, perhaps in changed social circumstances: thus a key aspect of revisionism is that the genre is no longer self-sufficient, but is criticallv scrutinised for its abilitv to offer a cognitive purchase on the contemiJorary world. Yet another '-stage' might involve the re-emergenc.elof the O'enre under altered (industrial or cultural) circumstances, partla Iy purged of ils original ideological or mythic content (or those parts thereof which no longer speak to a contemporary spectatorship). Such texts never recover the unselfconsciousness of the 'classical' period, but equally they are neither as serious as the 'mature' period or as corrosively critical as the 'revisionist' period; rather, they will often display a playful degree of referentiality and generic porosity of the kind frequently regarded as characteristically postmodern, for example by injecting anachronistic elements into period settings (a 'riot grrl' Western like Bad Girls, 199-1-) or highlighting the racial diversitv traditionallv suppressed by the classical genre text (for example, the t;ansformation -of gangster to 'gangsta' in the New Black Cinema
i,
.~ :.>I".
Q
of the early 1990S). Such a model of generic development is appealingly straightforward. However -- even if one overlooks the obvious objection that genres, as a form of industrial practice, are not organisms and to propose generic phylogenies of this kind risks a category error - it raises several problems. In the first place, its historical account smacks of special pleading - seemingly designed to justify the critical attention alreadv bestowed on certain groups and periods of genre film. If one accepts the en;1 utionary model, the allegedly more complex and self-aware films of the 'mature' and 'revisionist' phases arc always likely to command more attention than the str;lightforward presentations of generic material in the 'c1assictl' period. In fact, as Tag Gallagher ([ 193 6 ] 1005: 237) argues, earlier films are to an extent set up as naive 'fall guys' for later, allegedly more sophisticated, challenging and/or subversive approaches. However, as earlv film historians are quick to point out, many pictures from the silent . and ea'rly sound periods in a variety of genres display a surprising degree of . generic self-consciousness (surprising, that is, if one assumes as the enllutionary model suggests that these classical phases should be typified by the 'straight' presentation of generic material). In fact, the entire, rather literary, notion of self-consciousness, inwardness and ret1exivity as a function of 'late stYle' seems to bear little relation to the realities of market positioning, a pl:ocess which is more likely to be typified by a variety of approaches ranging from the steadfast and generically secure to the playful and experimenLl1.
.1
~
25
.·\nother problem, as :\eale (2000: 2 qf.) notes, is that the evolutionary model necessarily, despite Schatz's (I 9S I: 36) citation of 'external (cultural, thematic) factors', tends to attribute generic change to intra-generic factors: ,,'enre is in Llct hvpostatised, sealed off from social, cultural and industrial ~ontf\ts. It is a~ idealised and implicitly teleological model (that is, its outcomes are predetermined). As "'lark ]ancovich (2002: 9) observes, 'narr;ltive histories of a genre .. , usually become the story of something ... that exists Jbove and beyond the individual moments or periods, an essence which is unfolding before us, and is either heading towards perfect realisation .,. or f:lilure and corruption.' Yet one of the most obvious examples of genre 'rClisionism' already referred to, the cycle of strongly, even militantly proIndian Cl\alry \\'esterns made at the start of the 1970S - such as Lillie Big Hilll, So!di(/' Bille (both 1(70), C/~ll1lil 's Rilid and Cha/o's Land (both unl) .- th;1I depict white Gl\alrymen or paramilitaries almost to a man as venal, brut.II, sadistic and exploitative and thus neatly invert nuny of the categories of the classic Western (in Solid(/' Bille it is the white clvalrymen, not the Indi.ms, \\'ho threaten the white heroine with rape, and at one point the soldiers break out in ,,'ar-whoops while scalping ;\0 Indian brave), are trans\1
111 bu, research on the _-\merican and global film industry in the both its classical and contemporary periods has increasingly tendcd- to suggest that the film stud ies' preferred notion of genre is likely to need some important rnodifications..-\s f:ll- .IS the ':\e" Hollywood' (broadly speaking, Hollywood
20
FILM GENRE
since the late It)60s, with an important watershed within that period around 1(77) is concerned, new genres (or sub-genres) such as the 'yuppie nightmare film' (see Grant, 1(98), the road moyie (see Cohan and Hark, 1997; Laderman, 2002) or the serial killer film seem to be difTerently constituted than those of the classical period. Put simply, earlier generic structures - the indiyidual genres and the system of genre produetion as a whole - were part of a system for mass-producing films in \\hich regularised production, a carefuilY managcd, monitored and highly centralised machinery of distribution ,lO~1 exhibition, and on the audience's part regular mming-going in a relatiYelY undiYersified entertainment markct, together enabled the kind of informai \ct powerful generic 'contract' .\Itman describes. A well-known series of e·yents oycr about 20 years starting in the late 19-1-0S - including the legal ruling that compelled the studios to sell ofT their theatre chains; the rise of teleYision, itself part of a general transformation of American lifestyles and leisure pastimes; the loss of creative fi-eedoms and personnel as a result of the anti-Communist witch-hunts and blacklist of the 1950S - largely put a end to this system (sec Ray, 1985: 129-52; Schatz, 1993; Kr~imer, 1998; King, 2002: 24-35). (her the course of the late It)50S and 1960s, the deceptiyely .singular term 'Holhwood' masked an increasingly dispersed and decentralised mdustry in which 'agents, stars, directors and writers \vorked \vith independent producers to orig'inate indiyidual projects conceived outside the assemblyline and economy-of-scale principles of classic Hollywood. The role in this process of the m'ajor studios \\ho by the end of the 1<)60s had themselves mostly been taken oyer by larger conglomerates for \\hom the entertainment secto; was merely one part of a di\crsified business portfolio W,IS in many cases limited to prmiding' finance and distribution. The armies of craft and technical personnel who under the studio system had contributed so much to the stvlistic continuities bv which studio identities \\ere detined, and who had ~ade LIeton-st\ Ie g;e~eric production possible, had long since been laid off. Although the 1980s and '990S would see further major chang'es in the American film industry, including the major studios' return to the exhibition sector in a changed re~uIatory climate as their corporate parents increasingly restructured themsehcs into dedicated, yertically integrated multimedia businesses (sec Prince, 2000: -1-0-89), neither the majors' eyer-greater emphasis on blockbuster production (sec Ch,lpter 10) nor the rise of 'independent' production enabled anything like a return to the generic production of the It)30S. Ne\y genres such as those mentioned aboye are br more likely to appear as relatiycl~ short-Ii\ed cycles. The latter may in Llct be a <.!;ood deal less nmel than this menie\\ implies. In bct, an arg'l;ment can bee made that the very concept of 'genre' -- if understood as it usualh has been as a large, diachronic yehicle for producing and consuming meanil;gs across a rang'e of texts -- needs radical modification
WHO NEEDS GENRES?
27
---------------------------------if it is to be made releyant to the practices of an industry that has more often relied on shorter-term series or cycles of films seeking to capitalise upon )ro\en seasonal successes or topical content. The fluctuating patterns of ~)llpularity .'lOd ideological address i~ genre ~Ims owe as .much ,t.o continge~t industrial factors as they do to generrc eyolutlOn or the krnds of mtra-generrc di,lkctic f~l\oured by critics. Writing in 1971, La\\Tence Alloway argued that it \\as misleading to import into the study of popular cinema approaches to 'fenre inherited from ,Irt criticism that sought out thematic continuity and ~ni\crsal concerns, insisting rather that Hollywood production was typified by ephemeral cycles seeking to capitalise on recent successes, hence by discontinuities and shifts in meaning and fllCus in what only appeared (or \\LTe critically constructed as) consistently eyohing 'genres' . .c\laltby (1995: , I 112) states t1atly that' Holly\\ood never prioritised genre as such', instead \\ orking in the studio era as today in 'opportunistic' ways to pull together clements from different genres into a profitable \\·hole. Barbara Klinger (199-1-a) has proposed a category of 'local genres', such as the teen delinquent films of the mid-1950s (Tlte Wild Olli', '<)5-1-; The Blackboard .Jllllgle, Rebel lIl!holl! a Calise, l()55), marked by clear topical affinities and competing in the same markets, and which comprise a clear and time-limited c1assificnion O\er ,I particular production cycle. ,\n added iron~ is that even as the classic Holly\\ood system of genre production was disappearing, film genres - newly understood in the light of an industr~ 'rehly' that for the first time included academic film criticism took on an increasing importance as explicit points of creatiye reference for emerging' '\e\\ Holly\\ood film-makers. As is again \vell established, the \\ riters and directors most strong;ly associated \\ith the :\'ew Holly\\ood, the 'mmie brats' of the [(nOS (for example, ,\lartin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Peter BOt!;danO\ich, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Brian dePalma) and their diverse successors (James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis, Oliyer Stone, Quentin T,lrantino), came to professional film-making throug'h pathways (tele\ision, film school, film journalism) that equipped them with a different historical understanding of film culture than their classic Hollywood predecessors. \rhether or not :\ew Hollnyood film-makers arc actuallY more self-conscious and film-literate than (li;r example) John Ford, Hmvard'Hawks ~)r '\icholas Ray, or whether they simply possess and exploit those qualities In different \\ays, is an open question. Hmyeyer, as the \yeb of generic intertC\tuality that enfi)lds (some might say constitutes) a film like Tarantino's Aill Bill (2003, 200-1-) amply demonstrates, not\\ithstanding the end of the system that created and supported genre film production, the historical legacy of classical film genres clearly proyides :\e\\ Holh\\ood film-makers \\ ith a preferred means of establishi'ng not onlY (in c1assi~ auteurist fashion) their own creative identities, but connecting t~ larger traditions of national
28
FILM GENRE
identities, social conventions and ideology. In this sense, to adopt .\Itrnan's (1996: 277) terminology, while 'film genre' may have become a questionable category, the 'genre film' remai~s very much alive. _ ,.. Between the institution(s) of him genre and the genre hIm text s activatIOn of those institutions arc of course the structures of indi\idual genres, each with its individual history, thematic concerns and representational traditions. But underlving and informing those structures there may also be less tangible modalities' that can neither be identified firmly with larger ideological categories nor located or contained within individu~l g.enres. It is ~o such a modal form, crucial to the history and in all Ilkellhood the luture of American film genre, that the ncxt chapter \vill turn its attention.
CHAPTER 2
Before Genre: Melodrama
NOTES habitu'llh confused, thc terms arc tw no me"ns s\non\mous and hal e been hoth deb"ted: sec Strinati (T<)i)S: 2 50). , ;\ p;'obkm shared \\ith film app"ratus thcon, \\ hich has somc intcrcstin~ affinitlcs with ~cnre thcon. 3. On WarshO\\"s ~ang-ster cssa\, scc Ch"pter () plissilll. . -1-. Srai\.':er (2001), ho\\c\Tr, arg-ucs that 'Inbridit\·' is an inappropriatc conccpt to brrng to bear on film. 5. COIl\C!"sch, as l\laltb\ ([ f()I\-1-1 Il)i)2: .'17) poillls out, neithcr shuuld /loi,. be uscd, 'IS it oftcn Ius i'ccn, to cmbmh thc Zeitg-cisr. Lither constrm·tion, hc sug-g-csts, cntails 'a proccss of historical distortion \\hich comcs about from the practice of gcneric idcntification, and has [I might prcfer to sa\, em h']IC I thc effect ot Imposmg- an artiticial homogcncit\· on t(olh\lood production'. I.
Th()u~h
M
ost of this book is concerned with generic categories that have, over the course of decades of sustained production, established dear generic identities in the eyes of producers, audiences and critics alike. As discussed in Chapter I, this does not mean that all or any of those groups share the same generic understandings, nor that these identities arc in any way fixed or immutable. On the contrary, as Derrida observes, if the 'law of genre' dictates that e\ery text belongs to a genre it also dictates that texts do not belong \\holly to any III/C genre, hence that they can and will find themselves serving a range of different interests and put to a range of dilTerent uses in a variety of contexts of reception, distribution and consumption. Thus generic identities _. those of genre texts, and those of genres themseh'es as ultimately the sum of the texts that comprise them - arc prO\isional and subject to ongoing revision. Such obsenations apply strongly to melodrama. Critical debates in particubr ha\e played a gO\erning role in consolidating' melodrama's g'eneric panldigm(s). Indeed, no genre - not e\en the endlessly debated .film noir -- has been so extensi\ely redefined through critical intervention. (On the contrary, as we shall see in Chapter 9, the initially esoteric critical conception of noir became naturalised by widespread usage to the point where noir eventually realised an autonomous generic existence within the contemporary Hollywood. By Contrast, a gulf persists between the Ii1m-theoretical and the industrial understandings of 'melodrama'.) By identil~ing' melodrama with the allegedly marginal female-centred and oriented dramas of the studio era, feminist ~riticism in the 1970S and 1980s successfully overlaid a new definitional Irame\\ ork onto a long-standing industry category - a project that successfully reoriented the gender politics of film theory itself. Feminist criticism located melodrama in the intense pathos generated by narrati\-es of maternal and rOmantic sacrifice in lilms such 'women's films' as Sldla Dallas (1937) and .\l)iI', I O)'agcr (19+2), and has fiercely debated the g'ender politics of these
30
FJLM GENRE
texts - the gendered social roles created by and for their female protagonists, and the 'viewing positions' they offer female spectators. ",1e1odrama has also been identified with a rather different body of films, the emotionally wrought dramas of family conflict directed in the 1950S by Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Calise, Il)55; Bigger Than I,iff, 1(56), Elia ~azan (East or Eden, 1(55) and above all Douglas Sirk (MagllljicCIlI Ollsessioll, 195-1-; ,-1.11 Thill Heal'en Alloms, 1955; WrillCll on the Wind, 1959; II/Iltation or Lire, 1(59), dubbed 'family melodramas' in the 1970S by such critics as Thomas Elsaesser ([197 2 ] 1(91), Geoffi'ey N mvell-Smith (1977] H)<) I) and eh uck Kleinhans ([ 197 8] Il)9 J), whose high emotional pitch and 'excessive' visual style arc held to effect a subversion of ideological norms. I Behind and beyond all of these studio-era films in some way lay the melodramas of the silent era and further back still the legacy of popular nineteenth-century theatrical melodrama, a seemingly separate tradition whose connection to Ray, Sirk, et al. film studies has until recently conspicuously failed to address. Clearlv, to what extent these strains constitute (a) genre(s) is a question that can "be needs to be, and is endlessly debated. As in other areas of film genre studies, recent historical research has uncovered new fields of melodrama - notably in pre-Hollywood silent cinema while problematising pre\'ailing assumptions about others. The exact status of the 'w'oman's film' as an industry category, for example, is open to question: while Rick :\ltman (J999: 27-."') labels it a 'phantom genre' (i.e. critically rather than industrially constructed), Steve Neale's (2000: 1SS-9-1-) research on the film industry's own generic terminologies as reflected in the trade press from at least the 1920S to the 1950S indicates that the term was used from the 19IOS onwards, but in neither as localised nor as consistent a way as feminist cri ticism has suggested. Recen t research has also placed a question mark over the woman's film's 'subaltern' status in studio-era Hollywood, an important dimension of its retrieval! construction as a critical object. On the other hand, based on the same research methodolog;y Neale (1993, 2000: I 79-S()) argues that in studio-era Hollywood at least 'melodrama' was a term w'hich, while it could and did mean many thing's, rarely meant what 'melodrama' has come to mean in contemporary film studies and in particular meant almost anything /Jut '\\"()men's films'; 'family melodrama', meanwhile, is a term Neale declares himself unable to locate anywhere in this 'industry relay' at all. 'Melodrama' seems generally (though by no means exclusively) to have denoted blood-and-thunder dramas of passion, crime, injustice and retribution - in f~lct the term was widely used to describe films across (in standard genrecritical terms) a wide variety of classical genres, hom \Yesterns to crime thrillers and exotic adventure films. Richard ",laltbv (Ilj();: I I I ) notes that of . the si\: major categories used to classify pictures for the Production Code Administration in the 19-1-os, melodrama was by far the largest, accounting
-
BEFORE GENRE: MELODRAMA
31
for between a quarter and a third of all production. -\ growing body of scholarship, starting with Gledhill (1987, 1(94), has ,Irg ued for the centrality to Hollywood film in general of a melodramatic mode that extends back to and derives directly from the popular nineteenthcentury stage. While the theatrical inheritance is most clearly visible in silent film, the melodramatic mode in this larger, even capacious conception extends well beyond the silent film-makers most readily associated with melodrama such as D. \Y. Griffith, into not only studio-era film, but contemporary Hollywood too. ;\'1oreover, this melodramatic 'mode' maps directly onto neilher the earlier gender-based critical constructions of soundera melodrama (Sirk, :\linnelli, the woman's film, etc.) nor onto the 'industry relav' e\:plored by '\:eale. As a set of narrati\'e comentions, affective forms and" ideological beliefs present across a wide \ariety of genres in different periods, melodrama is at once before, beyond and embracing the system of
r example, soap Operas). In her celebrated studv of the woman's film, ~lan Ann Doane (19 ST 72) suggests that, '[\YJheti1er or not the termmelodram"a is capable of defining and delimiting a specific group of films, it docs pinpoint a crucial and isolable signifying tendency within the cinema which may be activated differentlv in specific historical periods.' I II ill be employing; this notion of melodramatic 'modalities' in this chapter and el"ewhere in this book. In a seminal study, Peter Brooks (H)76) speaks of
32
FILM GENRE
BEFORE GE:-.IRE: MELODRAMA
33
.----------------------------------_.:....::....
'the melodramatic ima[!:ination', which he finds informing a wide \'ariety of nineteenth-century cultural practices from the popular stage to the novels of Henry James. 'Melodrama' here is something like the specific literary Or performative expression of a 'world-view' that can be compared to those of tragedy, comedy or satire. Like those lar[!:e categories - \\hich are referred to in literary theory as [!:enres but which, as Alan Williams (I<)H.j.) and others observe, mean something very different !i'om the more localised genres of film studies and film history - the melodramatic finds expression in a rariety of contexts, styles and media. If this is starting to sound dangerously amorphous, one \\-ay to translate the reified concept of 'the melodramatic' back into the critical practices in film [!:el1l"C theorY discussed in the pre\'ious chapter might be to sug[!:est that, in '\Itman's terms, melodrama has a syntax but lacks a clear semantic dimension. In Llct, such a proposition may be essential if the term is meaningfully to take in, as it usually does, D. W. Griffith's mostly large-scale historical films of the late I<)IOS and 1920S (Brnl.,l'II BIIISSIII/IS, I<)H); WilJ' 1)1111'1/ EilSI, I<)20; Orplwl/s IIrll,C .')'IIIrt/l, 1922), studio-era 'women's films' such as .')'Idlil J)iIIlils, Til f'ildl His 01/'1/ (1<).j.6), or Lclla 1"1'111/1 illI Ul/hllllNI 1/111/11111 (H).j.()), as \rell as the I(»)OS films of Ray, Sirk, Kazan and Vincente :\linnelli (Tltc CII/JII'C/J, 19)5; SIII/IC CIIIIC R/IIlIling, H)5<)). If the nOlion of melodrama is extended, as Limb Williams (I<)<)H) and Deborah Thomas (2000) have recently proposed, to take in either science fiction films like Tltc III({cdi/J/c Sltril/hl/g\IillI (1<)57) or such contemporary films as Rill/I/JlI: F,rsl Bllllld Pal'l 11 (19H5) or Sdlll/(lla's I,isl (H)<)3), it becomes clearer still that we are indeed talking about a fimn that, in Thomas's words,2 goes well 'beyond genre' in the con \cntional sense.
MEL 0 D RAM A AS G E N REA N D AS 1\10 D E Altman (r <)96: 27(») states that melodrama was, along with comedy, one of the two fi>undational strains of the :\merican narrati\c cinema that formed the basic 'content categories' used by early film distributors in their catalogues to distinguish rcleascs fill' exhibitors. The later 'substanti\al' generic categories of Hollywood cinema originated as 'adjecti\-al' modifiers - '\\estcrn melodrama', 'musical comedy' -- of these parent genres, But if melodrama was a , catch-all category fi)r non-comic films, this does not mean it was either random or unfi)cused. On the contrary, the strong int1uencc of nineteenth-century popular theatre, in which melodrama was the dominant fimn, ensured that the characteristic forms of theatrical melodrama - w-hich were unified f:\]' more by narrative structures and ideology than hy strict icono[!:raphic conn-'ntions - transferred wholesale to the screen. The question is not ,P/lcll,a melodrama's established attrihutes - including stolll and simplified oppositiom bet \\ een
l1lqral absolutes personified in broadly drawn characters, eyentful narratives packed with sensational incident, a ~trong scenic element and a powerful Cl1lQtionai address - carried mer to CS cinema, since even this brief summary makes it quite plain they did and indeed continue to do so. The real questio~ IS. 11'/,·III \ ' . ,s (ramatlc I . I. f' e\ .er - me I'o(I rama ' s grasp on t he .,mencan cll1ema
From III That IJem;e1I.'I/IU1I's (1955)- Reproduced courtesy Cni,-eTsal/The -obal Collection_
34
FILM GENRE
BEFORE GENRE: MELODRAMA
35
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imagination slackened and gave way, wholly or in part, to a more recognisably 'realistic' mode, and also whether the emergence out of melodrama of substantiyal genres like Westerns and gangster films leaves behind a distinct generic residue of 'melodrama' that can be identified as a separate generic category in its own right. Neale's research suggests that at least as far as the industry was concerned, melodrama remained a 'live' taxonomic presence throughout the classical period and indeed beyond. 1 The wide-ranging relevance of the term is apparently testified by the industry usage that, as already noted, encompassed or modified virtually nery standard generic category and type of genre film used by subsequent critics and theorists (with the notable ('-,"aptio/l of the 'womcn's films' or 'family melodramas' on which critical debates about film melodrama in the 1980s focused).~ A furthcr problem in determining what 'melodrama' might usefully mean in relation to Hollywood film invohes the distinctly pejorative qualities the term acquires in some critical usage starting in the early twcntieth century. Undoubtedly, the negative associations of the form - including a reliance on stcreotypes, cliche and formula, a reductive and gross simplification of complex issues and emotions, and a sensation-oriented appeal to the lowest common dcnominator of the audience grounded in emotion rather than reason arc bound up with larger debates about mass culture in elite and academic circles from the U)20S on in particular. They also dra\y on a strongly gendered critical lexicon in which the audience for melodramatic fictions is 'feminised', that is ascribed a 'feminine' sensibility based upon assumptions about femininity itself as 'hysterical': unreflectiyc, irrational, easily swayed and prone to outbursts of violent, excessive and undirected passionate emotion (sec Huyssen, 1(86). ~le1odrama thus becomes both a form of representation damned by association with '.Ill undemanding if not actually debased audience, and itself the embodiment of the Llilings with which such an audience is typically aff1icted. In fact, one could argue that melodrama becomes the generic text pilr c-,"allmCi', as the failings attributed to melodrama essentially recapitulate the negative aspects of popular genre generally (as discussed in the Iwevious chapter). To the extent th~\t the (critically) privileged concept of realism became increasingly associated with representational and perf()rmative restraint, excessi\l~ display in these areas was understood as trivialising or caricaturing the richness of emotional and imaginative experience. This divisions operated not only to separate high from low culture, but to discriminate relati\ely privileged modes of the latter: thus, that the Western emerg;ed as (white male )\merica 's preferred self-representation may ha\c as much to do \vith its valorisation of a restrained virile masculine style as with the myth of the frontier. There is an irony of sorts that this negative association of melodrama with a sexist construction of the 'feminine' was implicitly endorsed by feminist
theory which collapsed melodrama into the narro\ver category of the 'woman's filill'. :\s wc shall see, the acceptance of a g;endered version of melodrama was nlOtiyated by the intention both sceptically to interrogate and also to recuperate for a female subjeethood the terms on which women/'woman' \\ere constructed and/or interpellated by these texts .~ a polemical critical intenention that is in no way discredited by recent research. A key theme of this book is thM genres arc not static entities with clearly defined essences and meanings, but rather moving targets - subject to ongoing reappraisal and reconstitution not merely at the leyel of interpretation but at the Inel of basic "eneric identification. Thus the reorganisation of 'melodrama' into a clearly defined generic tradition, even one with a questionable basis in film history or ~let ual industry practice, can itself be historicised without being dnalued 1)\ that historicisation. !'\onetheless, this critical strateg-y left unexplored the \\~aYs in which the melodramatic mode functioned in Hollywood film more gmer,llly, possibly to destabilise the apparently secure gender/genre categories of such 'male' forms as the \\estern, the combat film or the gang'ster film. It might be, hO\ye\cr, that by bringing the ncgative cultural construction of the 'melodramatic' to bear upon the (somctimes dismissive, but often straightf()nvardly descriptive) industry understandings of melodrama unearthed by :\eale, we can relHe the construction of melodrama as a gendered mode to the expanded field of meanings opening up throu[!,"h current research. Christine Gledhill (2000: 227) suggests that 'if male-orientated action mo\"ies are persistently termed "melodrama" in the trade, long after the term is more wide! v disg-raced, this should alert us to somethin[!," from the past that is ali ve in the present and circulatin[!," around the masculine' ~ the implication being that this 'something' il1\ ohes an uneasiness or instability in the apparently secure concept of 'nusculinity' that subtends its representation in 'male' genres like the crime thriller, whose presence is 'confessed' through the ad.now ledgement of 'melodramatic' elements in such films. If \ye refer back to the thumbnail sketch of melodrama abO\c (pnsonified moral oppositions, com cJ1tionalised char~lCteris~\tions, action-packed storics, scenery and emotion) it is ,lhcr all evident how much the Western continued to owe to its melodLllllatiL' origins even as it achined substantiyal ' generic status and hegemonic • c o maleness. In bct, a great deal of critical \\ ork has been done on constructions ofnusculinity in [!,"cnre films - for example, :\Iitchell (1996) on the Westcrn, or Jdf()rds (1989) on the \ietnam combat film - but thc identification of Il1dodrama \vith the woman's film or the Llmily melodrama has generally inhibited considering these issues in lig-ht of their melodramatic affinities_ In this book, the explOl~ation in Chapter ~ of the paradmical ways in which the gangster's dominating phallic individualism is bound up \\ith the 'weakness' of reliance on others might seem to bear Ollt Gledhill's obsenation.
3()
FILM GENRE
None of this is intended as an argument for radical generic surgery or genre reassignment. Even if Film Dail)' or T 'ariet)' characterised The Lor/.'el (194- 6 ), .Jesse James (1939) or Ps)'cho (1960) as melodramas or 'mellers' (see Neale, 2000: 179--81), this docs not mean that their conventional genre designation as jilm 110ir, \Vestern or horror film somehow becomes either misplaced or redundant. Quite clearly, at any number of Inels, semantic and syntactic alike, Jesse James has a good deal meaningfully in common with Stagetoilch (J(B9) and Bill)' tlie Kid (194-1), and more in common with them than with either Tlie I,odet or P'J'clio, let alone such 'critically assigned' melodramas as The Ral'/css ,110 111 ell I (194-9) or _'111 I Desire (I(),3). Yet by the same token trying: to understand what is being said about these films by attributing 'melodramatic' qualities to them may help us understand the operations of horror films, \Vesterns or 110lrs better - particularly if acknowledging the force of the melodramatic mode encourages us to question our assumptions about realism as a norm in ('male') popular cinema.
REALISM AND EXCESS The ongoing- debate that has both bnl,ldened and deepened the undersLlI1ding' of film melodrama has involved a crucial reassessment of some sLlI1dard thinking about the place of realism in Hollywood cinema, and according:l~ the extent to which melodrama and melodramatic 'excess' can or should be seen as a deviation fi'om or a challeng-e to standard realist codes. To cbrify this point, we will need to digTess briefly into film-theoretical history. In the HnOS, a series of essays .1I1d articles published in SacCll identified the domin.lI1t representational mode of Hollywood (and other mainstream narrative) film with the 'classic realist text' of the nineteenth-century nmcl. The proponents of 'classic re.l1ism', notabl~ Colin \lacCabe, cited certain common discursive properties shared by the novels of, for example, George Eliot and Honore de Balzac - principally their alleg-ed narrati\c transparency and <\\'oidance of 'contradiction' in Ll\our of homo~?:enised narLlti\es that reassured the reader \vith their comprehensive grasp of the narrative situation - and argued that the underlying principles of this brand of literary realism carried mcr into the classical Hollywood film. Classic realism's most chaLlcteristic attribute, its reassuring narrative integrity, \\as ,lCcomplished ,lccording to NlacCabe by the deployment of a 'metalan!,?:ua!,?:e'. In literary terms this meant the (usuall~ unmarked and impersonal) narrati\c 'voice' through which all of the other voices in the text - the \vords spoken by characters, for csample, or letters - \vere placed in a 'hieLlrchy of discourses'. \Yhile individual speakers in a narratiYC might be characterised as untrust\vorthy or mistaken, the voice that brought their error or deceit to the reader's knmv-
BEFORE GENRE: MELODRAMA
37
ledge - that declared it to be raining or foggy on a given day, that was in a position to \\Tite the words 'he said' before a passage of direct quotation \\as not capable of challenge: its absolute competence, even 'omniscience', \\as a condition of the \'ery readability of the text itself. In Hollywood and other mainstream narrative film, the equi\-alent of the novelistic 'metaLlI1g:uage' was, so it was claimed, the 'third-person' gaze of the camera (any shot, that is, not nplicitly marked as a point-of-view shot). This account of realism \vas linked to a larger theoretical project influenced by psychoanalysis and by Althusserian Manism - for explaining the cOl1\cntions of the continuity system and the ways in which the spectator \\as discouraged from attending to the mechanisms of representation I(H'mal (i.e. tC\tual) or institutional (the studio system) - in f:nour of a wholesale illusionistic and identificatory immersion in the unfolding narrative and in turn, by some\\h,lt debatable extension, collusion in the social and ideo10!,?:ical norms sedimented in those narratiYes. Opposed to 'classic realism' \\ere a variety of modernist textual practices that in various \vays (and with, it should be said, a \\ide variety of aims) served to highlight the textuality of the filmic arteElct, from the decentred narrati \e style of Carl Dreyer (t(lr example, J -a 1IIpyr, S\\cden I ()34-) to the didactic dialectical montag"C of Sergei Eisenstein. Gi\en the clear impossibility of such radical fllrmal experimentation in classical Hollywood, critical attention f(Kused on those texts \vhich seemed throu!,?:h v'lrious flll"lnal devices !,?:athered together under thl' category of 'excess' to indicate ironic distance from, and thus call into question, the ideological, aesthl'tic and !,?:eneric col1\cntions of thl'ir basic narr
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r
~
jO
1'1 Ll\1
l, Ie:'>! Kle
More ironically still, however, the leg-acy of 'classic realism' is still ,isible today in (what became) the standard account of melodrama in the 19Sas. Many of the most widely cited accounts of melodramatic 'e:xcess' - far example Rodowick ([19S2] 19(1) -- continued to assume the centrality to Hollywood film of a realist mode whose integrity was predicated upon a systematic repression of its own signifying practices. The presence of melodramatic excess could according;ly be read as 'hysterical' symptoms, deformations and effusions on the textual body dnlwing attention to those 'unspeakable' but fundamental dimensions of American social life - such as class and se\:uality - on whose repression the ideological coherence of the realist film relied. This 'symptomatic' rC
BEFORE GENRE: MELODRAMA
39
the ongoing modal affinity of major Hollywood genres - in particular the contemporary action blockbuster (see Chapter 10) - with the melodramatic, while also clearly allowing room for classic Hollywood 'women's films', which 'llthough they largely lack moral polarities and sensationalism are certainly rich in pathos and other overwrought emotions. Sing-er's 'constituti'"e factors' still fall, as he himself acknowledges, into the category of 'ncess'. Howe,er, 'excess' here is reconceived not in relation to a normati'e realism that it either knowingly ironises or symptomatically deforms, hut to the moral world melodrama seeks to render that simply cannot be hodied forth except under stress. Byars (199 I), among the first critics to argue the case for hroadening film studies' operati"e conceptualisation of melodrama hack out from explicitly female-oriented 'weepies', describes melodrama as 'the modern mode for constructing moral iuentity' and argues, following Brooks, that tradition,llly, melourama has focused on the problems of the indi,iuual within established social structures, and as it attempted to make up for the loss of the categorical but uni(,ing myth of the sacred, melodrama's m'thmaking functioned at the 1e,e1 of the indi,"iuual and the personal, drawing its material from the e,"eryday. (Byars, 1991: I I) The desacralisation of modern culture - the rise of secular society and the concomitant decline of established religion and its capacity to supply a 'master narrati,e' for nuking sense of the world - forms one of the generally agreed conte\:ts for the rise of melourama. \lelodrama takes its cue not fi'om the di,ine or the ineffable (the traditional domain of tragedy) but from the modern world around it, and aims 10 enact the key terms for understanding that world. While retaining abstract notions of good and e,il inheriteu from an older, tragic episteme, in the absence of trag;edy's sustaining religious ti'amemJrk these concepts are personitieu in stock characters whose function moral embodiment - renders them almost equally abstractions. Byars argues for melourama as a fundamentally non-contestatory mode, one that insists on the rightness and '"alidity of binding social (but uepicted not as social but ,IS uni,ersally human) institutions as marriage and the bmily. "lelodranu addresses, and seeks to resoh"e, conf1icts Il'il hill a given order (what :\eale (I <)So: 22) calls an 'in-hollse arrangement') rather than conf1icts of order as such: it seeks to recli/i' the situation- by 'anguishing' 'illainy and ha'"ing ,irtue and innocence triumph -- rather than to transform the conditions upon which that situation of injustice or ,"ictimis,ltion has arisen or challenge the terms in which they are concei'"ed. It is the impossibility of this project that generates both the ntremity of melodranu's narrative dnices and its char,lCteristic affect, pathos. Rainer \Yerner Fassbinder, the
40
FILM GENRE
major figure in the 'New German Cinema' of the 1970S and a fen'ent admirer of Sirk (whose All ThaI Heill'i'll "-lIlo]l's Fassbinder transposed to modern West Germany in Fear Eills lhe Soul, 1974), explained that he cried \Ihile watching Sirk's Imi/illioll orL~fi' because 'both [the film's main characters] are right and no one will be able to help them, Unless \\T change the \Iorld, At this point all of us in the cinema cried. Because changing the \Iorld is so difficult' (Fassbinder [19721 199T IOh). And, he might ha\'e added, because melodrama indicates no way of making it happen. Pathos, and the tears that are its trade mark, are functions of helplessness. This does not mean that melodrama is fatalistic; on the contrary, melodrama's huge energies strain violently against their perfllrmatile contexts, intensifying the sense of entrapment that is also one of melodrama's hallmarks (for example, the rigid social hierachies and prejudices that both Stella Dallas and Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) in ,III Thill IIefl7.·l'/l .111001's must battle against). On this reading', melodrama takes shape as the fllrm that seeks to make moral sense of modernity itself. HO\\T\Tr, at this stage \\T ha\T come a long way from the specifics of film melodramas. In order to understand hml the issues outlined here 'bOlh themseh'Cs fllrth' in ,'\merican film melodrama in its \arious fllrms, we need to look at the particular perflmnatile tradition inherited from the popular stage by early cll1ema.
MELODRAMA FROM STAGE TO SCREEN Broadly speaking, melodrama emerged during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in England and France to supply the need fll!' entertainment and diversion of the burgeoning \\orking class in the rapidly C\:panding urban centres of the industrial 1'C\olution. Since in France the officiall~ licensed theatres enjoyed a monopoly on the spoken \Ionl, the ne\\ popular theatres relied on music, spectacle and a strong'ly perfllrmative gesturallan[!,'uage (,melodrama' literalll means 'm usical drama', a point notl:d by Douglas Sirk in ,I 1 <)7 I intenie\\ - sec Halliday, 1<J71:
BEFORE GENRE: MELODRAMA
41
Stage melodrama bequeathed both stylistic and institutionallcgacies to the cinema. An important clement of nineteenth century theatrical melodrama, for example, \Ias its stress on \'isual forms of audience address, to some cxtent at the expense of spoken dialogue, \\hich became increasingly inert .1Ild stylised. As ne\\ theatrical technologies of lighting, set construction and scene-shifting,' de\'eloped, ne\1 storytelling' styles with a strongly pictorial dimension also emerged. In some of the largest-scale late-nineteenth-century spectacular productions, the proscenium arch became a picture frame, establishing,' pictorial com'entions (for example, the elaborate historical or exotic t,lbleau) that would be carried O\'CJ' into early film. The huge expansion of the theatre 'industry' in this period also necessitated a new rationalisation ,lIld professionalisation of the processes of writing and producing dramas: the r,lpid turno\'er of the melodramatic stage encouraged a promotional emphasis on spectacle and on readily recognisable sub-genres that followed intense ncles. \ lelodrama \Ias characterised by a strongly polarised depiction of moral lJualities- \Ihat has often been termed a '~lanichean' \\orld-\'iew with equally halanced fllrces of absolute good and e\'il battling one another in the personalised shape of hero and \illain, their contest usually wagcd mer the symbolic terrain of an 'innocent' \IOm,1I1 or child. Other classic melodramatic oppositions included those bet\leen country and eitl and (closely related) between the bmih and the world of \Iork (and money). The melodramatic imaginary lIas strongly motivated by a nostalgic reaction ag'ainst the complcxification .tlld perceiled challenge to traditional modcls of g'emler and the family posed b\ new urban \Iays of liling, a reaction that flllll1d narrati\'e expression in plots that obsessilely reworked themes of injured innocence. TO\lards the end of the nineteenth century, a 1'C\i\al of 'serious' drama (partly reflecting the desire in some sections of the nOlI-hegemonic middle classes to difkrentiate their cult ure fi'om that of the pelt ~ bourgeoisie and \\ orking classes) l'Cne\\ cd the scission of popular and elite theatrical fllrms, \\ ith the ne\v topical, political and symbolist dramas of Ibsen, Shall and Ilarley Gramille Barker reasserting the primacy of speech mcr spectacle 'lIld reflection mer sensational action. The emerging modernist reaction .tgainst Yictorian proprieties flllll1d in the pious sentimental cliches of melodrama a ready target for derision and, more importantly, a structure for selfd ifferen tiation. Thus at the moment of cinema's imention, a \\ell-established tradition of pictorial and episodic narratile mass entert
4Z
FILM GENRE
the most advanced serious theatre of the time. High cultural practice was thus recentring itself on a dimension cinema was specifically unable to pnnide. This further cemented the association between popular narrative cinema and the melodramatic tradition (see Brewster and Jacobs, 1(97). That tradition, however, was itself 'in process' - evohing and dividing in the late nineteenth century. Thus while the 'ten-twenty-thirty' cent theatres in America offered blood-and-thunder narrati\es in the traditional earlier nineteenth-century melodramatic \'ein to a mostly working-class audience - the same audience that would soon crowd the nickelodeons - at the same time modified forms of melodrama and the 'wcll-made play' ofTered more respectable pleasures to middle-class audiences alienated by the more boldly experimental and confrontational forms of the realist and social theatre. 'Modified melodrama' mitigated the narrative and pictorial extLl\agances of the traditional popular model and placed a greater emphasis on character, morc nuanced and deeply felt states of feeling, and emotional rather than grossly physical conflict. 1'\eale (zooo: ZOIf.) and Singer (ZOOI: 167-77) suggest that subsequcnt critical confusions around the valances of 'melodrama' in film may be attributable to inadequate understandings of this prior bifurcation with the melodramatic tradition. \V,liker (198z: 16-18) suggests that a genealogy of film melodrama distinguish bet\veen 'action melodramas' - out of which emerge such film genres as the \Vestern, the war/combat film and thc various forms of crime thriller - and 'melodramas of passion, in which the concern is not with the external dynamic of action hut with the internal traumas of passion', and which g;ive rise to, among other cinematic genres, the woman's film and the LIl11ily drama. (As wc shall see in Chapter <), .fillll 11011', in its classic form at least, might be seen as straddling these fl)rms of melodramatic inheritance in a unique w'ly.)
SILENT MEI.ODRAMA
""lc1odrama thus offered cinema at least two difkrent popular dramatic traditions on which to build. Initially at Jc.lst, in the era of the nickelodeons it was the now culturally denigrated forms of working-class theatre that dominated the new medium, and early cinema's strong; appeal to urban working;-class audiences (and the anxious commentary this prO\oked in elite opinion circles) has been well documented (see Hansen, UN 1; RabinO\ itz, 1998; Charney and Schwartz, 1995). HO\vever bourgeois spectators certainly did not deprecIte the pictorial ,llld episodic. On the contrary, as the success of Bir/h lira lVa/11I1I (H)I S) shows, it \vas primarily the perceived 'excellence' - measured in terms of scale, narrativc ambition ,md historical 'seriousness' or othcnvise of a form that coloured its class reception. Griffith's film owes
BEFORE GE:-.rRE: MELODRAMA
43
a great deal more to popular melodrama than to the 'well-made play', but its actual and perceived enhancement of the cheap ephemera of the nickelodeons (actualised not only in the film but in its exhibition contexts, with reserved selting and ticket prices during its premiere run closer to the leg'itimate theatre than to storefront cinemas) made it - and through it the cinema generally more attractive and acceptable to a middle-class audience. The importance of melodrama to silent film has always been recognised, but melodrama's reconception in film theory to denote studio-era domestic and Llmilial dramas has meant that silent melodrama has until recently been comparatively little discussed (an important exception being' Vardac, 1(49). Two exceptions to this rule .Ire D. \Y. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin, whose historical importance to cinema's development as a mass medium has compelled consideration of their preferred dramatic modes. As a comedian Chaplin would seem to stand outside the melodramatic tradition, yet his films repeatedly - particularly tl)llowing his move to features - draw on recog;nisablc melodramatic motifs. In The Kid (19Z0), when the fl)l\ndling adopted by the Tramp is forcibly remmcd by the authorities, Chaplin and Jackie Coogan as the child pantomime their anguish in a parade of wretched g-csticulations and facial contortions. Both the scenario heing played out - the ,ictimisation of the innocent by the heartless and powerful, here as elsewhere in Chaplin's work given a powerful dimension of social criticism by the depiction of Charlie's destitution and the rigidity and indifference of established authority (the medical senices and the police) to human misery and the manner of its performance are unmistakably melodramatic. Griffith's debt to melodrama is equ,llly apparent and has always been recog-nised by critics, from his earliest short subjects at Biograph as a specialist in sensational melodramatic narratives to his celebrated features of the late t cens and e'lrly 19zos. Griffith's films ,Ire universalh marked by the presence of such melodramatic hallmarks as pathos, the victimisation of innocents (the transhistorical subject of Ill/olerilll(e, H)I7), threats to the Llmily and sensalional sequences rendered 'respectable' by their integ;ration into carefull~ de\ eloped LIther than episodic narratives (such as the climactic ridc of the h.lan in Bir/h lira S,UiOIl, I<)IS, or the escape across the ice in Tray DOII'II rast) . .-\nother 'abduction' scene, in Griffith's (hp/wIIs or/he Slilrlll' when Henriette recog-nises the mice of her blind sister Louise in the street below, but is plTvented from rescuing her ti'om the beggar's life into which a malign beldame has forced her when she is arrested ,It the behest of an aristocratic LIther who aims to prevent her marriage to his son - displays a similar stylised g-estural intensity to The Kid, but in a narrative context that hetter typifies melodLlm,I's reliance on coincidence and sudden reversal to generate and intensify pathos (on Griffith and melodrama, see Allen, 1999: 4z-74; the Olp/IiII1S recognition scene is analysed in detail on pp. 98-103).
44
FILM GENRE
The general tendency in early bellelettristic film criticism was to regard the melodramatic aspects of Griffith's and Chaplin's work as fll "'S that either (depending on the writer's attitude) qualified their artistic achieyement or could he set aside in estimating it. The perceiyed legacy of Victorian sensibilities in Griffith - for example, the model of Dickens, first noted with a different emphasis by Eisenstein - elicits such judg'ements as: [W]hat we haye in Griffith is the surface \\orld of Dickens - that which made him so popular because it touched on the surface neryes of the public - but not the wit or the penetration, the insight into complexity and emotional depths that underlay the surface simplicities, the types, the sentimentalities of situ.1tion and emotion. What is left is the energetic rendering of the shell: Griffith's cinemat ic embodiment of exaggerated, sentimental emotionalism, naive, simplistic confEct and tension, and one-dimensional character stereotypes. (Casty I J(n zl H)9I: 3(q.)i The modernist orientation of much film scholarship in the IlnOS eneourag'ed an approach that 'retrined' Griffith's technical and stylistic innovations from the surrounding Victorian baggage (or reconeei\Td Chaplin in terms of modernist urhan typologies). Alternatively, as in Belton's (11
THE WOMAN'S FILM The woman's film has recei \ed the most sustained critical ,ltten tion of ,m y of the Hollywood g:enres in the melodramatic genealogy. "henever the term 'woman's film' became \\ idely used in Holly\\ood (see Simmon, 1<)<)3), it is clear that from at least the late 1910S and probably before, the notion that a certain type of film mig'ht h,I\'e a particularly strong appeal to women was present in the industry 'relay' (:\eale, 2000: 191-2). This type of film centred
BEFORE GENRE: MELODRAMA
f
45
on women's experiences, specifically domestic, familial and romantic (though \\ith romance subordinated to or at least crossed with the domestic or f~lmilial rather than carrying the story in its own right); their protagonists \\ere women, and women's friendships often fig'ured importantly (f()r example, the professional partnership of Mildred Pierce and Ida Corwin). Woman's films \vere frequently hased on literary properties written by women, and fem,lle script\\Titers were also often il1\olved (see Francke, 1994.). The value of such films to the film industry stemmed from the perception - which by the J(HoS had firmed up into something like an orthodoxy - that women comprised both a simple majority of movie-goers and the most reliable and regular yiewers, that they often had a more decisive voice in choosing' the films thev attended \\ith their male partners, and that this important constitueI~cy was dra\\n to films on cOI1\'entionally 'feminine' subjects. l) These last points are \vOrlh emphasising because of the sometime assumption in feminist criticism that the \\omen's film was a Cinderella genre, occupying a subordinate position in Holly\\ood's aesthetic and economic hier,lrchy, The \\oman's film's attraction to melodramatic rather than realistic modes of representation - 'realism' being a privileged category in elite (male) opinion (sec Gledhill, 1<)1'7) - confirmed and exacerhated the general deprecation of the gT11re, Thus, it was held, like other f()rms of women's expression, \\ omen's films, ho\\C\ er numerous and popular, remained suhject to masculinist interests and perspecti\es. In reality, in line \\ith the received industry \\isdom concerning female audiences, a "om,m's film was if anything likely to be a more rather than a less prestigious production in terms of hudget, profile and \ery often critical reception too, .\s cOI1\Tntional and middlehrow as producers' assumptions ahout 'quality' may seem today, quite clearly \\ omen's films along: with other prestigious product like costume dramas, biopics and literary adaptations (all of these could of course be women's films too, though biopics usually featured male subjects), sened as adYertisements of the 'best' Holly" ood could produce, "'omen's films \\Tre almost il1\ariably major studio productions, usually ':\' features, and were assigned top stars ,md directors. (This industrial prestige need not of course have ref1ected the personal tastes of male studio heads ,md indeed, as Gledhill (zooo: 2z6) obsenes, economic importance is not neccssarily an indcx, e\Tn in a Llpitalist enterprise, of 'cultural value'; but H,lITy \Varner's remark to Bette 1),1 \is that he hated her films and onh made them because the box office demanded it surely cuts both \\ays.) .\s ?\Ldtby (1<)<)5a: 1336) notes, the deprecation of the \\oman's film feminist theory set itself to contest existed Llr more among the male critics \\'ho dominated the early years of film studies and tended to carry through their theoretical propositions through such 'male' genres as the "'estern and the gangster film ..\s Llr as melodrama is concerned, it f()llo\\s fi'om \\ h.lt has alreadv been said about the general
46
BEFORE GENRE: MELODRAMA
FILM GENRE
industry usage of the term that, as far as contemporary film-makers and (presumably) viewers were concerned, women's films \\'ere I/ot melodramas (like thrillers or combat films) and quite likely all the hetter for it. It does not at all follow from this that it is 'wTong' to focalise critical discussion of such films through the theoretical matrix of melodrama, merely that it is hard to use the melodramatic address of the w'oman's film to press arguments about its cultural status. Of the many women's films of the studio era, Stella Dallas (1937, following a silent version in H)2 5) has become perhaps the paradigmatic example. The film tells the story of a working-class woman who, ha\'ing married 'above her station" ewntually drives away her belO\ed daughter Laurel to be brought up by Stella's estranged hushand so she will not be dragged down by association with her mother's \'ulgarity, and was the focus of an extensive critical debate among feminist film theorists in the mid-I980s that encapsulated the ditlcrent and frequently ambi\alent responses prO\oked by the female-oriented films of the studio era. Crucially at stake was the extent to which Stella's sacrifice at the altar of bourgeois domesticity represented a submission the film was recommending to its female spectatorship, or alternati\'e1y the possibilities fllr that spectatorship's recO\ery of a positive sense of female strengths from her story - albeit strengths that Stella's social context and her interpellation by patriarchal ideologies ensure she is unable to actualise. The nature and degree of women's imestment in the comentions to which Stella finally surrenders wcre crystallised in the film's extraordinary final scene, where the rain-drenched Stella fights her way to the front of a crowd of g;awkers outside her ex-husband's mansion so that, tearful yet triumphant amid this crO\nl of strangers, she can view Laurel's wedding - symholic of her acceptance hy the high society that has shunned Stella herself. This pathos-filled scene, which seemed to position Stella as a spectator analogous - in her rapt, teary intensity -. to the female cinema viewer herself in ways that made a clear judgement of hn choice almost impossible, summarised the woman's film's compelling yet deeply amhiguous attraction. Another much-discussed \\'oman's film, . Hi/drce! Plcl"i"t' (!()-J.5), presented a conflict of gender roles articulated through .1 generic contest bet\\'een the 'wom.l11 's film' and the I/olr thriller. The film's I/olr elements include the extensive use of geometric patterns of light and shade, expressionist lighting, a con\'oluted narrative presented largely in flashback, and strong strains of pessimism and paranoia; the contrasting; 'woman's film' elements include the domestic focus, the centrality of ehildrearing and specifically motherhood, and a narrative centred on female experiences. Hi/drcd Plcnc is an unusual and interesting film inasmuch as it straddles the different (contemporary industrial and critical) undersLlI1dings of melodram'J and indeed acti\.ltes them as its central conflict.
47
THE FAMILY MELODRAMA
Identifying the part played by the family in American life of course opens up " \'ast field of enquiry, but as Gallagher (1986) suggests, as a subject the family is often absorbed back into other genres and accommodated to their normative coneerns: The Searchers, for example, is more likely to be read as ,1 film about white racism or the pathology of masculinity than as a parable of the struggle to emision and constitute or maintain a family. It is also notahle that the traditional dramatic construction of numerous genres including romantic comedy (sec Wexman, 1(93), the series Western, etc. locates the moment of f;nnilial imestment (that is marriage, or at any rate the confirmation of the couple) as the climax and the conclusion of the drama rather than as the central dramatic situation. By contrast, according to Lieoffrey '\()\\"ell-Smith ([ H)771 H)<) 1: 268), the family melodrama is inscribed by 'a set of psychic determinations ... which take shape around the family' ,1l1d takes its subject matter primarily and consistently from the hmilial domain. .\lthough of all 'phantom genres' the 'f;1111ily melodrama' is the most elusi\'e, appearing nowhere in the contemporary relay (see Neale, H)<)3), it has become as closely identified with the critical construction of melodrama as any, largely owing to the revi\al of interest in Sirk's 1950S Hollywood films during the 1970S on the ironic terms noted above (strongly encouraged by Sirk himself). Family melodramas intensify, arguably to a parodic degree, the pathos of the woman's film, relocating melodramatic excess to the stylistic domain. The f1I11ily melodrama is often understood in terms of its contradictory imperati\'es to rC\cal and to repress issues, tensions and stresses around the hmily - the arena in and through which psycho-sexual identity is most importantly constituted -- denied either a 'polite' hearing in .\meriean society, or direct cinematic representation under the terms of the Production Code, hence its characteristic resort to the fl11tastic, the highly stylised and the 'contrived'. .\Luxism suggests that melodrama's emphasis on conflicts within and around the hmily enacts a classic bourgeois displacement of problems actually present in the economic and political field onto the personal and domestic scene: morality thus becomes a personal rather than a political issue. Once on that terrain, ho\\'e\cr, e\en if class conflict is displaced onto domestic types, nonetheless the unspoken - and socially unspeakable - tensions inside the hmily matrix within which the indi\idual is formed inC\itably push their way to the fore. The hmily is (in .\Ithusserian terms) a classically 'O\erdetermined' arena: it is both inadmissably social and political (because bourgeois ideology denies the impact of the economic upon the hmily, where personal morality reig"ns supreme), al/d the site of the equally unspeakable
48
FILM GENRE
desires and drives of the Freudian f:mlily romance (Elsaesser, (1972) 199 I: 81] punningly describes the family melodrama as 'where Freud left his Marx on the family home'). Sirk's films in particular constitute a repeated investigation of the ways whereby normative social demands are enforced or regulated, and social authority refracted, through the institutions of the family. In All That l!ecl1'ell Allmps, the widowed Cary's relationship with her younger gardener Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) - transgressive in terms of both age and class - is initially curbed by a combination of regulatory methodologies applied by her children: on the one hand her son's forceful, aggressive, punishing and overtly repressive mode, on the other her social worker daughter's therapeutic, cajoling, professionally 'sensitive' approach. Written on Ihe Wind (1958) is a dynastic melodrama that associates issues of patriarchal authority in decline with eruptions of sexual and social deviance and further links these domestic pathologies to business and industrial crises: the collapse of one is directly implicated in the breakdown of the other. The apparent triviality of Sirk's subject matter - its consumer magazine romance material - is belied by the promiscuous vitality of his style: an overtly stylised and incipiently reflexi ve mise-en-scene - saturated and non-naturalistic usc of colour, elaborate camera movements, the construction of frames within the frame, extensi\T usc of reflective surfaces, etc. - combines with a heightened acting style to manifest 'hysterical' symptoms of repressed thematic material on the textual body of the film itself. The extended range of familial representations explored during; the 1950S may have been in part a response to the normative familial ideology promulgated above all by television in this era. Situation comedies of the era in particular offered an idealised vision of the suburban middle-class WASP f:mlily, significantly lacking in major problems or conflicts; possibly television's identity as a domestic medium demanded that it not challenge the consensus forming during the decade around the fundamental importance of the Llmily, and of conventional gender (and ag;e) roles within the family, to American life. (1\ centrality perhaps never better encapsulated than when .'\ikita Kruschev and Richard Nixon confronted each other in a US show kitchen at a Moscow trade fair in \959: their famous 'kitchen debate', amidst gleaming white goods, defined the home as a symbolic arena, the new terrain of the Cold War.) It is surely no coincidence that the 'reward' Carey recei\'es from her children for her compliance with their demands to subjugate her sexuality is a television: a subsequent shot catches her lonely reflection in the blank screen, ironically apposite for the principal medium of the traditional nuclear family's valorisation. Klinger (199-t-) has identified the ways in which several canonical 'family melodramas' \\'ere promoted on the basis of their challenging 'adult' content ". in Wrlflt'll Oil tlte WIlld, for example, psychological
I
BEFORE GE;'\lRE: MELODRAMA
49
instability, incestuous desire, homosexuality, alcoholism and impotence offering audiences sensational material beyond the constrained domesticity of the TY m:t\\orks.
\1 E L 0 D RAM A TIC LEG A CI E S
\lelodrama, at least in the modality that has most preoccupied contemporary film theory - the family drama and the 'women's film' - would appear, as ","calc (2000: 19,:;) suggests, to have lost some of its impetus with the disappearance of the producti\e repressions of the Production Code in 1906 as \\TIl as the !.II'ger transformations of gender, sexual and familial identities in the \\ake of the 1960s and consequent broadening of women's personal and professional options. "ie\crtheless, from [m'e SIIIIY (1970) and Terms I~r !:'lIilearll/l'IIl (1983) to Ordll/ilr)' People (H)80) and jHolllllt~!!;hl /vIile (zooz), '\\cepies' and generically identifiable Llmily melodramas have continued intermittently to appear. Attempts to fashion modern versions of the 'woman's film', similarly updated to take account of changing social norms, h;\ \ e included" ,lila Dllesi/ 'I LIu' Here, "JII)'II/Ilre (197-t-),JII Unll/ilrried ~VIIIII(1I1 (1()78), Slarllllg (her (1979), Bear/ii'S ([()88), Siellil (a remake ofSlellil Dililils, 1(90), Fried Grel'll Tlllllilllli'S (1991) and !l1I11' Til ,HilA'r ilil ,·JlllerlwlI Qllill (1995) . .\laltby (H)f)5a: 1Z-t-) notes that the psychological romance The PUlne IIr Tides (I 9()I) \\ as described by se\cral re\'iewers as a 'melodrama', sug-g-esting that, as with .lillll 1/1111', critical usage may have crossed mer to industry and popular generic understandings. In zoo 3 two films, The {{II/II"S and Far Froll/ !Iea-ceII, presented themsehcs quite explicitly as intertexts of the classic woman's film - the latter a quasi-remake (in period) of .-111 Tf/ill !lCiI,'l'II ,lI/IIII'S, complete with lush Sirkian ",Ise-Cl/-scclle and emoti\ e Henry \Lmcini score, but no\\ using' stylistic excess to point up the contrast of mode and pre\iously off-limits content (homosexuality and miscegenation) rather than as symptom of the textu;llly inexpressible. This diminution of the domestic and maternal melodrama, h()\\C\cr, docs not mean that melodramatic modes ha\'e reduced in their centrality to I Iolly\\ood generally. On the contrary, as Chapter IO \vill explOIT, a renm'ated melodramatic mode combining' aspects of both blood-and-thunder and modified melodrama characterises the most important contemporary Hollywood g-enre, the action blockbuster. .\loremer, an understanding of the melodramatic imag-ination may indeed prmT an essential tool for comprehending ;lnd responding' to the political climate of t\\enty-first century America (of which the action blockbuster is itself an important g'auge) - \\hich is to say for citizens of e\ery nation in the \\orld. In his study of the sensational melodramas of the H)IOS, Ben Singer quotes LULkig Lewishon, a critic for
50
FILM GENRE
the liberal Nation who in 19Z0 associated melodrama \\ith 'the primal brutality of the mob'; in the age of the 'war on terror' and a successful re\i\al of the i\Ianichean sensibility in American politics, his words haye an uneasily prophetic ring: [For the a\erage American I his highest luxur~ is the mass enjoyment of a tribal passion. War, hunting, and persecution are the constant di\ersions of the primiti\e mind. And these that mind seeks in the gross mimicry of melodrama. Violence, and especially moral \iolcnce, is shO\\n f(lrth, and the audience joins \icariously in the pursuits and triumphs of the action. Thus its hot impulses are slaked. It sees itself righteous and erect, and the object of its pursuit, the quarry, discomfited or dead. For the great aim of melodrama is the killing; of the yillain ... The melodrama of this approved pattern brings into \icarious play those forces in human nature that produce mob yiolence in peace and mass atrocities in war. Nations addicted to physical \ iolcnce of a simpler and more direct kind ha \c cultiYated the arena and the bullring. Those \yho desire their impulses of cruelt, to seem the fi'uit of moral energy substitute melodrama. (Q.uoted in Sing;er, 2001: -1-0-1)
NOTES [. .\11 of these l'SS,11 s and Schatz's chapter on E\llli" melodramas are eoIILTtl'l\ in J .allLh ( [<J<J I ). 2. Though her olin usc of thc eonecpt of melmlram'l is in somc "'1\S quitc IdloslncLltic. 3. I lis namples of lilms identified as 'mcllcrs' include citatiollS from [;lri"lj' in thc IIl70S (elillill's /'ill/d. a "'cstcrn) and thc I<JSOS ClllsslIIg iI/ [(1/111/. I<)S+, a 'ictnam eomb,1t film) +. ]\oote. hOllcler, that 'IS :\ltman (I<)IJS: 72) points out, '\eale tcnds somcllhat to eollapsc thc distinction bctllccn (trade) film critil'ism and film production, .IS if thc perceptions of the former neecssarih or il1\ ariabh retkctcd the crcatil e praeticcs of the lattcr. J'
Sergei J':isenstein's [<)H eS"1\ 'Dickens, Grirtith and Film Tml'1\' Ius ellSurcd th,1t the relationship has bccn the subject of cnthusiastic critiLtI discussion. Dickens is of course the nO\ e1ist IIho morl' than al1\ other c,;poses the bogus claims of 'classic re'llism '. Altman ([1<)X<)JII)<)2) np\ores Dickens's mdmlramatie Ieg'ael to (irirtith ('lIld Eisenstein).
(,. It should also bc noted th,1t in thc
[Ii [as. as thc film industn 'Ittcmptl'd to bre'lk out past its core urban lIorking-ciass audiencc to thc hitherto inditlLTent middle-class '1lIdiencl" (attraeti,e beLluse of its abilitl and lIilling'ness to 1"1\ morc I
Part I Classical Paradigms
I
The four genres considered in this section, along with the romantic or 'screwball' comedy, are \irtual embodiments of classical Hollywood. These are the genres which, on account of their long production histories -- stretching back in each case (bar, obYiously, the musical) to the silent era - and exceptionally high degree of generic codification and con Yentionalisation, are most reliably inyoked in support of the \arious iconographic, semantic/ syntactic or ritual accounts of genre film generally discussed in Chapter I. T.ess consideration has generally been giyen to the ways in which these g:enres can also be seen as modalities of film melodrama (the musical aside, \\hich as 'musical drama' combines melodrama's basic elements - me/os [music] + drama - in different ways). All of these genres haye in common a preoccupation with how masculine identities - as cowboys and caYalrymen, soldiers, singers and dancers and gangsters (sometimes as sing'ing cowboys or dancing gangsters) - are constructed and portrayed, a concern that might be understood as the specific ways that such 'male melodramas' articulate the melodramatic mode's characteristic concern with gender and family outside the context of the domestic melodrama. Giyen the long production histories and the rich and extensiYe critical literature on all of these genres, these pages do not aim to proyide either summary O\eniews or critical historiography. Rather, each genre is discussed in a specific interpretatiw matrix: fix the Western, its relationship to (generic and social) history; for the musical, questions of form; for the war/ combat film, questions of nationhood and national experiences of modern \\art~lre; and for the gangster film, the relationship between the gangster as an exemplary figure and the social context out of which he emerges and to \\ hich he ans\yers. While not pretending to exhaust the releyant issues in any of these genres, these frameworks for discussion and analysis arc intended to shed light both on these indiyidual genres and on questions of genre theory ;llld interpretation as a whole.
CHAPTER -'
The Western: Genre and History
M
ore, and larger, claims han: been made for and about the \Vestern than any other film genre. It has a fair claim to be the longest-li'ed of all major film genres, as "ell as the most prolific. \Vesterns are immediately recognisable- anybody, C\en a nm'ice, can identif\ a Western within a few minutes' ,iewing time - and almost e,eryone knows, or thinks they kno", what makes a \Vestern a \Vestern. Instan tly recognisable '\Vestern' qualities, including not only the genre's classic iconogTaphy .. corrals and ten-gallon hats, swinging saloon doors and Colt re'ohers, stagecoaches and Cnalry charges, schoolmarms, saloon girls, showdowns and shoot-outs - but its abiding thematic clements - the frontier, 'the desert and the garden', 'dead or ali'e', ' a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do' -' are lodged deep in the American and indeed the global popular imagination. And this despite the fact that with the precipitate decline in production since the late [(nOS and [fl'i17:i'11'S Gilll' (H)~O) (only in small measure, hm,e,er, because of that film, Hollywood folklore notwithstanding), \\esterns han: increasingly become curiosities, relics of an older age in a film culture dominated by ne" er technologies of action spectacle like science fiction and techno-blockbusters. Westerns ha'T long been seen as a kind of master key to unlod.:ing and understanding the most basic elements of American identity. '\Vesterns appeal so much to us [i.e. AmericansJ,' according to Joan .\lellen (I<)<).t: +II), 'because they are explorations of who "T are, dr.lmas in "hich :\merica's soul, the national identity, hangs in the balance'. The particular complex of history, fantasy and ideology clustered around the 'frontier myth' codified in the Western has been assigned a central, e,en defining, place in the formation of American national identity and national character. This renders Western motifs, in particular the genre's emphasis on ritualised and usually lethal ,iolence as .1 means to personal .111l1 social regeneration, a handy and concise means of commenting' (usually negati\cly) on aspects of ,\merican
, '.
THE WESTER": (iE"RE AND HtSTORY
55
domestic or foreign policy. (Such critiques of course can be and ha,e been mounted from "ithin the genre itselt~ notably the 're\isionist' Westerns of the late 1<)60s and H)70S and the highly successful and influential European 'Spaghetti' Westerns of the same period.) .\lore than any other genre, too, the Western illustrates the use of genre as a means of mapping historical e:xperience onto popular media texts through an analysis of shifts in genre comentions. The exceptionally high degree of codification and comentionality to be found in Westerns makes tracing this process unusually' transparent. It is not necessarily true that the \Vestern possesses a more distincti\e iconography than other genres ,. a shot of Rz-Dz, Illr instance, sends just as clear a generic signal as John Wayne cradling a shotgun· but its semantic elements generally ha,e remained unusually stable ()\ er time. It is these constants, themsehes rooted in a clearly defined and limited (albeit he.nily fictionalised) historical setting, that in turn make the \\'estern's limited repertoire of narratin: situations and thematic preoccupations seem e:xceptionally condensed. Hence, perhaps, the "idespread belief that \Vesterns are both exceptionally formulaic and, partly as a result, gcnerically 'pure' in a "ay that genres less fixed in a particular time anu space, and less tightly bound by narrati'e con\ention (melodrama, say, or action-ad'enture films), are not. This consistency makes the \Vestern an attracti'e point of reference for theoretical accounts of genre film but also, as se'Tral recent commentators ha,e noted, probably an atypical example of genre film in general: in particular, setting up the \Vestern's unusual degree of (in ,\ltman's terms) semantic/syntactic continuity as a yardstick of g'eneric integrity seems an unduly prescripti'e and restricri'e critical approach (see "-cale, zooo: 1.",-+). In any case, e,en if as Buscombe (I<)~~: 15-16) says the Western's basic generic material displays a 'remarkable ... consistency and rigour', the perception of generic purity is at best only partly accuratc.·\ny ,iewer with more than a passing bmili'lrity with Westerns knows that the bad guy only occasionally wears a black hat, and that rarely if e'er is the only good Injun a dead Injun ..\s the list of 'hybrid' Westerns in Chapter I m.lkes clear, \\'esterns are as prone to generic mixing as any other gTI1IT. '\loreo,er, as we shall see, the genre's syntax (in ,\ltman's terms) has not only 'aried in some important ways mer time but has de'eloped une,enly in different intrageneric strains in the same period. :\c\ertheless, it is certainly true that the Western is ,I 'strong' generic fl)rm; Saunders (ZOOI: 6) notes the Western's 'ability to digest and shape ,tlmost any source material.' Of all genres it has been perhaps the most reliable to the widest audience for the longest period of time. This long and continuous history of a (notionally at any rate) historical genre makes history itself an appropriate frame for considering the genre. The sections below
56
FILM GENRE
address, respectively, the history of the genre and ongoing critical debates about that history; the influence of Western historiography on the Western's narrative and thematic material; the particular versions of the 'real' history of the West favoured by the Western at different points in its evolution; and the impact of contemporary historical events upon that evolutionary process.
HISTORIES OF THE WESTERN
The Western's semantic constituents coalesced at a remarkably early stage in the history not only of the genre but of cinema itself. Edwin S. Porter's eight-minute The Great Train RoMer)' (190 I), a landmark in the history of narrative cinema and often claimed as 'the first Western', \vas probably not received as such - rather than, say, a crime film or a train film - by its original audience (see Musser, 1990: 352-5; Altman 1999: pp. 3+-H). Ho\ve\u, its principal elements would become instantly recognisable iconographic and narrative touchstones for the genre: the masked outlaws, the carefully engineered hold-up, the fight atop the moving train, the posse, the chase on horseback, the climactic shoot-out. Even the structural opposition of ci\ilised/ effete East and rugged/savage West emphasised by Kitses (1969) and others is embryonically present in a barn dance interlude where the assembled cowboys torment a 'greenhorn' or 'dude' (immediately identifiable by his derby hat) by shooting at his feet. The film's status has undoubtedly been enhanced by the f:lmous extra-diegetic shot I of the moustachioed outlaw shooting directly at the camera, an iconic image that resonates through the subsequent century of Hollywood's most popular and prolific genre (Sergio Leone echoes Porter's act of specular aggression when Henry Fonda fires at the camera in 011ce Upon a Tillie in tlte HfSI, 19(9). Out of the very large critical literature on the Western, a fairly standard genre history has emerged whose outlines might be summarised as follows: having established itself as a popular genre if not with Porter then certainly by H)05, the Western thrives throughout the silent and early sound eras. The genre reaches its peak of both popularity and cultural centrality in a twentyyear period starting in the late 1930s. During the postwar decade, the Western is characterised by a self-conscious expansion and 'deepening' of its generic remit and takes in a greater range of psychological, narrative and sometimes political complexities. The 'adult' Westerns of the 1950S including such classics as Slta ne (195 I), H/~~1t XOOIl (H) 52), Tile Sfa rcllers (1955) and Rio Bral'o (1958) - are often either ostentatiously mythic (Sllil/le) or directly contemporary (H/~~II SOOIl, or the cycle of early 1950S 'pro-Indian' Westerns including BroA'Cll _~/TOlfJ, 1950, De1'l1 '.I DOOl'l/Jll)', 195 I, and _ipac!le, 195+) in their address. During the H)60s and intensifying in the 1970s, a
THE WESTERN: GENRE A:-.ID HISTORY
57
combination of interrelated factors - generic exhaustion, ideological confusion ,md shrinking audience appeal - led to the Western's 'demoralisation' (Slotkin, 199H: 6) and ultimately, despite (or, depending on the writer, partly because of) the injection of \'iolcnt pop energy from the Italian 'Spaghetti \\'estern', its eventual demise as a mainstream Hollywood genre by the end ufthe 1970s. Although the subsequent decades have seen occasional nostalgic ITvivals and the genre's core thematic preoccupations - in particular, the myth of the frontier - persist in other genres (notably science fiction), the \\'estern must now be regarded as a largely historical form. \ reliable feature of such histories is the assertion of the Western's ccntrality to the history of the American film industry, reflected in the cnormous number of \Vesterns produced - more than any other g'Cnre - from thc early silent period until the 1970s, and the Western's consistent popularity with (some) audiences throug'hout much of that period. Yet most such accounts imolve a striking if unacknowledged anomaly. On the one hand, the sheer scale of Western production, which during the genre's years of peak popularity saw wTll mer a hundred \Vesterns released each year (Buscombe, 1<)8H: +26-7, estimates some 3,5°0 films in the sound era alone), importantly sustains the large - sometimes \Try large - critical claims made for the \\'estern's importance as a cultural document. On the other hand, in pursuing such claims \\'estern criticism has tended to rely very heavily on rather a small selection of this enormous filmogTaphy perhaps two dozen films, almost all of them made after the Second World War II. The most influential and frequently cited discussions of the Western have tended to conduct an internal comersation about a \TrV limited number of films that together f()rm an established Western 'canon': Slage(()ac!1 (I<J39); infi'equentl~ .I1lother late HnOS prestige Western such as .lesse .lallles (H)+O); Ford's AI)' /)adillg C/elllCllI ille (19+6) and his 'en aIry trilogy' - Fori. iparlle (19+H), Site /I ore a } clio II' Ri/J/)(I/l (1<).10), Rio Gtilllde (19.11); Howard Hawks' Red Ril'er and RIO Bra,'o; SllilllC; Anthony ~lann's series of 1<).10S Westerns - especiall~ lIilldlcsler '7') (1950) and Tltc\"alml Spllr (I<)53, both with James Stewart), ,1l1dHall oFillc ifni (19.1H, \vith Gary Cooper); Ford's Tltc Scanlters, and perhaps one of the 19.10S 'pro-Indian' Westerns, most likely BroA'cII .'lrrolfJ; nlc Jlall IU/() SI/()I Li/Jerl)' "alallte (H)62, Ford ag'ain); Sam Peckinpah's Tltc /lilt! BUllc!1 (1969). These, plus a few post-197° films, notably LilliI' B/~r: .Mal1 (((no), _HeCi/lle alld .HrsHlller (1971), Peckinpah's Pal Carrell alld Bill)' Ihc kid (r973), and the newest candidate for entry into the pantheon, Unjil/-gtl'en (I<)92), are rewarded with ongoing debate and reinterpretation. 'The Western' thus concei\ed becomes all but synonymous with a selection of prestigc \\'esterns from the postwar era, \yith moreoyer a strongly auteurist slant in the emphasis on Ford, .\lann, Peckinpah and most recently Eastwood. Slagt'Coac!1 remains in such accounts - including most recently Coyne (1997)
5~
FILM GENRE
and Saunders (2001) - as it was for Wars how and Bazin, a watershed if not actually a foundational film in which the 'mature' genre's principal motifs and concerns crystallise for the first time. Nobody of course claims that Westerns had not been made prior to 1939; rather, it is asserted that only then was 'the time ... evidently ripe for the Western to take its place as a major Hollywood genre' (Coyne, 1997: 16). Like Wright (1975) before him, Coyne (1997) attempts to construct clear and transparent criteria for producing a representative sample, using either production budgets or box office returns as a useful and, on the LICe of it, relatively objective measure to identify 'major' Westerns within this 'major genre'. The question is whether such 'major' works alone - e\Tn if one accepts the criteria fix selection - necessarily constitute the most appropriate sample for understanding a genre. We encounter here an important problem in genre studies: the process of selection and exclusion through which a generic corpus is constructed. Largely \Hitten out of the standard accounts are not onh many 'A' Westerns of the [()50S amI early- to mid-1960s, but the lite;'ally thousands of silent Westerns and the 'B' (or series) Westerns of the [()3os and early 1940S - the menvhelming majority, in EICt (at a very rough estimate some 75-i{0 per cent), of all of the American \Vesterns eyer released. 2 Thus the \Vestern constructed through comentional genre histories is a somewhat inex,ICt mirror of the Western as actually produced and consumed fex approximately half its life-span. Of course, the critical construction of almost any artistic field, the Victorian novel no less than the \Vestern, is marked by a process of emon formation through \\ hich classics and major artists arc established, subsequently del\ving the greater proportion of critical attention and defining the key terms of debate in the field. i\nd developing any coherent account of 'the \Vestern' out of a vast field \\ ill quite clearly require some degree of selectivity: few critics have been \\illing to undertake the truly Herculean vie\\ing' task a truly comprehensive account of the genre \\ould entail. But this problem of requiring a quite clearly unrepresentative sample - in purely statistical terms at am rate - to 'stand in' for a \asth_ Iaru;er . field . ' and the difficultv- of g,lUging the merit of the claims made for or about that larger field through analysing such a sample, is a longstanding one; it is particularly vexed in the context of popular media studies, where it is compounded by problems of marketplace competition and access to material (infrequently screened on television, rarely featured in genre or autcur retrospectives, even the rene\ved profitability of the major studios' film libraries during the video explosion of the early Iqi{os did little to restore the visibility of series Westerns produced by Republic or .\lonogram). Beyond the usual questions of bi.ls and ideological preference that canon formation inevitabl~ raises (sec Fokkema, [()q6; Gorak, H)9 I), the specific critical problems \vith such extreme selectivity in relation to \Vesterns are
,
THE WESTERN: GENRE AND HISTORY
59
perhaps twofold. In the first place, a general rule of Hollywood production throughout the classical period was that the larger the budget, the more extended a film's audience appeal needed to be. Whereas routine, low-cost programme \Vesterns could earn a decent return from the Western's core extra-urban and regional audience alone, bigger stars and higher production ,.liues necessarily entailed outreach beyond that core eonstitueney.3 This requirement of generic amortisation becomes all the more pressing with the spiralling budgets of the 0.'ew Hollywood: accordingly, when embarking on \\hat eventually became Ht'{[l"CIl's GI/lt' (198o), the infamous $40 million rmge\\ar catastrophe that would lose most of them their jobs and virtually b,mkrupt their studio, United Artists' production executives balked at \ lichael Cimino's script's original title - PI/ydlrl - which struck them as 'very \\cstern indced' (and undesirably so, given the genre's long-term declining popularity) (Bach, 19i{5: (76).~ This is not simply an issue of marketing ,lithough if box office returns are to be used as sampling criteria, what audiences expected to sec in a particular film is surely as important as what modern critics of the Western see today -' but also of content. A prestige \\cstern might, felr example, include a more fully developed romantic interest to dra\\ in female audiences, as in the Errol Flynn-Olivia de Havilland star \chicle ThC)' Dit'd IVllh Their Bools On (Il)41). In short, 'A' Westerns- a category into which most of the canonical films listed above would Eli I might \\ell be less generically representati\c in so f~lr as, by design, they k,lture elements that transcend, and hence extend, the \Vestern's essential generic hame. Indeed, much of the discussion of these canonical \Vesterns turns out to ti>eus on just such qualities of generic innovation and extension. The postwar films on \\hich most scholarship has f(lcused are typically disting'uished from pre\\ar 'B' \Vesterns (not to mention the progLlmme \Vesterns that continued to be produced in sig'nificant numbers until the late 1l)50s) by higher hudgets, more complex approaches to character and history, and quite explicit in many cases hig'hly elaborate and self-conscious - attempts to extend and/ or transgress generic comentions and boundaries: all characteristics that naturally recommend themse!\'es to critics frequently schooled in techniques or literary analysis for whom complexity, formal experimentation, etc., are privileged qu,liities. This in turn raises a second difficulty: felr the claim of these films' generic nme!ty (hence usually, at least by impliCltion, artistic '>uperiority) necessarily relics on their deviation hom or ad'lptation of generic norms \vhich, however, are thcmsehes typically .lssumed rather th,m exemplified or explored. It is timely then that the history of the \\'estcrn genre is currently the subject of a scholarly range war, or at least a border skirmish. The standard narrative of the genre's evolution is being' challenged ,1l1d the Western's
60
FILM GE:-JRE
generic map partly rewritten. This inevitably complicates matters for students - not least because it inevitably tends to emphasise films outside the existing canon, many of them difficult to access - but should nonetheless be \\e1comed as rebalancing a long-standing problem of critical bias. Gallagher (I (95) argues that the standard account rhetorically constructs a large, and largely unseen, body of prewar films as naively primitive purely to prO\ide an unflattering comparison with the psychological and ideological complexities and ironies of thc postwar Western. S Neale (2000) and Stanfield (2001), among others, have also strongly criticised the distortions caused by the obviously partial .~. both incomplete and also pa rl i pris - version of a long and extensive genre history summarised above. The loss of so many silent films of all kinds, and the extremely limited circulation of all but a few of those that h,ne sunin:d, makes serious study of the silent Western very difficult for all but specialists. Seminal Western stars such as Broncho Billy Anderson, Tom \'lix and William S. Hart, although their films established many of the genre's enduring formulae, are for most modern viewers dimly glimpsed figures the other side of a sizeable historical and cultural chasm. HowC\er, contemporary scholarship has started to give the silent Western its generic due, as reflected in recent books by Lusted (200.r (>7-94-) and Simmon (200T 3-rn)..\longside studies of the early Western as an important discourse for mediating and refining .\merican white male identity in the Progressin: era, a period in which mass immigration and the spectre of racial pollution troubled the white imagination (Slotkin, 1()9R: 24-2-52; Abel, 199R), a growing body of \vork has paid attention to the unexpected complexities of the representation of Native .\mericans in preFirst World War Westerns (Aleiss, 1995; Griffiths, 1996, 2002; Jay, 2000). The latter research sug;gests that some prevailing; assumptions about the novelty of canonical postwar 'pro-Indian' \Vesterns such as BrokclI .·lrrllll', Dail's DillinI'll)' amI .,lpad/c may need to be re-examined. The problem posed by the critical neglect of 'B' - or, more accurately, series - \Vesterns is even more acute, particularly since unlike the silcnts this body of films is largely extant (and has recently started to find its way onto home video). !V1ore than a thousand Westerns were produced during the HnOS. Howe\er (following the box-office failure in HnO of the prestige Westerns Thc BI~I!, Trail- the film intended to break John Wayne as a major star, which instead consigned him to series Westerns fClr the rest of the decade - and Cill/arrllll), only a handful of these \\ere 'A.' pictures. :\ot until the very end of decade did the' .-\' Western see a renaissance that persisted through US entry into the Second World \Var at the end of 194-1. Yet today, as Peter Stanfield (2001) points out in the introduction to his path breaking' recent study, the series \Vestern is almost entirely forgotten, consigned to the same memory hole as the silents, treated as juvenile ephemera of interest only
I
THE WESTERN: GENRE AND HISTORY
61
to collectors and their numerous buffish enthusiasts. As with Hart and Mix in the silent era, the names at least of some series Western stars remain very familiar - Wayne, of course, and in particular, the 'singing' cowboys' Gene .\utry and Roy Rogers - but the films that made their fortunes, to say nothing of their writers and directors, are today hardly known except to specialists and 'bufTs'. Similarly, the series Western has been mostly ignored by serious criticism. Slotkin (1998: 271-7) devotes just seven of Gun./ighter \allllil's 850 pages to a consideration of 1930S series \Vesterns. In his seminal cssay on Westerns, Warshow ([1954] HJ7Sb) in the same breath dismisses silents and 'Bs' alike ell nIasse as 'nothing that an adult could take seriously' . \\hile confessing to having never seen a single example of either! It seems that the popular conception of the Western as formulaic and simplistic relies upon a sort of folk memory of childhood Saturday matinees or faded television showings of such films. Stanfield (I 99R, 2001) argues that the settlement of the frontier (see bclrm) is much less important to 1930S series Westerns than issues around land O\\Oership, regionalism and urbanisation. The critically despised singing \\esterns of Gene Autry - most of which featured contemporary, not frontier settings - directly addressed 'the difficulties his audience confronted in making the socioeconomic change from subsistence farming to a culture of consumption, from self~employment to industrial practices and wage dependency, from rural to urban living' (Stanfield, 199R: 1q). Leyda's (2002) work on a variant form even further below the critical radar of standard accounts, the 'race' (black audience) Western, has found striking similarities with the mainstream series \Vestern. Such research, simply by extending the genre's historical and critical puniew, changes the context for understanding the Western. In the case of the post-Second World \Var \Vestern, more research remains to be done on the significant number of routine Westerns still being produced until the l11id- 1960s. The key task facing genre criticism of the post- 194-5 period, however, may be less the extension of the canon _. as we have seen this is already heavily \veighted towards the postwar \Vestern - than critical interro~!;ation of the received understanding of the genre's central preoccupation in this period- the frontier.
THE WEST(ERN) OF HISTORY :\eale points out that the critical focus on the theme of the frontier largelv constructed in terms of the 'desert! g'arden' opposition derived from John Ford by structuralist critics, not only obscures large portions of the historical record of \Vestern production but has also tended to have difficulty with ,
L.
62
FILM GENRE
such important categories of contemporary criticism as gender, sexuality and class. 'It is at least worth asking whether the male-orienled \ersions of frontier mythology promoted by post-war western theorists are borne out in full by the industry's output, or whether the critical preference has tended to obscure the existence of ... other trends and titles' (:\eale, 2000: q2). It is equally important to consider whether, in light of renewed critical interest in the series Western, the Western's apparent preoccupation with the idea of the frontier itself represents a significant shift of generic f(Jeus, and what the factors impelling that shift might ha\e been. Whereas Slotkin (I99~), for example, argues for the ideological centrality of the frontier myth throughout the twentieth century and indeed before, Engelhardt (IlN5) proposes that a prog;ressi\e crisis in the dominant '\ictory culture' in the post\\ar period, attendant on social change and setbacks and confusions in f()reign policy, made con\entional notions of American identity, such as those \Tsted in the frontier myth, objects of urgent debate, The institutionalisation of the myth of the frontier as the dominant paradigm for discussing the Hollywood Western owes a good deal to two influential, loosely 'structuralist' studies that adapted U~\i-Strauss's model to identify the Western's basic conceptual materials - its imaginati\e building-blocks. Jim ~itses (19()9) identified a set of 'shifting; antinomies' (p. I I) org.mised around a central opposition of \\ilderness and ci\ilisation,r' while Will Wright (H)75) outlined f(lUr main models of Western narrati\es and their numerous \ariant subsets.! These and other accounts of the \Yestern in many ways take as their point of departure the \\estern's imbrication in American history. Nor is this surprising: the Western is, ostensibly ,It least, the most historically specific and consistent of all film genres. :\ccording to Phil Hardy, 'the Western is fixed in history in a relati\e1y straightforward way': specifically, 'the frontier, and, more particularly, the frontier between the Ci\il War and the turn of the century, forms the backdrop to most Westerns' (Hardy, 1991: x-xi). Hardy freely acknmYledges, as do most similar sur\eys, the need f()r g'enerie boundaries flexible enough to accommodate such ob\ious '\Yesterns', albeit displaced in time and/or space, as Drullls ..Jlli/lg f/ie .Hlilllll!'J: (1939, set in Colonial :'\iew England), Clili,I!.IIll's BIIII.! (I96~, a contemporary urban thriller) and Wesf}}Jlirld (I<)73, a science fiction film), Hardy's identification of 'the frontier' as the general organising imag'inati\e and conceptual axis of the \Vestern is also entirely cOl1\entional. :\nd like \irtu,llly e\ery other \\Titer on the \Vestern, he asserts from the outset that the \Yestern transf()rms historical material into archetypal myth. Yet there is nonetheless an inherent underlying problem in using 'the frontier' as a straightf()\'\\ard historical category and a means of arguing the historicity of the \\estern. For, as this section explores, the \ersion of history that in such accounts is 'mythified' by
I ;
THE WESTER:"J: GE'JRF. AND HISTORY
63
the Western is itself already as much myth as history - and, like so many \Yesterns, consciously so, 'The frontier' has a decepti\ely precise and stable ring: but according to its most influential chronicler, historian Frederick Jackson Turner, whose celebrated ([ 19.+71 1986) essay 'The Closing of the American Frontier' defined the terms of Western historiography for oyer half a century, in reality the frontier was always and by definition mobile, not a clear boundary but an uncertain and shifting; prospect alongside, or just ahead, of the leading edge ofthc \\hite colonial ad\'ance across the North American continent. Although "hite settlement took some three hundred years, from the early se\enteenth century to the uawn of the t\\entieth, to span the continent fl'om the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the generic f()Cus of the modern Western is usually on the decades f()IIO\\ing the end of the Ci\il War. These \\ere decades of largescale industrialisation and population grm\lh during which, with the support of the federal gO\Trnment in Washington and encourag'ed by enthusiastic hoosterism in the Eastern press, the major \\'a \e of white colonisation penetrated the Llstnesses of the American interior west of the wlississippi, The defining images of this epochal story - the co\ered wagon; the construction of the transcontinental railroad; the 'claim' staked out in the trackless prairie; the one-street frontier township; the cowboy as the paradig;matic \Yesterner; abO\T all, the encounter of white settlers with the 1'\ati\e \merican tribal populations they aimed to displace and the subsequent brutal [ndian \Yars, the C\:terminatiH~ campaigns of pacification waged by the US Cl\alry on the colonists' behalf - in turn became the key motifs of the \\estern film. Turner's fi'ontier thesis is worth exploring briefly- not least beCiuse recent challenges to the Turnerian account of \Yestern history ha\'e had as decisi \e, if mediated, ,\11 impact on the Western as did the intellectual and conceptual hegemony of the origin.ll argument. For Turner, the mO\ing lI'ontier had been the defining element of :\merican history, .'\s a source of 'fi'ee land', the seemingly inexhaustible \Yestern wilderness allowed American society to grO\\ and de\e1op in unique ways (Turner, [1<).+7] 19~6: 259 6 I). Because of the challeng'Cs of pacifying and settling the fi'ontier, the American national character \\as shaped not by the urban class conflicts that typified the industrialising European economies during the nineteenth century, but by the encounter between ci\ilisation and untamed, sometimes sa\ag;e nature (p. 3f.). In fact, the frontier acted as a 'safety \ahc' for potentially explosi\'e cLJss conflicts by allowing marginalised social elements - the poor, newly arri\ed immigrants, etc. - to start afresh and f()I'ge their O\\n destinies while playing' their part in the inexorable athance of :\mericm ci\ilisation (pp. 263~). The frontier \\,IS thus nothing less than the 'crucible' of :\merican democracy, and its singular and defining aspect.
64
THE WESTERN: (jE:'oJRE AND HISTORY
FILM GENRE
Even on such a heavily abbreviated account, the power of Turner's thesis is clear. Its historical sweep and the bold, broad brushstrokes with which Turner outlines an entirely novel account of American historv certainly captured the public imagination as fnv other academic theses did, a resuit that Turner doubtless fully intended \\hen he deli \cred his original paper at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in July IH93 (see Peterson, 199.r 7435)· And the influence of the e:xtensively popularised 'Turner thesis' on the fictive \Vest is widespread and profound, Sometimes the debt is e:xplicitly acknowledged, as in the debate concerning the nature of 'progress' conducted by the civic worthies heading to the frontier to\m of Dodge Cil)' (1939) on the first westbound train. More generally, the schematisation of the frontier experience in terms of a Turnerian opposition bet\\een the \'alues of (White) civilisation and the r~l\\ wilderness (tvpically including the non-White cultures of Native .\mericans) is readily identifiable in numerous \Yesterns, and figures consistently as the central preoccupation of the genre's t\VO precminent directors in the sound era, John Ford and Sam Peckinpah, Although a full exploration is beyond the scope of the present work, a brief look at the genre's treatment of social space reveals the impact of Turner's ideas on Westerns, The most quintessentially 'civilised' of spaces, thc city, enjoys a very mixed reputation in \Yesterns, .\s ELhvard Buscombe (I9 HH : HH) notes, a significant proportion of the population of the Old West lived in cities; \ct cities as such arc offscreen presences, railheads, unreached destinations (such as Junction City, \\here the train \\ill be held 1<1I' Senator and Mrs StOlltLtrd at the end of Th1' Hall Who SI/()l 1"A'l'll' [ilii/llce), points of pioneer departure or cultural reference' pre-eminently such paradigmaticIlly 'Eastern' cities as Boston, \\ hence hail Doc Holliday and Clementine \\ith their ambivalent baggage of both culture and corruption in. H)' Dar/illg C!('///('111ill1' (194-6). The inclusion of an actual cityscape in a \\estern (Caspar in //('(11.'1'1/ 's Gille, or "lachine in neill!. HI/II, 199.5) is a cast-iron guarantee of re\isionist intent. Numerous \Ycsterns Ii'om /fell's flillges (I<)16) on h,1\e what mig'ht be ca lied proto-urban setting,'s, usually '\\'ide-open', i.e. ,1S yet virtually tl\\less, to\\nships \\ hose sustailubility remains \ ery unceruin, and \\ hose pacification thus prO\ides the basic narrati\ e material of the 'to\mtaming' \\'estern (I<Jr example, J)odge Cil)' and its se\eral imitators). The 'settled' Tonto and the '\\ ide-open' Lordsburg', the t\VO to\\ns that bookend the EIleful journey in Slil,!;(,(OilCh, respectively embody snobbery, bigotry and hypocrisy, and \iolence, anarchv. and degradation: the decided Iv. mixed 'blessings of civilisation', as the lilm's L1l110US closing line puts it. Similar ambiguities beset the representation in \\esterns of the city's 'other', the \\ilderness. The \\'estern is, of course, supremely a genre of exteriors, .\lore accurately, it is a genre \vhere definitive experiences and understandings are usually to be 1<)lll1d out of doors, preferabh in the
f
65
unconfined spaces of prairie, sierra or desert. Although interior spaces do rc,lture regularly, they usually have the rough, unfinished, provisional quality one \\ould expect of frontier settlements - sometimes literally, as in the dlllrch, as yet barely a scaffold outline against the big sky, around which the I1<1SCen t community of Tombstone gather in dedication of the building and of themsehes in one of the most celebrated sequences in any Western (in fact, in all .\merican cinema) in Ford's H)! DI/r/illg ClemClliille. By contrast, the jl'1'r~-built, half-finished \\Teck of a house built by Little Bill, the brutal, ,11110ral sheriff of Big Whisky in Ulljiirgi,'CII, points not to an evolving ci\ ilisation but to one in civic and moral decline. The crudely functional quality of most \\'estern interiors ,- saloons, homesteads, cabins - confesses their ne\\ness and confirms the need for ongoing decisive action beyond the threshold if their fragile purchase on the wilderness is not to be swept aside. (Refinements of design and elaborate architectural features tend to denote sL',\ual licence - such as the brothel in The C//(]'ClII/(' Socilt! Cll/h, 1970 1l1Oneyed corruption - the palatial ranch house in The B/~I!, CO/l1Iirv, 19.5H -. or both Barbara St~lI1\v~Tk's altogether 1111 I/'(; mansion in Samuel Fuller's \\ildly stylised PorlV Gllns, )().57.) It is not, however, purely in the depiction of these apparently dichotomous spaces, interior and exterior, urban and wilderness, but in the ambivalent relationship bet\\een and the \alues reposed in them, that the Western finds its determining ground. In the Ltmous paired opening and closing shots of nil' Smrdlers, Ethan Ed\vards respectively arrives li'om and retreats back into the desert that is his only real 'home', filmed in both cases from illside the \\,lrm darkness of a domestic space he is committed to defend yet within \\ hich he is a po\\erfully disruptive, even a destrueti\e, f<)ITe ..\nd although Ft han's e\ ery action bears po\\crfully on this sheltered E1milial space defending, avenging and finally restoring it - the sphere in which he conducts such decisive ,Iction, like the man himself, remains fundamentally separate ti'om and outside it. .\lthough he docs not cite Turner, I\..itses' 'shifting ,1I1tinomies' reflect classicalh Turnerian attitudes to\\ards the almost contradictory interdependency of \\i1derness and ciyilisation. For on the one hand Turner's account is a hymn to progress; hence the taming of the \\ilderness is a, perhaps lltl', quintessential .\merican triumph. But as the ad\ance of settlement moycs the (i'ontier \\'est\\ards, it also ine'l:orably shrinks it. Turner's p'1per therefore not only sought to make the case I<Jr the frontier as the dcfiniti\l~ aspect of the .\mcrican national experiencc, but explorcd the implications of its disappearance. The closing of lhe frontier X formally pronounced by the 1H90 Federal Census three years prior to Turner's presentation in Chicago - parad(nically threatened the Ycry .\merican democracy to \\hich it bore \\itness by climinating the force that made\merica unique, Thus there is an undertow of both nost,tlg'ia and anxiety for thc
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future in Turner's survey of an ostensibly triumphant present: contradictory but powerful impulses that the postwar Western in particular would take up and make its own. The ambivalences and ironies of the 'closing' of the frontier came to dominate the imaginative landscape of the postwar Western. Although Western film-makers have largely ignored the conclusions Turner drew,9 Westerns have long drawn on the yaledictory quality of his account as a source of dramatic tension and elegiac colour. 'Boys,' intones \Villiam S. Hart in his final film Tumbleweeds (1928), 'it's the last of the West'. Ford's The Man Who Shot Libert)1 Valill/re deals quite explicitly with the 'closing of the frontier' theme, with the film's protagonist Ransom Stoddard an advocate of statehood and the rule of law and the yillainous Valance the hireling of big ranching interests who have profited from the more loosely regulated territorial status. Valance is a psychopathic thug and there is no question where the film's sympathies lie. Yet Valance's actual killer, the honorable frontiersman Tom Doniphon, retreats into the (literal and figurative) shadows and subsequently declines to an alcoholic pauper's death in a way that suggests that the cry - 'I jberty's dead!' - that rings through Shinbone following Valance's murder carries an ironic charge. The film's rich symbolic lexicon makes it clear that the story of Shinbone is a parable of the closing of the frontier and an object lesson in the 'yalences' of 'liberty'. Two other notable Westerns released along'side Libcrl)' Tii/allre in 1962, Lonel)' .cJre the Brllz'e and Peckinpah's Ride the llip,h COllllliy, dealt with the same theme. With these three films, the elegiac strain present from the Western's inception emerg'ed as the dominant theme of the decades during which the genre itself experienced its most marked and seeming'ly terminal decline. The 'end-of-the-Iine' Western, in which the Western hero is brought LICe to LICe with the inescapable Llct of his 0\\11 redundancy, dominated the genre in the I960s and I970s. BIIlth Cassidy IIl1d the SlIl/(llIlIte Alii (1969) meet their doom in a mood of amiable acquiescence rather than bloody despair, and with the consolation of their crystallisation into legend; the doomed heroes of Dealh (~r a Gllldighicr (1969), Wild ROn'rs (1971) or Tom Hom (1980) are less fortunate, their ugly, painful deaths merely testif~ing to the yenality of the societ y that has lost its use for them. TT ill PCI//lY (I 9(n), ,Hllllie Walsh (HnO), seyeral modern-day Westerns including The .Hls/ils (1962), Hlld (1963) and a cycle of early I970S rodeo films - J. W Coop, TUCI/ Ihe Legends Die, The JJOIIJ.:crS and Peckinpah's .lll/lior BOllller (all I97r) rendered the mythic West's heroic codes bleakly irrele\ ,mt to the working Westerner's subsistence-Ieyel daily grind. :\lany of these films seemed to be claiming to strip away the trappings of myth to sh(J\\ the \Vest 'as it really was'. On the other hand, their interest in doing so was clearly motivated by a desire to provide a counter-history (or myth) to the dominant one. This
,
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67
raises questions about the kind of history-making process in which Westerns themselyes participate, which the following pages \yill explore.
THE HISTORY OF WESTERNS 'This isn't the Wild West. I mean, e\Cn the Wild West wasn't the Wild West'. John Spartan (Syhester Stallone), Deff/olitioll MI/II (1993) Recent critiques of the Turner thesis make it very clear that Turner selfconsciously rendered his account of frontier history in the simplified, archetypal terms of national myth. Much the same can of course be said about the film Western. Film-makers consistently attest to the rigour of their historical research and the resulting historical 'authenticity' of their productions indeed there is a sort of generational contest in this, each new wave of \\estern film-makers aiming to retrine a 'truer' picture of the 'real West'. But nen the first great Western stars of the silent era, Broncho Billy \nderson and (especially) William S. Hart, derived the outward trappings of their screen personae from the elaborate paraphernalia of the Wild West Show cO\yboy more than his comparatiyely drab real-world working counterpart (see Lusted, 200]: 90) ..\nd the powerful character types they synthesised notably Hart's 'Good Bad :\:lan' - in their turn established firm rep resenLltional parameters (and created audience expectations) against which subsequent film-makers wcre inn-itably compelled to define their own \ crsions of the \Vest, even if their stated intention was to return beyond such fictions to a putative historical actuality. In the wake of modern histories of the West - which have had an undeniable, if usually rather delayed and unpredictably mediated, impact upon the fictional \Vestern (see \VorLmd and Countryman, H)98) it has become apparent that some of the \Vestern's most central motifs have their origins in the intersection of popular memory, cultural myth and ideological necessity rather than 'real' history. To take one example, the professional ~unfighter, a key figure in the postwar Western from The Glllljighicr (1950) to The QllltJ.: alld Ihe Del/d (1995), 'for whom formalized killing \vas a calling and e\Cn an art,' is, as Slotkin (1998: 38-4-) puts it, 'the imention of movies ' .. the reHection of Cold \Var-era ideas about professionalism and yiolence and not of the mores of the Old \Vest'. Even guns, or at least handguns, may have been less ubiquitous than \Vesterns would have us believe: Robert \Itman is perhaps on to something in .HtCl/he I/lld JlrsHiller (1971) when the sidearm .\lcCabe sports proHlkes curious/alarmed comment upon his arriyal in the mining settlement of Presbyterian Church (it is left deliberately unclear whether .\lcCabe is indeed, as the townsfolk assume, the notorious
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gunslinger 'Pudgy' McCabe, or indeed whether 'Pudgy' is himself merely another figment of the frontier imagination). MoreoHT, the process of rendering history as myth is the explicit focus of a significant number of important post\yar \Vesterns. Historians themselyes - especially if one broadens that categ'ory to include reporters and dime noyelists - feature surprisingly frequently in Westerns, particularly from the Ig60s onwards as the genre becomes marked by ,1 gnl\\ing self-consciousness about its role in fabricating the national self-image. The I I2-year-old Jack Crabbe in J.ilt/l' Big /HI/il tells his life story to a bemused ethnographer, \\hile sensationalising hacks arc a standard feature of most yersions of the Billy the Kid story. Perhaps the most LImous line of dialogue in any Western (the apocryphal 'a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do' aside) is spoken by one such chronicler towards the end of John Ford's The /HI/II Who Shol J.//Jl'rl)! VI//allce. The local newspaper editor in the \Vestern outpost has just listened to hometown celebrity US Senator Ransom Stoddard's startling confession: the heroic reputation on which Stoddard has built a national political career - that many years before in the streets of Shinbone, then a Ia\yless fi'ontier outpost, Stoddard shot down the notorious gunman Liberty Valance - is in f;'lCt a lifdong lie. In reality it was local rancher Tom J)oniphon, \\hose pauper's funeral Stoddard has returned to Shinbone to attend, \\ ho shot Valance unseen to saye the greenhorn Eastern Ll\\yer fi'om cert.lin death. Stoddard W'll1ts to set the record straight as a form of restitution - to the dead Doniphon, to his \yifi: Hallie (originally Doniphon's girl) to history, to himself. Yet the newspaper editor refuses to print Stoddard's truthful, but IT\isionist, account on the grounds that 'This is the \Vest, sir. \Vhen the legend becomes Ller print the Ieg:end!' - a m,lxim often cited as a reflC\i\c summary by the genre's most celebrated film-maker on the \\estern's o\\n ambiguous relationship to history. In the film's account of ho\y hisron is \\Titten, alternate \ersions ,1l1d perspecti\es arc .1\ ailable onl~ through Ellltasy, a point Ford underlines by employing' a self--consciousl~ stilted, almost archaic \isual style during Stoddard's flashback, marking the element of self-sening distortion in his account; ho\\c\er, this remains the only account \\e ha\c. 'History' begins and ends in leg"Cnd, and that legend is essentially autonomous of eilher historical LIct or any indi\idual retelling of it. So the lesson Ransom Stoddard finally learns as he, like Tom Doniphon in his coffin, is nailed back into the mythical identity \\ hich time, circUmsLll1Ce and historical necessity ha\e all forced upon him, is that while this may not be the (\\cstern) history he (or we) want, it remains the histor~ \\e\e got. lIence ,my nai\-e ,lttempt to 'set the record straight' is doomed by its O\\n idealistic illusion that history exists outside of retellings of it; the ideological 0\ erdetermination of some stories prohibits their redemption fi'om \yithin the representational paradigms
THE WESTERN: GENRE AND HISTORY
69
b\ which those stories are comeyed. By this pitiless generic logic, not only
~ust the legend, famously, be printed-, but the possibility of printing (or
filming) anything else - anything more 'truthful' - ne\er really existed. :\ similar implication is communicated by the rather majestic final shot of Sergio Leone's OIlCl' CPOII 1/ T/Ille /11 .1/11er/cl/ (1969), the Spaghetti Western maestro's first American studio picture. As the dust settles on the climactic ~lInfight to which the entire epic film has been inexorably building in orthodox ~Tneric fashion, and the suniying gunfighter, with equal predictability, rides into the sunset, the first train arri\"Cs on ne\Y)y laid rails into the embryonic to\\I1 of S\yeet\\at<:r and the frontier life fades before our yery eyes. As if to confirm that the railroad and the monopoly capitalism it represents are indeed harbingers of historical time and the simulLmeous retreat of the m~ thie \Vest into legend, the film's title (excluded from the opening credits), etched in classic '\\estern' typeElCe, spirals into the frame and eyentually Lldes ,I\\ay into the dusty plains. Thus OIlCl' .,. purports to prO\ide the prehistory of the \\estern. But for the specLltor, the film's representational paradox is that this prehistory has itself been ,lCcessible only in the terms of the \\estern itself. For \\hile the action of the film may address the Western myth's foundational moment, it CIll do so only in the genre's own paradigmatic narrati\e and characterological norms (silent re\Tng-er, 'outla\\ hero', Bad \lan, unscrupulous businessman, \yhore, etc.). OIlCl' ... strips bare the \\estern's claims on historictl \crisimilitude .111d pushes its innatel~ ritualised and stylised aspects to near-parodic extremes that cyacuate the film of narrati\e credibility and ps~ chological realism alike, to the point where we hecome fundamentally a\yare only of the pre-gi\en structural reh!tions het ween generic clements. Leone's ludic film at e\ er~ stage cha lIeng"Cs the \Vestern's ,lbility to sustain g"Cnuine historical enquiry ,111d dC\e1ops the object lesson in gcneric necessity taught Ransom Stoddard in 1./IlerlJ' l-il/IIIICl' into its central pcr/()rmati\c contradiction. The not-so-simple truth is that f()r the spectator there is no ,Iccess throug'h representation to any putati\e time 'hcf()re' the "-estern itself - and no spectator of 0/1(,' L pOll II 1'/1111' /11 lhl' Iresl could doubt it hence no possi bi lity of direct his torica I represen ta tion. In ot her \yords, in the \Vest it h,ls ah\a~s already been 'Once upon ,I time'. Cii\cn this ineluctable textuality, it should come as no surprise that the film \\estern's \ersion of "estern history is often only loosel~ \\edded to the historical \\est ITeo\cred by historians. For example, although the story of the settlement of the \Vest is in large part a story of Elrming and entrepreneurial acti\ity, Schatz (1981: -t~'n notes that the \\estern typically pays merc lip senice to the agrarian \\ays of life that it narrati\e1y champions: from ,')'//(/111' to PiI/l' R/da (IgSA) the \irtuous, ind ustrious husbandsman is opposed to the ruthless rancher, prodig.11 of l1
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as little to do with agriculture - though it has much to do with rural values - as it does with history'. Farmers and small businessmen (as opposed to cattlemen ,md rohher harons) are rarely central figures in \Vesterns - unless like Jesse JlIl/les (1<,)39) or The Olltlllll' JIl.I'e)1 TVllies (H)76) restlessness or injustice compels them to abandon their homesteads. Exceptions to this rule, such as GollI' Soulh (1978) and The Bllilad o(Llllle]o (I<)()S) tend also to be generically atypical in other ways. It is after all not the rich loam of Missouri or Idaho but the red dust of Arizona and the austere peaks of the Rockies that supply the genre's most readily recognisahle landscapes. In f:lCt, the postwar Western often discO\·ers a pathos in the conflict of irreconcilahle values bet\\een the itinerant cowboy or gunfighter and the Llrming communities he defends and to which he is partly drawn, yet which he can never become part of. Despite little Joey's heartbroken appeals, Shane rides ~l\\ay into the plains whence he arrived, perhaps [Hally \\ounded ..\s the t\\O suni ving memhers of The Hagl1ljircllt SCI'ell (lq60) depart the :Vlexican village they have saved from marauding handits (a third has returned to his own peasant roots), it seems to Chris, the Seven's IClder, that 'the [lrmers won. \Ve lost. We always lose' (HUOS 'B' Westerns, hy contr,lst, typically ended \\ith the hero romantically paired off and headed directly for the altar, supporting Sunfield's (I qq8, 200 I) argument that the settlement of the frontier is much less important to these films than land ownership, to which since the Regency and \"ictorian novel comedies of marriag"e ha\c heen intimately linked). In short, the image of the historical West in the Western is ahvays and already just that· an inugT, {i-amed in the lig·ht of a historical record that is itself anything· but innocent and impartial. This of course does not mean that \Vestern history is in any facile sense 'unreal' or 'false'. It does, hmvever, mean that such histories ha\c heen hom the outset 'mcrdetermined' cultural productions"· that is, subject to multiple and sometimes contradictory causal t:lCtorS. As ·\Iexandra Keller (ZOOI: 30) observes, 'if \\·esterns had no real relationship to historical discourse, they would hardly have the p(mer they do. But the relationship is far more complex than the genre itself typicall~ suggests'. Janet Walker (ZOOI) points out that Westerns are rooted in history in some fairly ol1\ious ~et also fundamental ways. \Vesterns clearly draw on the documented history of the West for their narrati\c premises. Individual historical figures likc Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, George Armstrong· Custer, '\\ ild Bill' Hickok, 'Calamity Jane' (.\larthy Cannery), Geronimo and many others figure centrally or peripherally in many \\"esterns, while the larger narrati\es of the Indian \Yars, the building of the transcontinental railroad and the Gold Rush supply a number of the basic \Yestern narrative paradigms identified by \\"right (I(ns) ~md sene ~IS a backdrop to fictitious stonlines.
THE WESTERN: GENRE AND HISTORY
71
.\-lore complexly, h()\\C\er, given that the 'real' history the Western exploits is itself 'fragmented, fuzzy and striated with fantasy constructions' (Walker, 2001: 10), it \\ould be equally naive to insist on any unambiguously [lCtual historical reality (to \\hich \ve could in any e\·ent have no unmediated access, since all history is of necessity constructed through discourse and narrative). The railroad- (and nation-) building epic The Iron Horse (1924) claims in its opening titles to be 'accurate and faithful in every recorded particular', and climaxes in a tableau-like restaging of the famous meeting of the Continental and Pacific Railroads ,It Promontory Point in Utah. However, given that the image Ford recre~ltes here \vas itself carefully staged by ;'ailroad photographer .\. J. Russell, the precise nature of the 'history' being· rendered is open to question. As the final section of this chapter will discuss, most analyses of Westerns in [lCt emphasise the importance of the immediate contexts - industrial, social and/or political - of their production, or the \\estern's internal conversation around its O\vn evoh"ing generic paradig·ms, rather than focusing on the elements of Western history being recorded, even if those elements, as they frequently do, dramatise real events and personalities.
THE WESTERN IN HISTORY
Sam Peckinpah's Westerns of Iq6q-73, The Wild Buuth, The Bililild o(Cil/J/e lloguc and Pill Gilrrell illld Bill)' lite Kid arc quintessential examples of the 'end-of-the-line' Western discussed abme (p. (6). With Jllllior Bonller as a less tragic modern pemhmt, in these films Peckinpah explored the West's shrinking horizons and the \Yesterner's few remaining options in an era \\hen, as the Bunch's leader Pike Bishop (William Holden) memorably obsencs, '\Ye \c got to think beyond our g·uns. Them days arc closing· fast.' Peckinpah's protagonists typically find themsehcs unable or uO\\illing to 'ldapt to the new times, but equally unable to hold back the inexorable pace of soci~d change..\s Douglas Pye has commented (I C)1)6: 18), their 'range of action [is I finally limited in some cases to a choice of h(m to die' - as at the climaxes of Ride Ilze High COIIIIIIT and, above all, the notorious bloodbath in \\ hich the \\"ild Bunch finally immolate themsehes (and se\·eral score of \kxicm soldiers and camp foll(mers). Tellingly, the Bunch m~1ke their fin~11 stand surrounded by avatars of a technological modernity compared \\·ith \\ hose industrial killing practices their own brutality seems merely the violent child's pLly depicted in the film's viscerally upsetting opening sequCI1ce (children torturing insects). These murderous modern monuments include a Prussi,ll1 military ~ldvisor and a .\laxim gun, both foretelling the imminent l11ech~ll1ised mass slaughter of the First \Yorkl War (the film is set in 1<)!3), \mericll1 entry into \\hich conflict would definitively export the frontier of
72
FILM GENRE
American experience away from the Old West and into the \vider \vorld. This traumatic transition to modernity is at one level a moment in and of history; at another, this recorded history is also continuous \vith the historical moment of the film's production, within which one historically contingent consequence of America's own violent modernity was the Vietnam War, II-hose escalating bloody barbarism Peckinpah explicitly intended The Wild BIlIliPS unprecedented ferocity to invoke. (On Peckinpah, see Prince, H)<)<); Dukore 1999; Prince 19<)8; Seydor 1997.) Jack Nachbar (200T 17<)) writes that 'the suhject matter of Westerns has usually been the historical \Vest after 1850, but the real emotional and ideological subject matter has ill\ariably been the issues of the era in which the films were released.' The WIIrI Bllllch and other, more explicit' Vietnam \Vesterns' of the early H)70S such as LI///( B/~~ .Hall, Silidier Billc and U!::.af!a's Raid (1()7 I) are ob\ious instances where the \\-estern addresses itself to an immediately topical e\cnt outside its ostensible historical frame. In the case of Vietnam, the tang:ible if impressionistic sense of Jl.merican filreign policy recapitulating the mythic \ersion of frontier history combined with the outrage at the war some film-makers shared \vith the anti\var movement to make such rnisionist Westerns not only socially and industrially (given the impossibility of m,lking actual \'ietnam combat films: sec Chapter ..f.) but also gcnerically necess,lry (on Vietnam and the \Vestern, sec Slotkin, 1<)<)8: 520--..f.8, 578-()2; Engelh,mlt, [()()S: 2.H-..f.0). In general, the 'rnisionist' \Vesterns of the late [(iloS and [(nOS arc usually seen as confi'onting' and subverting the genre's tLlditional affirmati\c mythologies in the contnt of Vietnam, the civil rights struggles ,1Ild the '\e\\ Left. In various \vays, films such as .;\i[cCa!Jc allil_Hrs. MilIa, The 1AIsIHIIL'le (l(riI), Aid BIlle (l(ri3), The 'vIlssllllrl Brcaks (I<)7S), BlI/lillll Bill alld Ihe 111dlillls ([(ri,) and !leac'm's Gall' arc motivated at least in part by an anti-Establishment cultural politics that finds expression in transgressing this most 'official' and normative of HollYI\'()od genres, In LIet, although the critical interest in the 'mO\ ie brat' New IIollywood directors of the [()70S has tended to 01 LTemphasise the e\tcnt of attitudinal and artistic shifts within the industry in this period, in the Western at least oppositional and revisionist attitudes undoubtedly predominated. Both because the \Vestern has such a long' history and because its o\ln ostensible subject matter is historically circumscribed, the imprint of its \,lrious contingent historical contexts has to different degTees and at different times been especially marked. Some of these - such as the wartime mobilis,ltion of series Western heroes to combat '\,lzis and Japs- arc superficial and obvious, \lhile others arc deeper rooted. Stanfield's \\ork on the series Western (\lhuT in Clct the sense of historical period is often \vc;lker) percei\l~s an emphasis on struggles OITr land OIl nership rehlted directly to
THE WESTER'\!: GENRE AND HISTORY
73
the immediate economic preoccupations of the 'B' \Vestern's primary (mostly rural) audience during the dustbuwl years of the Depression. After the \var, as several writers halT remarked, the gnming emphasis on the victimisation of .-\meriean Indians in Westerns since the 19SoS has in most cases less to do with a rene\ved interest in Indian rights as such than with the civil rights struggles and racial politics of the postwar period, for which 'the Indian' offered a usefully displaced and relatively uncontroversial metaphor (though '\eale (1998) rightly warns against simply eliding Indians and Indian history - \vhich after all are concretely present in the pro-Indian Western, whatever its metaphoric intent - with African-.-\mericans). \Vesterns in g'eneral had been no more (or less) cOIl\Tntionally racist in their limited portrayal of .-\frican-Americans than most classic Hollywood films (for instance, the timorous, reluctantly Iiherated darkies deploring the ntremism of anti-shl\cry crusader John Brown in Sanla Fe Trail, 19..f.O, direct descendants of Griffith's 'f~lithful souls' in Blrlh oj'a Nallllll, 1915). But unlike other genres, race was already explicitly a core element of the \\-estern, since dramatising the settling of the frontier necessitated depicting relations bet\veen \vhite settlers or soldiers and the indigenous Native \merican population. Issues of miscegenation and interracial confEct were carried O\Tr \vholesale from the \Vestern's principal narrative sources, from eighteenth-century captivity narrati\-es to dime novels and melodramas, typically fiKusing on \Vhite-Indian relations but with some treatment of I Iispanic characters too. \Vhile there arc exceptions to this general rule of Indians as 'stand-in' victims of persecution and genocide (which might incl ude Ford's Chc)'l'lllie III I 1111111, [() (l..f. , f)a /Ices If Ii/I II II hI'S (I <)<)0), and the modern \Vesterns If-ar Pari)', [()88, and Tllllllilahcarl, I<)<)2), even when reconceived as victims of genocid,d ,-\mericlIl imperi,dism, Native Americans remain constructions of a \vhite social imaginary, 'Pro-Indian' \Vesterns arc ,J1most always narrated from the perspective of a classic Western fig'ure, the \lhite 'man \vho knows Indians'. This ethnocentric frame remains largely intact from HI'II!.."'lI _11'I'1I1I' and f)enl's /JOlinI'll)' throug'h Tell Thel/i Ill/lic /Jill' Is 11<'1'1' (l<){)(») to Dallres Ifllh Wllhes and Gel'llllil/ill: _Ill _Il/ierlca/l 1,(~md ([()()3), The ad\ance of the LS civil rights movement ensured that Black faces gradually started to appear in substantive though still suhordinate roles from the early I <) {lOS , \\ith \Voody Strode establishing himself as a member of John Ford's repertory company (Sgl RlIi/edge, 1<)60; Tl7'Il Rllde TlIgclhl'l', I<)61; [,i!Jall' 1 ii/illli'<') to the point where he could function as a symbol or the cbssic \\'estern fil!' J,eone in Ollre CplIII a 1'11/1<' III lli<, II <'.I'I amI ,\brio van Peebles in PIISS<' (I<)<)3). Sidney Poi tier directed and starred in the carefully revisionist Blld'
74
FILM GENRE
with white supremacist attitudes - Black-centred Westerns have remained very rare: notably, both blaxploitation-era hits like The Legend or Nigger Chllrley (1972) and Posse, a 'gangsta' \Vestern, distance themselves ideologically from the mainstream tradition of the American Western by adopting the stylistic motifs of the Italian Western, which has a distinctly different political and cultural trajectory (see below). The role of the Western in constructing models of American masculinity, particularly in its 1950S heyday, has recently been the subject of considerable critical interrogation (see, for instance, Tompkins, 1<)92; Mitchell, 1(96). However, situating this in a determinate historical context (beyond general evocations of 'the 19Sos') has prO\ed somewhat harder: Leyda (2002), in attempting to speci(v the audience (jU\cnile African-American males) interpellated by black singing Westerns and consequently concretising the particular kinds of male behaviour identified as worth emulating, is notably successful in this regard. In Llct, for all the voluminous commentary on the genre, the postwar \Vestern has only rarely reCl:i \cd as rigorous a reconstruction and exploration of its historical contexts as, for example, the silent Western in recent years (see above, 'Histories of the Western'; though Slot kin (1<)98) and Corkin (2000) have related e\oh'ing post \var reconceptions of the ti'ontier myth to concurrent ideological delxltes among elite opinion-formers and policy-makers). A wholly different, and admittedly speculative, perspective on the Western's decline since the early 19{jos might note the simultaneous rise to national political prominence of the West and South-West, the Western's traditional geographic heartland. 8etween J<)OO ~lI1d J<)-I-S, the hitherto rather marginal and underpopulatnl 'Sunbelt' states had sent just one representative (Herbert HoO\er) to the White lIouse; since I<)-I-S all but t\vo presidents have hailed either from west of the ?\lississippi (California, Texas, '\ebraska - t \\ice each - and l\lissouri) or from the former Confederacy (\rkansas, Georgia). One possible outcome of this decisin~ and much-analysed shift in the political g;eography of the CS is that the West, no\\ a highly visible, influential and (some would say) all-too concrete political and economic force in US life, is less easily over\\Titten by the traditional mythic terms of the Western. Although such mythic rallying-points as the .\lamo remain enormously popular tourist attractions, the West may no longer be the space onto which metropolitan America projects its bntasies of national identity: now increasingly it is the (urbanised, entrepreneurial and polluted) West that itself defines the terms of :\merican culture. Nonetheless, the Western is not \lead': the e\olutionary model of genre history is disprO\cd b~ nothing so much as allegedly moribund genres' refusal to g:i\e up the ghost. Rather, the \\estern lives on both as point of cultural reference and a source of narrati\c and thematic motifs in a \vide
THE WESTERN: GENRE AND HISTORY
75
variety of Holln\ood films, including Slar Wllrs (1977), Die Hard (1<)86), Falling DOlTm (199-1-) and Toy Storr (1995), and as a permanent part of Hollywood's generic repertoire available for periodic renewal. The Western has seen at least three major revivals in the twenty-five years since Heaven's Gille allegedly killed it off, in 198-1--88, a more extensive and successful cycle in 1990-<)5 centring on the major critical and commercial successes Dances ITIlh WO!c'es and Unfi!lglun, and most recently in 2004, with the release of Open Rallll:e, The .ilan[(), The /HIsslng and the European Western Blackberry ;IS \vell as the HBO mini-series Delldwood (on the two earlier cycles, see '\eale, 2002: 29-3-1-).
BEYOND HOLLYWOOD So intimately is the Western \\oven into the imaginative bbric of American life that it is surprising to realise that the genre has been successfully taken up by senTal other national cinemas at different times. \Vesterns were successfully produced in Germany, t()r example, from the silent era through to the outbreak of the Second World War - including scyeral productions in the '\azi era - and ag;lin in the 1960s, in many cases drawing on I\..arl J\lay's popular turn-of--the-cen tury nO\els (the best-knO\\ n probably Der Sdlill:::. 1111 ,,,'Ilhersee! Tile TrCilsllre 11/ llie Silt'a Sell, filmed in J<)62, and Old Sililllallil/ul, filmed in 1<)6-1-). I\..oepnick (199S) finds in German Westerns of the J<)20S a specific redaction of the ubiquitous \V eimar Republic Llscination with '\mericmism', using the primitivism of the mythic West to balance and ground the rationalised hyper-modernity with \vhich the US was typically associated. Thus German audiences were enabled to make 'crucial compromises with modernity' (p. 12), compromises that in Nazi-period Westcrns predictably tipped O\cr into more unequi\ocally reactionary attitudes. By br the best-known as well as the most numerous European \Vesterns, hO\vC\er, arc the Itali,m 'Spaghetti Westerns' (often, in tlCt, trans-European co-productions), of \vhich \\agstaff (1992: 2-1-6) estimates some -I-So were released bet\\een [()6-1- and 1978 (br outnumbering American Westerns in l he same period, and comparable as \Vagstaff notes to the rate and mode of production of serial \Vesterns in the 19.Ws). Discussion of the Spag'hetti \Vestern has been heavily distorted by the colossal status of its princip.t1 auteur Serg'io Leone, \vhose increasingly .Imbitious, stately and classical films are, hO\\ever, as unrepresentative of the disorderly, pop-baroque style of many of his contemporaries as Ford's 'Cl\alry Trilogy' is atypical of the 19SOS Hollywood \\estern, The gnming critical literature on the Spaghetti \\estern can be diyided into those commentators \yho sec the European \\estern as a 'critical' (sulnersive, carniyalesque, sometimes - notably in the
76
FILM GENRE
THE WESTERN: GENRE AND HISTORY
films of Sergio Damiano - politically radical) \'ersion of the "'\merican Western (notably Frayling, 1(97), and those - in disciplinary terms more likely to be specialists in Italian cultural studies than in film st udies - \\ho locate Italian Westerns in the institutional and cultural contexts of the Italian film industry and popular culture in the 1960s (Wagstaff, 1992; Eleftheriotis, 2004). Landy (2000: 11\1-204) locates the Italian Western in such performati\'e traditions as the co1nmedla del'arle and also explores the direct implication of many films in debates about class and reg'ional (Southern) identity in contemporary Italian politics. Many commentators in both schools note the general absence in the Italian Western of either the empathy or the ethical concerns that had come to typif~' the Hollywood \V estern in the H»)OS. What is certainly clear is that the sometimes crude but \'igorous style of Italian Westerns decisi'ely shifted the tenor of the US genre, dramatically increasing' the le\'e1 of gTaphic ,iolence (including not only gunplay but often elaborate torture) while diminishing the ethical significance of indi,idual \'iolent acts, and establishing new motific codes filr the staging' of showdowns and other set pieces. A routine early I(nos CS Western like Lall'lI/all (1971) clearly demonstrates the impact of the Italian style, as do the baroque f10urishes and bizarre gamesmanship of a later rC\i \alist \V estern like The QIIICA' alld Ihe Dead (H)<))).
CASE STUDY:
TIff:'
Ol1'l"11/
.rOSie'}
II /fJ'S
(1976)
Clint Eastwood's Tile OllIla}}' ]0.1'1')' H'ales is by no means as aggressi\ely 're\'isionist' a genre entry as many of the decade's other notable \,"esterns, from Arthur Penn's I,ll/Ie BIP, Hall and Ralph :'\elson's sensationally gruesome Sli/tIler Bille in 1<)70 to Cimino's 1<)1\0 epic of range \,ar as class struggle, IIem'ell's Ga Ie. In bct, it maybe more instructi,e to consider ]11.1'1')' Wales alongside John Wayne's \aledictory Western, Tlte SI/IIlIllsI, directed by ))on Siegel and released just six \\eeks after East\\ood's film. (luite unlike most of Wayne's obstinately traditional 1
I:rom
Th" (Jllillill' .los,,)' 11"1,,.1' (1<J7h), Reproduced
courtes~ \\arncr
77
Bros/The J(obal
( :ollect!o!l,
Like Ste\e Judd in Ride lite Hlp,!1 CIIIIIIIIT, the Wild Bunch, and Butch and Sundance but more purposefully than any of them, and with none of the Bunch's Dionysiac frenzy Books arrangTs a final showdO\\O, and with his passing the West itself recedes. \\'ayne had been ranked lanely's I'\umber One box-office star f)'om 1<)50 to I <)Cl). In Hn2 Eastwood reached th'lt pinnacle filr the first time, during; an unbroken t\\ ent y-~ car run in I IlI'lel)"s Top Ten from 1<)Cl7 to 1<)1\7. East \\ood had made his name in the three ironic, ncar-parodic, he
hom Tlte null(/1I' ]lJsC)' II iii,s (11)76). Roproduced courtesy Warner Bros/The Kobal C Ilecrioll.
78
FILM GENRE
nor his modern urban corollary, 'Dirty' Harry Callahan, e\-er hinted at). Of Eastwood's previous American \Vesterns, Hang 'Em High (1969), TJpo _'vIllles .lin Sister Sara (1970) and Jlle Kidd (1972), had been fairlv formulaic affairs that traded heavily on the Dllilars persona and milieu, \~hile Tlte Beguiled (1970) and Eastwood's own High Plains Drifier (1972) \vere both intense, almost hallucinatory psychological allegories with a strong sado-masochistic strain that explored a Gothic strain in the genre far distant from the terrain of Ford or even Mann. In Jose)' Wales, adapted by Phil Kaufman (\vho was originally assigned to direct the film but \vas fired by East\vood one \veek into shooting) and Sonia Chern us from Forrest Carter's novel Gillie III Texas, for the first time Eastwood's \Vestern character acquires a set of personal and communal responsibilities and a dimensionality that extends beyond his gunslinging bcility and extravagant cynicism. Josey J;Vales not only revises and humanises Eastwood's familiar monosyllabic gunslinger character but self-consciously reconnects East\vood to the American Western tradition and affirms him as Wayne's rightful successor. Jllsey Wales carefully establishes links, both honorific and critical, to earlier Westerns. The graphic and plentiful violence clearly differentiates Jllse)! rrides from classic \Vesterns - an early scene \vhere Josey turns ,I \:laxim gun on a Union camp, mmving do\\n scores of soldiers, many unarmed, would have been inconceivable pre-I,eone for a sympathetic character even in justified anger, as Josey's surely is (he has just seen his comrades murdered by the treacherous Union commander Terrill). The loose, almost picaresque narrative structurc (\\hich recalls both :\1ann's J;Villellesler '7.) and East\\ood's last film \\ith Leone, Tlte Glllld, lite Bad alld Ihe UPo/)!, 19(6) alhms the film to take in a wide \ariety of traditional \\-estern scencry and narrative situations, from the thickly forested borderlands \\here the film begins to the red Texas dcsert, and fi"om bar-room face-offs to Indian parleys, and to make n umlTOUS allusions to previous cbssic \Vesterns. The trajectory of Josey's m\l1 chaLlcter, as Sickels (2003) notes, ii1\ites the viewer to draw parallels to Ethan Ed\\ards in Tile Searellers (something of a privileged film in the New Holly\\ood, directly quoted in :\ tu"tin Scorsese's lWeall Streets, J()73, and providing the narrati\e model fllr Paul Schr,lder's script for Scorsesc's Taxi Drin'r - a film, as \\e shall see, of particular relevance to JIISC)' IVales). Both men are on obsessi\ e quests for vengC
THE
WESTER~:
GENRE AND HISTOR't
79
meeting \vith I,one Watie Josey recognises in his story a kindred spirit: 'Seems like we can't trust the \\hite man'. The feisty, attractive and Y()cal Sioux female character Little Moonlight is a clear revision of the infamously caricatured and objectified 'squa\\' 'Look' \vho attaches herself to Ethan and :\larty in The Searellers. :\lthough Fletcher identifies Josey as a figure of rcmorseless \'engcfulness, in the film Josey is arguably the quarry rather than the pursuer of an obsessi ve hate-filled ideologue, Terrill. The key difference in Eastwood's and Ford's films, however, is less the superficial updating of racial attitudes (Ethan's pathological racism is of course very much the focus or Ford's film) than thc resolutions they offer their respective protagonists. Lnlike Ethan Joscy is permitted - in fact invited - to re-enter society at the end of the film. \\hen:as the end of Ethan's quest, and his ostensibly redemptive gesture in saving rather than killing Debbie, lel\CS him finally without remaining direction or purpose, Josey's similar revelation of the limits of venge,lI1ce comes about in the context of values that have come to replace vengefulness. Josey's final meeting \\ith Fletcher (John Vernon), the former commander of his band of Confederate irregulars, implies an acknmdedgement by both men that some wounds, paradoxically, run too deep to be a\cnged and can only be n:conciled. This is \vhere Josey II ales's generic rC\ isionism and its purpose, \\hich unusually for the period is con- rather than deconstructive - becomes evident. Josey's accretion of a heterogeneous, multi-racial 'f;lmily' during his travels enforces on the \vould-be lone rider an initially unwelcome host of attachments th,lt ultimately persuade him of the impossibility of living outside social relationships (unlike, say, Shane, though perhaps recalling Randolph Scott's similarly encumbered Ben Brig-ade in the ironically titled Ride 1,0111'sllllle, J():i9). By presenting" this passage to settlement \\ith little of the nostalgic ambivalence with \\-hich John Ford treats simibr transitions (fllr example, in _tIl' Dar/illp. ell'llli'lIlille - nodded to in Jose), II "ales's barn dance scene at the Crooked Ri\er ranch - or !)!Jerl.l' I ala lice), 1':ast\\ood undemonstratively transforms archetypal genre patterns. While Jllse)' Wales gratifies audience expectations with ample evidence of Josey's prowess at solo gunplay, it also rcpeatedly shmvs others coming" to Joscv's aid as his selfimposed isolation gradually modifies over the course of the film. This aspect of Jose), Ilides might be seen in generic terms as less the fi"ustration of generic expectations than a refusal to allo\\ genre conventions to determine outcomes as they reflexi\Tly do for so many other 1970S \Vestern protagonists. Josey's earlier encounter in Santa Rio \vith ,I bounty hunter identifies the crux: Jose~ tries to talk the man out of starting a fight they both knmv he will inC\itably (given Josey's speed on the draw) lose: 'You kno\v, this isn't necessary, you could just ride on'. The bounty hunter turns and slm\l~ lea\es, only to return a fell moments later: 'I had to come
80
FILM GENRE
back', he says, regretfully. Josey nods his understanding; they shoot it out; the bounty hunter is killed. What is at stake here - why the bounty hunter 'had to' come back - certainly includes status, male self-identity and the difficulty of peaceful resolution in a culture grounded in violence, all ideas Josey Wales repeatedly engages; but it is perhaps abO\e all the rules of the generic game, a logic that ruthlessly subordinates individual will. (A similarly impersonal generic imperative is at work, as Maltby (1995a: 123-32) notes, in Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Bill)! the Kid, 1973.) By the end of the film, Josey has successfully changed the generic situation. This transformation has a social and political context that the tilm alludes to both in its Civil War setting and in its final dialogue exchange. As part of the two men's tacit agreement to let the dead bury the dead, Fletcher declares his intention to seek Josey in l\lexico: should he find him there, he intends to 'tell him the war's over'. By way of reply Josey (looking offscreen) mutters, 'I guess all of us died a little in that damn war'. Audiences in 1975 would doubtless have understood the allusion to America's more recent 'civil war' - the intense social divisions and the crisis of the ,'\merican political system surrounding the war in Vietnam. Jose)' Willes thus situates itself at a generic intersection of the Western and the emergent genre of the Vietnam veteran tilm (Tracks, 1975; Rollin.1!, Thunder, 1976; Tllxi Drirer). Cnlike both those films and The Sellrchers, however, JosC)' n'llles affirms the possibility that the returning veteran need not compulsively act out the traumas of defeat in a society whose own ongoing violence is barely under control, but can move through and past violence into a renewed social contract - one, moreover, where the \Vestern hero's masculinity is not diminished, though it is necessarily changed, by his incorporation into communal and personal relationshi ps.
NOTES I':~hibitors liTre free to spliu: this im'lge onto either the start or (more usu,dh) the end of the t1lm. 2. Figures of Western reLlses t()r the sound era are tahulated in Buscomhe (I()Sk: +2~-7). For the silent period, see the IF! CI/II/log o(.HollOlI PIOWC Pmdll(cd III Ihc ['llliCiI .'I'll/II'S: 1893 J()10 (19q~), J()11-J<)20 (lqSS), J(j2o-1930 (\()71) . .\. Poague's (2003) account of the marketing of SII/,~l" OI/c!1 cited in Ch'lpter I is ,I gooJ cxample. +. '''We Jidn't \lant just another \\estern," ILA. PresiJent\nd\)\lbeck agreeJ. "\\'e "anted an epic, an\cJdem~\II ,ml-\\ inning' epic'" (Bach, t 9S~: 2 I 7). ~. Note, hOlle\er, that Gallag'her nukes the \\'ildh' h\perbolic cbim that from H)Oq to 191~ 'there \\Tre probabh more \\esterns released CI/c!1 ll/ollih than Juring the entire decade of the 1930s': this \\ould mean roughh [,000 \\ estcrn'i a month, or 12,000 a \Tar' I ha \e founJ no tig;ures to 'iUpport such a grossh intlated reckoning;. I.
,
THE WESTER:-J: GENRE AND HISTORY
HI
h. Kitses' modd IS citeJ sufticienth often to he \\'()rth reproducing in p,u·t once again
here: TI!L IInDJ:R\ESS Tllc !1lI!i,'/iI/i1/1 freedom honour self-knO\\ ledge int<:g-rit~
sci 1'- i ntcrest solipsism \'i//il'l'
CIIILIS. I TlO\ Thl' COll/lIlll/lily
re'itriction in'ititutions illusion compromise social responsibilit\ democrac\' CII 1111 1'1'
'\ameh, the 'cb'i'iicaj plot' (e.g. SIIilIlC) , the '\Tngeance \atiation' (Till' ,\'I/A-,'d .'1'/,111'), the 'transi;ion theme' (fllgh SOOIl) and the 'profession,II plot' (Till' Pm/i'ssio/ll/Is, I \)(,(»). S. I )dined ,lS a population dcnsit\ of te\\er than two persons per square mile. 'I. Turner arg:u~d that \\ith th~ loss of the social 'safet\· "lhe' of 'tiTe Lllld' .'\meriean 'iociet\ 111 the t\\Tnticth centut'\ \\'()uld tinalh h'1\e to conti'ont the problems of all othcr 1l1od~rn Industrial nellions, including class antagonism'i. I
THE MUSICAL: GENRE AND FORM
CHAPTER
4
fi'om Manhattan to medieyal England, and in musical style from light opera rock, the American musical is remarkably heterogeneous. From another perspectiye, hO\yC\er, the musical may be regarded as the 'purest' of all film genres. L' nlike the Western or the gangster film, the musical seems unen~umbered by any ongoing commitments to social realism, historical authenticity or for that matter any suggestion of per formative naturalism (though the genre may embrace any or all of these at different times). The musical creates a hermetically enclosed generic world whose conventions and verisimilitudes are purely and peculiarly its own, and whose function is to enable
The Musical: Genre and Form
A
t the end of Mel Brooks's Western parody Bfa:::.!"g Saddles (1973), a
sprawlin~ bar-room brawl exceeds the boundaries not only of its diegetic
situation (with bodies and furniture flying in standard Western style through windows and doors out into the street) but its ~eneric location: a particularly powerful haymaker sends a cowboy tearin~ throu~h the \yall of the saloon set and not into the adjoining room in the saloon, but into the next-door soundsta~e, where an elaborate musical production number somewhat in the re~imented Busby Berkeley manner, 'the French \listake', is being performed. As burly, unshayen cowboys, dudes and saloon girls tumble pellmell into the gleamin~ polished proscenium to mingle with and assault the dancers, the stage is literally set for a riotous generic encounter. Brooks's stereotypically epicene dancers, campily fleeing across their ne\Tr-neyer-land set fi'om this sudden intrusion fi'om a definitiyely. 'masculine' oTneric uniyerse and shrilly defending if not their honour then their looks ('.'\ot in the LICe!' squeals one, hced with a knuckle sandwich; ' ... thank you!' he gasps as the attacker redirects his punch into his balls), reflect dominant perceptions of the musical as organised around tropes of narcissistic display and artificiality as opposed to the Western's rugged yeracity ..-\s eyer, the parodic thrust cuts both ways: while the streamlined, pristine musical set bespeaks an 'artifice' in contrast to the roug'h, \yorkmanlike surLIces of the Western, at the same time the latter's incorporation into the generic space of the musical both undermines the Westerner's monolithic masculinit\ and also reminds us that their ostensibly more 'historical' milieu is, as .1 construction of g-cnre, in its \yay as stylised and out-or-time as that of the musical. In bct, the Western and the musical are two halyes of a whole: the cowboy and the song-and-dance man together are strong and uni yersal metonymic signifiers of Hollywood, and Holhwood genre, as a whole. Ranging in structure from reyue to integrated musical dranu, in setting ~
~3
84
FILM GENRE
THE CLASSICAL MUSICAL
Self-evidently, the musical is a ~Tnre of the sound era: Tile JII:;:; Sillger (H)27), the first feature-length 'talkie', \\as also the first musical feature, and indeed the strong audience appeal of music and song' as much as or more than spoken dialogue helped 'sell' sound technology not only to audiences but to sceptical exhibitors LlCed \vith the expenses of comersion. By HUO, as Hollywood comerted to sound, more than 200 musicals had been released by the major and minor studios (see Altman, 1996: 29-1--7; Balio, I99T 211-18). What the new sound technology enabled \\as the immediacy of direct address to the audience - as in AI Jolson's 'You ain't heard nothin' yet!' in Tile Jazz Singcr - that would emerge as one of the genre's distinctive formal markers. Jolson's f:lInous interpellation, like many subsequent examples, \vas mediated by the presence of a diegetic (on-screen) audience in a live performance setting: this establishes carlyon the film musical's adoption of live theatrical performance and the direct interaction \vith the audience as a per formative ideal, in\"Oked most clearly in the backstage musical - musicals about the staging of musicals or musical performances but arguably a persistent structuring presence e\'en in 'integrated' musicals \vhere the per/ilrmers sing and dance in purely expressive \vays 'fill" themselves or each other, \vithout the self-conscious imocation of a per/ilrmance situation, It is \\orth noting here that live musical accompaniment - including singing - \\'as the norm throughout the silent era, and dancing' \\as .1 featured attraction in a great many silent films. Gnlikely as it may no\\ seem, there \\TlT silent ad'lptations of both popular operettas like Tlic .lIeITl' // idoll' (192:;) and cbssical operas like Ca rlllL'll (19 I:;) and Dcr ROSC/lA'llutlicr. Thus there is a certain historical irony that the vi\ idness and 'immediacy' of the sound-era musical \\as achie\'ed at the cost of an actual derealisation of the audio-\isual experience of mO\inggoing that found compensation in \\hat Collins (I9~~: 270) describes as a 'sense of nostalgia filr a direct rclationship \\ith the audience' that is a generic constant throughout the classical era. As already noted, certain kinds of film musicll have attracted much more critical discussion than others. "eale (2000: I o~) notes the sparsity of critical discussion of the musicals produced at the other majors compared to .\[G\[, let alone the minors. This sclectivitv extends also to fimll aI \'ari.lIlts. The musical comedy-revue, filr example - comprising the majority of the early sound musicals bet\veen 1927 and I<).W -3 I, re\i \ cd b~ P.uamount till' its series of I930S 'radio revues' starting \vith Tlie Big Broadwsl in I
THE MUSICAL: GENRE AND FORM
85
of these largely non-integrated, 'attraction'-led entertainments may be due'). :\ much longer-lasting and in the I930S very popular form, the operetta (for example, the films starring the duo of Nelson Eddy' and Jeanette MacDonald .It .\lG.\l such as Rose J,Jarie, 1936, SrfJeetllelirts, 1938, and Bitter Sweet, 1(40) has also received very little attention as a cinematic form (there is a more extensive literature on the theatrical operetta that includes some discussion of film adaptations), although individual films have been analysed (see, for example, Altman's (198]: I6~22; also in Cohan, 2002: 41-5) analysis of the 'dual-focus' narrative of the MacDonald-Eddy whicle New Moon, 1940; also Turk (I99~)). Whereas the lack of interest in the revue may be attributed in part to its 'primitive' serial structure, this is clearly not the case with the operetta - among the most integrated of all forms of the musical. Rather, it may be the perception of the operetta as an ineradicably bour/ieois form, 'lheatrical' in the bad sense, that accounts ti)r its critical disfavour. Not only its stilted romantic narratives but its nostalgic invocation of a pseudo.lristocratic Old World cont1icts with the widespread perception of the Holly\\ood musical -- pre-eminently, again, the Gene Kelly MGM series - as a distinctive expression of the (idealised) American national character: optimistic, unaffected, can-do and democratic (see especially Schatz, I9~I: I96f1'.). In fact, this perception of at least some film operettas was current in the I (nos: Variet], described the french stage property on which Paramount b'lsed its .\lacDonald-.\laurice Chevalier effilrt Lou Me TOll(g;ht (1932) as '
86
FILM GENRE
critical studies of the musical, it will be helpful to e'l:plore them in a little more detail. The notion of 'integration' is not quite as straightforward as it might at first appear. Focusing on the Astaire-Rogers musicals, ~lueller (198+: 28-g) offers six ditferent possible relationships of musical number to plot, ranging from complete irrcJeyance, through 'enrichment' (a rather yague term we could also understand in terms of amplification or complement, f(lr e'l:ample 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' in Tlte Wizard III' OZ, 1(39), to those that clearly advance the plot. In the latter category he includes both songs like 'Getting to Know You' in Tlte KIllg allil J (1956), whose lyrical content alerts the characters to new information or insights about one another, and the very different c:xample of musical numbers in the backstage musical whose staging provides the narrative with its (ostensible) object. Howeyer, the inclusion of the backstage musical complicates this ta'l:onomy by highlighting the perhaps counter-intuitiYe ways in which 'integration' here is not simply synonymous, as one might expect, with dramatic 'motiyation' - that is, accounting for passag;es of expressiye performance by proyiding narratiye situations where the characters (rather than the performers) can plausibly sing and dance. Typically this is achieved by creating characters who arc professional entertainers - which is where the backstage musical comes in, one of the genre's most durable forms from early classics like pili/ Slreel (19.13) and Glild Diggers 111'1933 (1<)33) to Caharel (1972), Fllr lite BII)'s (H)9I) and rock musicals like The Rllse (1979) and Grt/ce IIrH)' Hearl (1996). The backstage musical is thus arguably the most highly 'motiyated' of all f(lrms of the musical: the characters perti)rm only onstage or in rehearsal (or, as in the 'I Only Haye Eyes For You' number in Dailies, 1<)35, in dreams or their mind's eye) accompanied by diegetic orchestras or bands. Howcver and leaving; aside ti)r the time being the many ways in which Busby Berkcley's backstagers at least play t:ISt and loose with the yerisimilitude of their theatrical milieu -- some l<)3os backstagers also typit~ the non-integr.lted musical: that is, the on-stage pertilrmances haye little or no dramatic relation to the romantic and professional conflicts played out in the backstage, nonmusical portions of the tilm. Even in pili/ .)/reel, which t:lmously pioneers one of the genre's hoariest cliches '. an ingenue plucked from the chorus line sent out to understudy the injured star with the \\ords 'You're going; out a youngster -- but you\e gill to come back a star!'· the chorus girl's ine\itably triumphant perfi)nllance is played with almost no suggestion of or till' that matter interest in her emotional or psychological reaction to the esperience during the performance itself. Rather, the yisual pleasure of the musical numbers is Yirtually autonomous of the (usually) mundane progress of the backstage narrative. (A useful contrast here might be the many sequences in rock musicals such as The Rllse or Tlte Dllllrs, 1991, modern yariants on the
THE \llSICAL: GE'JRE A'JD FORM
'K7
backstage mode, where the performance itself cathartically \\orks through, or .JlternatiYcJy is yisibly wrecked by, the emotional, psycholog'ical or pharmaceutical crises of the performer-protagonist.) J _ater backstage musicals ofkred a much higher degree of integration, either through the inclusion of directly npressiYe numbers that arc part of the protag'onisfs onstage routine (I .')'Iar Is Bllrtt, J()5+; also the 1977 rock musical remake) or by using the I1lusical numbers to offer ironic commentary on the characters' sexual, social or political attitudes (Caharet). In t:lct, the distinction of integrated and non-integrated ti)rms is, predictably, not an absolute one. Yery few musicals are wholly uninteg-rated "ncr the fashion of theatrical yariety shll\\s: indeed, the backstage musical itself emerged as a response to the declining bO'l:-oftice appeal of the rush of l'C\ue-style musicals at the yery start of the sound era (til!' e:xample, The //Ii//)'/I'lIlId Renle 111'1929, 1929; Part/1I101I1I1 1111 Part/dc, and KIllg 1I!]azz, both 1<)30) ..\ft:er a brief ensuing lull in musical production pili/ Slreel introduced the relatiyely more integrated timn and its stock personae of the driYen \isionary director or impresario (a ti'l:ture up throughlll Tltal ]a.'::,z, 1( 80 ), the naive ingenue who gets her big break in the circumstances outlined abmT, the wisecracking, worldly-wise chorus girls and the besotted millionaire \\ ho bankrolls the production. C:oI1\Trsely, some or all of the musical numbers in eyen the most integrated musicals arc to some degree 'e'l:cessiYe' in relation to their basic narrative function - inniubly, one might say, giYen the genre's basic contract with its audience, which is not storytelling as such but deli\ering memorable songs and I or pyrotechnical d.l11ce pertilrmances. 11I_·ll11l'1Hall III Paris (1951) 'smug'gles' many of its musical numbers into the lilm by presenting them as fe'ltS of e:xuberant imprO\isation in workaday el1\ironments like cates and city streets, perfilrlned til!' an 'audience' of passersby who particip'lte with casual enthusiasm rather than the regimented highkicking of the professional chorus line (the tilm also includes by way of pointed contrast, and as a clear nample of pertimnati\ e inauthenticity, a brief e:xcerpt from a stage pertilrmance in the grand nunner, complete with feather boas and an illuminated staircase - a grandiose yersion of the Llmous \staire/Rogers 'Big White Set'). Bowner, _111 .1l11erlrall III Paris also bmously concludes with a lengthy rhapsodic ballet sequence with a strongly non-integratiye driYe (like the comparable climactic sequences in other Freed Cnit musicals such as 011 lite TIIII'II, 19+9, and SlIIglIl' III lite Ralll, 1952, it essentially recapitulates the main narratiYe in stylised, archetypal torm) whose function is to deliyer the postponed, but not denied, pleasures of breathtaking yisual display in the form of both yirtuosic dancing and elaborate sets. Rubin (199T 12-13) argues that the histor~ of the musical is 'not so much a relentless, unidirectional driYe tow anls efbcing the last stubborn remnants of nonintegration, but a succession of different ways of articulating the tension
FILM GENRE
and interplay between integrative (chiefly narratin~) and nonintegrative (chiefly spectacle) elements'. Thus the apparent opposition of integration and aggregation is in fact an oscillating and interdependent relationship, and in this reg'ard rehearses the larger issue of the dialectical interplay in the 'classical Hollywood style' between narrative - to whose linear, centring imperatives all the elements of Hollywood cinema in the continuity era are, according to Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson's (1985) int1uential account, ultimately subordinated - and the contrapuntal force of spectacle, conceiwd as largely static and in narrative terms non-developmental. (This highlights the interesting point that at least at this structural level there are therefore marked affinities betvveen the musical, stereotypically a 'feminine' genre, and the emphatically masculine genre of the contemporary action film: for more on this and a more detailed discussion of the question of narrative and spectacle, see Chapter ro.) In any case, a third term may have to be added to thc integration/nonintegration dyad if one is to give an adequate account of the most remarkable variant of the musical to emerge in the 1930s, the cycle of Warner Bros. films directed andlor choreographed by Busby Berkeley. These - strictly speaking, their spectacular musical numbers - have provoked extensive critical discussion for their transformative objectifications of the human (typically female) form " what Fischer (I 19761 198 I) calls their 'optical politics' (' Pet tin ' in the Park' in Gold Diggers III' J 933 features dancers in lingerie and in nude silhouette); their similarities to various European avant-garde cinemas of the period (Arthur Freed remarked on Berkeley's 'instinctive surrealism'); and even their affinities with the 'Llscist aesthetics' of Leni Riefenstahl's films of mass ceremonials in Nazi Germany (see Sontag, 1966). Sequences such as the 'l.Jymn to My Forgotten Man' in GII/d Digp,ers oj'J()33, which introduce narrative and in this case social content (the descent of the First World War veterans into povcrty and despair) quite unprepared for by and unrelated to the backstage story, typify Berkeley's non-integrative mode. Equally remarkable, however, is their elastic treatment of diegetic space, which has no ready parallel in any other classical Hollywood form and vvhich might vvell be characterised as 'disintegrative'. All of the musical numbers in a Berkeley musical ostensibly f()rm part of a theatrical performance, preparations for which constitute the binding backstage narrativc. However, in visual style and technique as well as sheer scale Berkeley's numbers explode till' beyond the confines of any plausible the,llrical show or for that matter 'lUditorium. The stupefying scale and variety of these numbers renders them 'blatantly and audaciously impossible in terms of the theatrical space in \\hich they arc supposedly taking place' (Rubin, 1993: 58). Berkeley's approach is typified by his signature ultra-high-,mgle overhead shots- the 'Berkeley top shot' where massed ranks of dancers form shifting complex patterns ranging from
THE MUSICAL:
hL"IKt.
Al"IJ
r
,,":Vi
"'J
Oo\\ers .md abstnlct shapes to actors' f:lccs (as in DOilies), his most famous ,Ind \\'idely copied dev'ice (also the most parodied, for example m The prodllrers, H)68, \\here a chorus line of goose-stepping S5 arrange the~.selvcs into a s\\'astika): the camera's v'antage point which renders these ~'lslOnary biomporhic transfigurations visible to the cinema audicnce would Simply be un.I\'aiLlble to any conceiv'able theatrical audience. Berkelev's \\ork remained unique; a wholly different, and in the long term lllore int1~ential, approach was adopted in the series of nine RKO musical romantic comedies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (with choreography by Hermes Pan) in the 1930S st,lrting \\ith FI)'illg P"Il)1I III R,ill (~?~3). \\"hereas Berkeley \Vas notoriously unconcerned about hiS dancers abrlltles, interested rather in achieving an appropriate blend of uniformity and complementary contrast in physique and physiognomy (see Fischer, [.197 6 ) 19 81 : 7+), .\staire and Rogers' OV\l1 performativ'e ~ifts and th~ promise of l:yrotcchnical dancing displays constituted the major appeal of these star vehicles. Lv cn the musical leads amid Berkeley's serried armies of dancers were such p1cas,mt but uninteresting figures as Ruby Keeler ,~nd Dick PO\~ell (~vith the dramatic momentum in the backstage scenes mamtamed by forceful nond'll1cing male stars like \Varner Baxter in ,12111/ Slr((.'1 and James Cagney in. (1IIIIIig/1l Port/de, HJ33); ,\staire and Rogers were at the undisputed centre of t hcir films, featuring in numerous duets (:\staire also has many solo llumbers), and evcn in the larger-scale production numbers the chorus line or b,lCk,rround lLlI1cers remain anonvmous am} strictly secomhlry. This relationship "'is emphatically symbolised- in a Elmous number in T(/~ !lal (1~)35), perhaps the best-knO\vn .\staire-Rogers production, when Astalre transfor~ls his cane during 'Top Hat, White Tie, ,1ml Tails' into .1 tommy-gun With \\hich he mows do\\ n his top-hatted 'riyals' in the chorus line, a routine that Edvnrd Gallafcnt (zooo: 35) among; others has characterised as an assertion of both 'ph.llIic potency and ... (.\staire's) standing as a massively successful professional', . . The :\staire-Rogers musicals decisively shifted the mUSical away from mass spcctacle to individual expressivity and the exploration of the conditions of and constraints on that expressive drive. These would become the key concerns of the classically integrated :VIG:Vl musicils of the late 1()+OS :lI1d early 1950s, a period that continues to dominate critical discussions of the musical. Since the case study for this ch.lpter looks closely at one such .\lG.\lmusical, SlIIgill' ill Iltt' Rain (H)5z), the following section focuses less on textual detail and looks
90
FILM GENRE
'GOTTA DANCE'
The most obyiolls formal element that sets the musical apart from the great majority of other American films is its radical departure from the forms of realism that dominate the rest of classic Hollywood practice. As limited (compared to, say, Italian neorealism or British 'kitchen sink' social realism) and stylised as this Hollywood brand of 'realism' certainly is, the musical is nonetheless quite clearly 'unrealistic' in still more marked and fundamental ways. Rubin (J()93: .17) suggests that the classic musical may eyen be defined by its inclusion of 'a significant proportion of musical numbers that are impossible - i.e., persistently contradictory in relation to the realistic discourse of the narratiye'. The most ob\ious and manifold examples of these impossibilities are the ostensibly spont,meous yet often hugely elaborate, flawlessly concein?d and executed song-and-dance routines that typify the Hollywood musical, particularly in the classically integrated yersions that, as we haye seen, are often regarded as defining the form. This quality of impossibility is not determined by the regime of yerisimilitude specific to a giyen narratiye: whether a musical is as anl\\cdh. and yisibly. f:mciful as Y%nda ol/d llie T!1/i:!(J()-+S) or as social realist as TI 1'.1'1 Side Slor)' (J()6[), the transdiegetic quality of its musical numbers is a constant. Interestingly, it is the integ-rated musical of which this is truest. For w"hereas the impossibility of (most) BlIsby Ikrkeley numbers consists not in their spontaneous effusion they are in bet presented as painstakingly rehearsed theatrical performances by professional entertainers but, as we haw seen, in their defiance of principles of spati,d and temporal continuity and integrity, the impossibility of the numbers in (most) integrated musicals innllyes the ,lpparently unconscious, or at any rate unsclfconscious, discoyery of music and movement by the characters ,IS a perfect externalisation and expression of inner states of mind. In other words, the integrated musical emphasises the cxpressi,'c Irill/s./iml/oliol/ of the object world at the expense of c011\Tntionally understood forms of realism; and its impossibility i11\ohes both the ostensibly spontaneous perfection of the expressi\l' form, and the plasticity of a \\orld (the places and people in it) that consents to be taken o\cr for, or actually to participate in, such expressiye tr'l11sformations. This aspect of the musical has been influenti,dly interpreted by Richard Dyer ([ J()771 J()H I; also in Cohan, 2002) as lending the genre a utopian dimension: this utopianism consists less in the liter,d bbrication of ideal onscreen worlds, although this may sometimes happen - for example in the magical make-beliC\e realms of Bnj"oJo(J11 (19.:;-+) or Xil/Uu/n (J()Ho) - nor e\"en, prim,lrily, in the emphasis on reconciliation and the creation of the romantic couple (most classic Holl~ wood genres, after all, \vould be utopian in this sense). Rather, according to Dyer the musicI1 shO\vs us \vhat utopi,l \vould
THE MUSICAL: GENRE AND FORM
91
fl'e/like: the reconciliation not simply of indiyidual characters (like the spar"ring couples serially impersonated by Astaire and Rogers) or even of communities (like the crowds of Parisian children and street yendors who applaud and flow around, in and out of Jerry's (Gene Kelly) i~provisation~1 dances in .11/.ill/eriCilI/ ill Poris), but of space, style and expressive form. It IS a quite literally harmonious experience, charged in Dyer's account with energies of intensity, transparency, abundance and community. Of course, this utopian dimension in the musical is firmly located within its O\\l1 social and historical coordinates, and critics have been quick to note the clear limits on its transformatiye aspirations. Dyer himself notes that the \Trv suggestion that free expressiyity is possible in a society actually closely co~strained by social and economic barriers can be seen as an ideological f,l11t,ISY, \\hile' inasmuch as the musical numbers promote hegemonic yalues that c'onfirm, rather than challenge, those of the narratiye (romantic and professiomll fulfilment and consensual social yalues) they also promote ideojogical homogeneity. (.\lore recently, Dyer (2000) has noted that the priyilege of joyous self-expression in the classic musical is policed along racial lines it is a privilege enjoyed only by whites, never by performers of colour.) '\onetheless, eyen raising the possibility of finding a utopian dimension in a central Hollywood genre powerfully challenges some abiding assumptions ,lbout 'industrially produced' commercial popular culture. Notably, the Frankfurt School writers Theodor _~dorno and .\1ax Horkheimer, in their critique of the 'culture industry' (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1[9-+-+] 1(72), resened particular scorn for popular musical forms like Tin Pan Alley and big-band j,IZZ, regarding their crudely pentatonic rhythms ,IS regressiye and repressiye in equal measure and their lyrics as asinine doggerel. For Adorno (who had studied \\ith the pioneering atonal composer Arnold Schoenberg bef(lre tllrning; to philosophical aesthetics and political economy), the romantic escapism of popular music typified the duplicity of mass culture: appearing to promise li'eedom from the drudgery of late capitalism, mass-produced popular music \\as p,lrt of the yery structures from which it blsely proposed relief. It was quintessentially part of the problem, not part of the solution. Adorno would haye greeted \vith incredulity the critical L!nlllr attracted to the integrated music'al in particular, and \v;luld haye been contemptuous of claims th,lt its sophisticated interphlY of performatiye expression ,l11d dramatic and/or comedic complexity makes it something like the \Vagnerian concept of the (;esolllA'I'illslll'crk - the 'tot,ll \york of art'. Rather, he would doubtless seize upon those moments when musical performers, in the preamble to a number, admit to experiencing almost ,I physical compulsion to dance """ for example, ~staire's lead-in to ''\0 Strings' in Top Hal, or Kelly's incantatory 'Gotta Dance!' at the start of the 'Broadway Rhythm' ballet in Sillgill' ill llie Rain as unintended textual confessions of the musical's inherently coerciye nature.
92
From
FILM GENRE
SlIlgill' III IIII' Rillll (1())2).
THE MUSICAL: GEC'JRE AND FORM
RqJroduced courtesy \IG\I/The I\:.obal Collection.
Adorno put what little f~lith he retained in art's emancipatory capacity in a few ,mmt-garde forms (Schoenberg's music, Beckett's theatre of pri'ation) which retained a massi'ely attenuated utopian aspect -- not, like the musical, in their abundance and promises of freedom, promises _\dorno reg'arded as lies, but precisely in their formal difficulty, their denial of easy pleasure or for that matter access to the mass audience. Only by saying 'no' to the uni'ersal 'yes' of the culture industry, .\dorno argued, could art hold out any image,
93
be it merely a negati,e one, of a world geared to a different order of human social relations than the one that actually exists. Adorno's commitment to this 'autonomous' art, which is perhaps more justly criticised for its rigidity Jnd g;enerality than, as it has often been, for its elitism, clearly and specifically excludes such mainstream genre forms as the musical. Hm,e,er, since musicals, as we ha,e seen, operate according to generic \crisimilitudes that differ in some fundamental ways from Hollywood's dominant quasi-realist regime of representation, it is at least possible that this f()1'1nal differentiation affords them a correspondingly greater freedom to explore dimensions of human social experience closed off to more con\ entional forms. Dyer's construction of the musical as at least potentially an ideologically progressi,e form opens up the possibility that musicals may ha\c offered a space, howe,er limited, for the articulation of subjecti'ities otherwise marginalised by classic Hollywood con'entions. Gi,en the musical's clear emphasis on the personal and experiential (rather than, say, historical or political) and also - through the centrality of performance - the bodily, it might make sense to see whether there is a greater dimensionality than the \-Iollywood norm in the genre's treatment of gender and sexuality. Indeed, these ha,e been important areas for contemporary research on the musical. :\s pre,iously noted, Fischer ((1970) 19H1: 7S), in line with Laura Mul,ey's (Il)7S) contemporaneous conclusions concerning ,isual pleasure and gendered spectatorship, argues that Berkeley's mass spectacles effecti'ely reified the female form - 'a ,ision of female stereotypes in their purest, most distillable form' - and nullified any suggestion of acti'e female agency in the backstage narrati'e (see also Rabinowitz, Il)H2; ~lellencamp, 19(0). "l\lore recent writers, influenced by Joan Ri,iere's theorisation of female masquerade, Judith Butler's \'ork on gender performati'ity and other queer theorists, ha'e suggested that the camp excess in Berkeley's work may in fact in,ert these ,ery techniques of objectification, throwing into relief the typically il1\isible ways in which female identity is constructed through, but not neces"arily for, a male spectatorship (sec Robertson, 11990]2(02). Similar theoretical positions ha,e worked to reconcei'e the musical's relationship to masculinity and male sexuality. The traditional class terms in which the contrast of \staire's urbane hill/Ie !JII/I/;r;eois elegance with Gene Kelly's muscular bluecollar physicality has been concei'ed, for example, is reassessed in terms of complementary models of masculinity: Cohan (i 19931 2002: HH) notes Astaire's exploitation of 'the so-called "feminine" tropes of narcissism, exhibitionism, and masquerade', \,hile both he and Dyer (i 19H(l] 2002: 111-12) remark on the contradictions of the more cOl1\entionally \irile' Kelly's construction of his own body as spectacle in The Pirale (19-l-H) and other ~lGM musicals. Then there is the matter of the politics of the musical text itself. Jane Feuer (l1977J 19HI) notes the ways in which the late .\staire and :YIGyl
From Singin' ill 'he Rain (1952). Reproduced counes,· 'I
liThe Kobal Collection.
94
FILM GENRE
musicals in particular both de- and remystif~- the act of performance itself through a dialectic of ret1exivity that works to promote the illusion of the film musical as a spontaneous, 'liv-e' performance. In manv W,1\S, 'art musicals' like those of the Freed Unit perform many of the form~l m~ves associated with the avant-garde and hence with resistant or oppositional art forms (art that articulates a challenge to hegemonic v'alues through its subversion or abandonment of the formal eom'entions bound up with the maintenance of that hegemony, for example the films of Jean-Luc Godan.l): the standard narrative dev'ice of 'putting on a show' ret1exiv-ely addresses the text's own production; direct address through the com-en tiona I 'fourth wall' is also frequently found in musicals - for example, Gene Kelly's announcement (direct to camera, in sudden tight close-up) that 'the best is yet to come!' as the lead-in to the climactic number in The Pirale, and the oscillation between 'ordinary Joe' character and star performer that occurs across the 'impossible' transitions from narrative to number and back again dra\\s our attention to the gap between the musical's idealised world of personal fulfilment and our own more constrained realitv, We will look in more detail at hO\\ this works in the analysis of SingIn ' in lite Rain below. Howev'er, the key paradox Feuer identifies is that, all these ret1exive modernist touches notwithstanding;, the musical is of course not a radical t(lrm- it remained rather for many years securely at the epicentre of Hollywood's profitable enterprise, Critics have therefore addressed themselves less to 'claiming' the musical for a hitherto unsuspected radicalism than to exploring, first, the fissiparous and potentially multivalent qualities of what the Frankfurt School perceived as the mass-culture monolith, and second and comersely, the ways in \\hich uncomentional formal dev-ices previously unprob1ematically associated \\ith radical intent may in tact be domesticated and .lccommodated to heg"emonic systems by context. Thus Feuer notes that while lvlGM musicals appear to lay bare the mech,misms of their own production as commercial entertainment, at the same time they typically end up reaffirming 'myths' of spontaneity, integration and imme~ diacy. Vcry similar questions have been considered in relation to music video by Kaplan (tl)H6) and Goodwin (1993), who recognise the extent to \\hich any number of formal devices previously confined 10 experimental and art film are taken over and exploited without difficulty in the supremely commodified world of the promo. The v-alue of such debates is their recognition of the need for film studies to move away ii'om a formalist essentialism that attributes specific political valences to formal practices outside of their actual contexts of production and consumption.
THE MUS[CAL: GENRE A:-JD FORM
95
THE MUSICAL IN POST-CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD
\lore than any other genre - ev'en the \Vestern, news of whose demise, as we h,l\e seen, has been considerably exaggerated - the fortunes of the classical ll1usical deteriorated dramatically with the waning of the classical Hollywood sl\lc and the transformation of the .\merican film industry from the 1950S o~\\ards. While for most historians of the musical the early to mid-19Sos marked the musical's creative as \\ell as commercial peak, above all in the Freed Cnit musicals at \lG\l (see above), this vitality did not persist beyond the end of the decade, It was 19.i7 which sal\' the effective culmination of the l11usical careers of both Astaire (Sill.: Sloct:lngs, HiS7) and Kelly (II's AhpilYs rilir Weillher, 1l)55, was Kelly's final film as starlchoreogr.lpher and Les Girls his last starring musical role, though he \\ ould continue directing musicals and making cameo appearances as a dancer into the Il)SOS). This is not to say th,l[ musicals did not continue to enjoy considerable popularity into the early r<J(ws. \lusicals' scale and spectacle made them a key element in the studios' battle \\ith low-resolution, monochrome television, while their apparently reliable appeal across a \\ide range of audiences made them an attractive investment in an era characterised by audience fragmentation and justified increasinglv large budgets and roadsho\\ (limited run, reserved seating) entr.wemen ts, Blockbusters like 5,'o/l11t Panfil' (19 is), TI,e ;H IIsl( Ala II (19 62 ) anJ t'H)' FiliI' Lild)' (J(iq) were indeed m~ljor su'ccesses -- as \\as Hesl Slile SIOIT, which in addition won several Oscars including Best Picture and Best ])ir~ctor. l-Iowev-er, as these examples - all adaptations of Broadway hits -\vould suggest, Hollywood W
96
FILM GENRE
Hispanic. sl~ms, shot partly on location in the Bronx, was an exception that ~roYed. dlfhcult to emulate. Thus as the decade wore on the musical hecame ll1creasmg'ly the province of classical-era directors such as George Cukor (.Uy Fillf Lild)'), .the,msehes approaching the end of their careers, and Yisibi y creaky hoth In form and content. . N:me of this of course mattereu to the studios as long as the musical remaIned c~~mm~rcially Yiable, and the enormous success of Disney's partanllnateu \! Ictor~an tan.tasy ,Wilf)' Poppil/s (19(q) anu Fox's The SOl/l/d oj All1.I'I( (19 6 5) which rapidly o\(:rtook GOIIC J1,1 h I hc H/I/d to become the alltime box-office champion, seemeu to prme the genre's dur,lbIe appeal. Howcyer, Thc SOl/l/d or. 'viI/sir pnl\Td not the harbinger of a ne\\ era for the ch~s.sical musical, but its swan song. In the \\ake of the film's commen:i,11 and cntlcal success - The ."'ol/I/d ol'.tIl/sir emulated 111'.1'1 Side SIOf)', also directed by ~obert Wise,. in winning Best Pil,ture and Director Osc.~rs the major studH~s pl~mgHl,lnto a scries of enormously e,,"pensi\e attempts at repeating t~e tnck, 1Jlclu~lng /)oC/or f)ollfllc (1<)67), Thorollglil)' .Hodall Hillie (19 6 7), ."1111" (1<)61\), CoodlJ)'c.Hr Clllps (I<)(H»), SOllg ol'YOI"7I'ill' (uno), 01/ iI Clear f)iI.)' y (/1/ CIIII Sec FOfeUf (I <)70, directed b~ Yincen te \ linnelli) and Hellll. /)011)'. (I <)70, ~Iire.c_ted hy Gene [(e1ly), :\11 of these WTre large-scale f10ps and contrIbuted slgndlclntly to the ncar-ruinous financial situation in which the m,ajors f()um] t hemsehes at the turn of the 1<)70S, Perhaps t be most oh\'ious of these productions' bilings in conception and C'.:ecution was their common ,lssu1l1ption- encourag'ed by ilic SIIIII/d or HI/sir's success of a nowc1~imerical Llmih audience, classic Hollyw ood's deLllIlt setting, hut in the ,lge of !]Ol/IIIC lilld e/l'dc, '!'Iic Gradualc ,md ille !)irl.J' /)0';,1'1/ (,III H)()7) neither :,~sily reached nor, as it increasinglY prm cd, necessary li)r ,I film's profitability. I he surpnse success of /;'11.1')' Ridcr (I()(H») seem cd to confirm the commerci:Il \iability of the youth marker; importantly, morem er, althoU!!.'h music ,1ll'd songs k,lIured prominently in both r'lIs)' Rider and Tlic C'mdlli;lc in the f()rm of a C<.H1temporary pop and rock soundtrack, these pointed up thematic
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drasticalh' shortened edit, the film f()Und Lnour with neither cntlcs nor ,ludience~ - ,,'as ",Lu,tin Scorsese's Sl'77' 1'111'1". NCIP '{lIrk (H)77), of all his !ilm s the most intensely intertextual as wTIl as sdf-rdnential, and in effect " complex thesis on both the utopian appeal and the ineluctable disenchant!llent of classic Hollywood forms, enacted through a deconstructiYe per(ormance of Holly\\ood's most potently alluring genre. A quintessential c:,..lmplc of \yhat '\oc\ Carroll ([ 91\2) terms the 'cinema of allusion', NelP } lid'. SCII' 1'IIr~' includes numerous references, direct and indirect, to the Technicolor musicals of the genre's postwar peak, including those of Kelly ,l11d \linnclli, and closely models its narrative after the somewhat ohseure 1<).+ 7 melodrama The. Hil 1/ 1 LII;"c - although to most audiences its story of the marital and professional cont1icts of two musicians will more readily reedl the 195.+ version of,.j Slilf Is Bllm (see Grist, 2000: 167f.)· Casting Illl" Garland's daughter Liza '\linnelli in the lead role of Francine Evans '(opi)osite Rohert De '\iro as saxophonist jimmy Doyle) highlights this deht of inf1uence. \C1l1 1'lId', \C/l' ) lid' sulwerts the musical's optimistic romantic nuster n,UT,lti\e hy juxL1posing.1 stylised period narrative, filmed in the saturated colours of the postwar period, \yith Dc :'\iro's improyisational perf()rmati\e style and nemoticdly contemporary persona. The film's critical take on the musical - which might he summed up as 'the myths don't work' can be compared to the contemporary tTYisionist Westerns (discussed in (:lupter 2), though without those films' clear political dimension or topicality. In YCII' ) 'lid'. YC})' }od', the musical's (literall\) harmonious imaginary, quickly est.lblished in jimmy's personal mythology of the 'major chord' '\\ hen you haye the \\oman you want, the music you \\ant, and enough money to get by' is exposed as un'lttainable. !':,Irly on in the lilm, jimmy \\ .ltches a sailor and his girl dance 'llone, silently, illuminated by the lights o!' a passing elevated train. The couple ,Ire ,I direct and unmist,lkable allusion to 01/ llic TOI/'II, in whose most LImous number - \\hich lends NCII' ) lid', NCII' }lIr!,> its title, rell .\lanhattan locations were used as the spectacular h,lekdrop for the three sailors' exuberant, transf(lrmatiye cclebration of self. Here, 1)\ contrast, as elsew here in .\CIl1 ) 'lJd·. .\'ell' YlJd', we arc ostentatiously and ,\;1<1chronistiCllh on a studio set, its theatricality highlighted by the st~ liseu play of mO\'ing: iight ,1l1d shadow' and jimmy's position, 10\\ in the li'ame with his hack to camera hut looking dm\n on the lh1l1cers ,1S if from the [i'ont row of' the circle. The f()1'm.ll distanciation of the setting as \yell .1S the ,1bsence of music - as if the dancers, who nlOn: \\ ith the precision and grace of their g'olden aL!;e f(lrbears, are moving to ,1 prerecorded score in their m\ n he,lds ~mphasi~es the ,lrtifici,llity of' the classicII musical 'number'. ;\t the same time, the vignette (which is wholly narrati\e1y redundant) is limpidly beautiful, t\oe
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UL1""'1t\.r..
THE
carry with them a yearning desire for the simpler pleasures of the classical musical. That such pleasures are no longer available is, ho\\ever, confirmed by Jimmy's response, or rather lack of it - annoyed at being excluded from his hotel room so his friend Eddie can try (unsuccessfully) to coax his pickup into bed, he watches the dancers silently and moves on, shO\\"ing no emotion or even any particular interest. Impelled by the conventions of the genre and the attractions of the two stars, \ve may wish to believe that sax-player Jimmy and singer Francine belong together; they may eYen for a time belie\e it themsehes. But as the film unforgivingly unfolds the realities of a dysfunctional and abusive relationship we become increasingly aware that it is cOl1\ention alone that keeps the pair together when they would be - and indeed, once separated, are- far better apart. NCI]) Yor!.:, IVc/lJ YOrA' climaxes with 'Happy Endings', an extended filmwithin-the-film-within-the_film 'starring' Francine as a theatre usherette CPeggy Smith') who dreams of becoming a star. Predictably, a chance encounter propels Peggy to stardom, heartbreak and ultimate redemption _ only, in a dizzying ",iSC-Cfl-ll!JilllC, for her to realise, tirst, that it has all been a dream, and second, fiJr her dream to actualise itself in the 'reality' of 'Happy Endings'. Shot in the stylised, oneiric mode of Kelh's climactic extended ballets in Oil Ihc TOI7JII, An .·llllcr/nill ill Pllris and S;'IWIII' ill Illc Raill like those sequences 'Happy Endings' (excised fro~l the ori~inal release pri'nt of Nm' Yor!.:, NCI/! YOrA') echoes the narrati\"e in which it is embedded. Unlike them, however, it acts not as a utopian fusion of desire, music and mO\Tment but as an ironic commentary on the unsustainahility of such desires as \\"ell as on the liJrm - the musical, in which such hopes are fostered. The large-scale production numbers that climax the sequence (includin
:\lUSICAL:
GE:'\IRE AND FORM
99
countenance the staple and distincti \"e gesture of the classical integrated musical, the moment \\"hen a character breaks from speech into song. .\ttempts have periodically been made to rC\i\"e this traditional lorm ~f the li\"e-action musical, \\'ith some success in the late 1970s, for example Grells:, T/le Wi;::: (both linS) and Hair (1<)7<)): perha~s sig~ificantl,y, all nost~lg.la films that also adopted softened and homogel1lsed forms of rock musIc 111 phice of Tin Pan Alley standards. Since the 1<)8~s, hO\\T\Tf, tradition~1 integTated musicals hale largely failed to find an audience (I\C/7'SICS, I<)<)Z; [ /1 f)o '-JII)'lllillg; [()9-+, Eeila). The fe\\" exceptions to this rule ha\e tended to rel\' h~avih on camp and knO\\"ing irony (Thc Rod.]' }fol'i'IIr Piclllrc ,')'holT', I
HEYOND HOLLYWOOD \1akin o ' music and song is as uni\crsal a human impulse as one can imagine, .md e\;n national cine'ma \vithout exception has developed its o\vn lorms of musical film. Fe\v of these, hO\\ever, are \\cll-kno\\n to audiences beyond those national borders, and almost e\ery English-language study of nonHolh\\ood musicals opens \vith a reference to the near-uni\crsal identiticatio'n of the lilm musical \\ith its .\merican liJrm, both in the popular
r J J. IV!
\.)
r.l~
K
t.
THE J\lUSICAL: GE'-IRE AND FORM
imagination and in historical criticism. Furthermore, one problem studies of film musical traditions repeatedly encounter is determining the n:tent to which the Hollywood musical established standards, generic norms or, for that matter, conventions fi'om which indigenous musicals can consciousl\" distinguish themselves. . Probably the best-known non-Hollywood and non-English language musical form is the Hindi film. With its high le\els of output, rang'e of production yalues fi'om blockbuster to bargain-basement, strong generic traditions (far more rigidly cotl\cntionalised and policed, in bct, than an\" Hollywood genre) ;lnd industrialised production system, 'Bolh\\ood' offer:s numerous points of suggestive comp;lrison \\itl~ the c1;lssi~ Holl\wood musical. One obvious and major difference is that the gre;lt m;ljority (iHindi films feature music;ll (\()cal and dance) performances, and to a viewer accustomed to the integrated musical in particul;lr the transitions from serious dramatic content to upbeat and dieg;etically heterogeneous musical number is bound to seem jarring. In flct, the COtl\ entions of musical integration in Hindi cinema are fundamentally different, operating not at the sub-generic level (i.e. the distinction bel ween the Berkeley and Freed musical) but in a trans-generic manner: musical performance is an accepted dramatic cotl\'ention in a discourse which operates according to different regimes of \"erisimilitude and concepts of realism than the Holly\\ood or European model. Thus whereas to a \Vestern \ie\\cr the Hindi musical might be concei\ed as a single if cxpansi\e 'musical' gTnre, in opposition to the social realist cinema of Rhit\ak Gh~ltak or the international art cinema of Sat\ajit Ray (Bint()rd, I<)S7), to Hindi audiences powerful g'eneric distinctions operate }}lil//l1I a set of representational cotl\cntions that operate in parallel to the equally cotl\cntionalised and itl\isiblc 'realisl' ground of \Vestern cinema. Pendakur (200j: \ I<) q+) sug'gests that both the musical (\\ith decreasing reliance on traditional instruments and tonalities) and \isual styles of musical perf()rmance in conlemporary Hindi cinema sho\\ the impact of urbanisation and \\esternisalion in Indian society as a \\hole. Folkloric traditions, a marked feature of Hindi cinema also li,rure in other nalionalmusical cinemas and mark a significant point of'dinlTe~ce li'om the Hollywood model. Hope\\cll (\<)S6: +S) describes the folkloric musical as 'the big genre' in Francoist Spain during the I<))OS, \\hile BergfClder (2000: SI-3) stresses Ihe im portance of folk song to the post \\ar German f{,'illlillIi/III (,Homeland films'). In both cases, it appears that the inclusion of distinctive nati\T musical traditions in lilm musicals expressed po\\erful ideological dri\es towards Ihe re-eslablishment ofcohesi\c national identities in societies li'actured by major historical traumas.
CAS EST U D Y: S 1\ G 1 X' LV T 11 F R .1 IN (I
952
101
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Si//!;ill' ill IIII' Rilill is generally regarded as the apotheosis of the integTated
mu~ical: indeed, it has no real rival as the most popular and highly regarded of all musicals, making the BFI's Top Ten in its most recent polls of all-time "Teatest films (the only musical to do so). Gene Kelly, who starred in and coJirected the film (\\ith Stanley Oonen) himself regarded it as his most successful achievement, and more than any other film it embodies the spirit and character of the musicals produced by the Freed Cnit at MGM between I (H() and 1<)3<). :'\iot only does SiIlP:III' ill I/Ie Rilill typil'\ the domesticated lll(~dernism that Feuer ([ J()771 I<)S [) sees as characterising' the Hollywood musical, but \\ith its numerous interte'\tual glances and allusions, the film ampll nt,lkes the point that reflni\c parody/pastiche as generic functions ,Ire bv no means limited to the post-classical :'-:ew Wa\c of the \(nOS, but can ~mo(;th" be incorporated into a lilm that is often seen as a \irtual emblem of classic tIoll\\\Ood . .\loreO\cr, as Cuomo (1<)<)6) arg-ues, SiIlJ!.ill' ill l/ie RilIII C'\tcnds the'musical's characteristic rcllc'\i\ity into a reflection on the genre as a \\hole at a kev stage in its e\olution - one might e\en say it rdlects on g-cnre in g-eneral. .\'illgll~' III I/Ii' Rilill after all tells the story of an actor \\ho is compelled by technolog-ical and industrial changes (the cOl1\crsion to sound) to change his star and generic personae. S""()/~/' ill I!li' Rilill 1;1<1\ not be a critical modernist te'\t, but it remall1s c1earll" a modernist rath'er than a postmodern lilm: indeed, it illustrates the d-ifferences bet\\cen the t\\O quite clclrly. \\hile many of its traits intertntualit\, reflC\.ivit\, nostalgia (the lilm is set in I<)2S IIolly\\ood during the cOl1\ersi;m to soun,i) - arc confusing-Iy associated \\ith both modernist .l11d postmodern f(lrms, in SlIIgill' III I!li' Rilill these are .tli located in relation to a di~course of (re-)integration that marks out ,In essential difference het\\een the modernist le\:t and the postmodern celehration of untra11lmclled heterog;eneity, difference ~lI1d fLIg-mentation. Inte!.!;rat ion, in LId, ma\ be seen as at once the narrative and thematic focus a~ld the perf(>rIllati\: modc of .),illgill' III I!I" Rilill. In narrali\c terms, intc'rration is crucial in terms of the illicit disassoci~It ion/ disinteg-r;ttion of \ oic~ and image that occurs \\hen Lina L1l11Ont appropri,lles as her ()\\Il the lOcal talents hatl1\ h,1S 'lent' her lllr T!I" f)illI(//l~ CIt'iI/,cr. The g;oal of the narrati\c thus bec;lmes the reintegration or voice/speech and body (linalll .Ichin cd through Cosmo's oposure of Lim at the lilm's premiere). Peter \\ollen (1<)<)2: ~3f.) relates this .Ispect of the film to J'ICqucs Ikrrida's thesis of the organisin!.!: 'Io!.!;occntrislll' of \\ estern culture in \\ hich speech, its authentici~\ \ouc'hsal~d b\ the singularity ,l11d integrity of the spe,lkillg; body, is pri\ i1ege-d O\cr \\Titing: \\ hose tr'lI1smissihility and multi\alence 1ll.1kes it potentially untrust\\orthy. It is ~uggestj\e ill this regard that the film clo~es
[02
FILM CiENRE
with Don and Kathy rt:garding; a billboard advertising tht:ir new star vehicle, 'Singin' in the Rain', 'a clinching self-citation' (Starn, 1992: (3) through which, as StC\cn Cohan (2000: 57) puts it, 'the film and its diegt:sis mesh ... perfectly'. The unity of the romantic couple is associated with the restoration of Kathy's voice and ht:r belatt:d rt:cognition as a musical star in her Own right: this climactic and celdmnory accumulation of successful integrations effectively o\cf\vhelms our awareness of film's necessary mt:diation (as film) of performanct: and accomplishes the same nostalgic invocation of immediacy as tht: backstage musical. Thus ,)'IIIP, III , III lite Ralll justifies Feuer's ([1977] J()H I: 16 I) claim that tht: Freed Unit musicals 'used the backstage format to present sustained rdlections upon, and affirmations of, the musical genre itself. The film promotes a distinction of image and inner reality in the ongoing conviction that bt:hind and beneath the mask of the former it remains both possible and ethically vital to t:ncounter the latter. Ho\\ner, this straightforward appearance/reality di,lleetic is complicated in SllIgllI' III Ihe Ralll because the reintegration of (personal, priYate) self and (professional, public) style is accomplished not, as in integrated backstage musicals like Tlte Balltllt ilP,IIIl, through the representation of live and unmediated (i.e. theatrical) performance but in relation to the 'second-order' reality of film itself. \)on and Kathy's duet 'You \Vere "\lcant For ~le', set on an empty sound stage, epitomises the film's playful engagement with these multiple contradictions. As has been \\idely noted, the number at once ackno\\ledges and disavow.s the artifice of the musical: acknowledges it, by establishing Kathy's idealised image as a function of the technology I)on arranges around her to produce it coloured gels, a wind machine, a spotlight - yet disaHl\\s it, by excluding these tools of illusion from the frame once the song begins and pIa.' ing 'straight' the resulting c1assicall.\ idealised image of the romantic couple. In this regard, the number rC\ises and updates for the medium of film what Feuer characterises as the 'let's-put-on-,I-sho\\!' myth in the musical, \\herc thc artifice of musical performance is registered by making the principal characters professional performers, but cancelled by representing their (successful) performances as originating in their 0\\11 vigour and native enthusiasm. :\lusical numbers in the musical promote 'the mode of expression of the musical itself as spontaneous and natural rather than calculated and technological' (Feuer, [19771 19H1: 1(5). (In the case of SillgllI' III tlte Ralll, the \ isible artifice of 'You \Vere ~leatlt For \le' contrasts interestingly \vith the unacknO\dedged use of similar technologies in Llct, aeroplane engines ' to create the draught that billO\vs up Cyd Charisse's scarf in the 'Broad\vay Rhythm' ballet.) Since film performance by its nature ne\er encounters its audience 'live', Don and Kathy's duet that simultaneously evokes and cancels the technological artifice and mediation of cinema can be seen as stag'ing the return out of artifice to the sclf and creating an imaginary
I I
I
I I I
I I I
I I I I
I I I
I
I I I
I I I
space, at once inside and outside the diegesis, \vhere perception ,1l1d reality can be reintegrated. Else\vhere, integration is foregrounded in, for example, 'Fit as a Fiddle', \vhere the discrepancy bet\vet:n Don's voiceO\er account of his early career, narrated to the Louella Parsons-like gossip columnist Dora Bailey, and the flashback vignettes \ve see of Don's and Cosmo's 'real' past - not, as Don m,lintains, 'dignity, always dignity', high society and the (ollserI'atlilre, but pool halls, the bread line and the hard grind of the burlesque and vaudeville circuits - enact a mismatch of public and pri\'ate self that must be rectified. (Don's LIke bio is quite literally a public affair: Don speaks to Dora over a microphone in front of an audience of fans at the premiere of his latest film \\ith Lina Lamont, Tlte Ro}'al Ras(al.) Don, like several of Kelly's other characters in his ~lG\l musicals, for example Fill' Me allil /H}' Gal ([().. p) ;ind Oil lite Til IIJ II , must retrieve an authentic inner self from underneath a shallO\\ defensive veneer '. often associated \\ith a 'slick' urban persona, a carapace to cope \vith the vicissitudes of big city life - if he is to achieve happint:ss. Characterising Don as in 'a state of self-division', Cohan (2000: ()2) nott:s ho\\ the 'real' biography revealed in 'Fit as a Fiddle' casts him 1'L']Katt:dly as a substitute, literally ,I 'stand-in'. In such a contnt, '~1ake 'Em l.augh' - \\hich \\as conct:ivt:d as a virtually ,Iutonomous showcase fllr Donald O'Connor's gymnastic abilitit:s - prO\es thematically integratt:d, as it reprt:st:nts a reconnection of sorts \vith Don and Cosmo's suppressed perfllrmativt: past. In tht: narrative, it is Kathv - t:stablished in her initial appearances as unaf1ccted and attractively artless compared to tlw 'Like' Lina Lamont who provides the means of Don's redemption. l<'inally, tht: film is not only formally but in the most concrete way predicatt:d on tht: principle of intt:gr,ltion, as a 'catalogut: musical', that is a \chicle fll!' tht: recycling of an existing catalogue of song' m,lterial (in this cast:, the 1920S songs of Frt:t:d and his \\Titing partner :'\iacio I Ierb Bnl\\n, to \\ hich \lG\l had purchast:d the rights in I
104
FILM GENRE
line, 'I can't quite visualise it. I'll have to see it on film first'. This ret1exive gag underlines that the q.-minute ballet \ve have just "itnessed literally has no 'place' in the film's diegetic world of 1928 Hollywood (it also clearly has no conceivable relationship to the costume musical Tile Dallclng ('aut/ler): it exists in a different realm of pure performance and spectacle. Kelly's codirector on Slngln' In lite Ralll (and also Oil lite TOil'''), Stanley Donen, later criticised Kelly's desire to interpolate heterogeneous ballet selj uences into both films as 'interruption(s) to the film's main thrust' (ljuoted in Wollen, 59)· Yet there is, as Cohan (2000: 59f.) notes, an ironv in 5'llIgIII' III lite Rain's integrati\e enthusiasm - that Debbie Reynolds, playing Kathy \\hose dubbed voice J ,ina Lamont claims as her o"n, \vas dubbed by the singing voice of Betty Noyes and by Jean Hagen - "ho played Lina for dialogue. Thus the material circumstances of the film's o"n production gin; the lie to the seamless integration· the 'marriage' that the text seeks so tirelessly to promote. In f:lct, the introduction of dubbing as both plot device and dominating metaphor (f(lI' inauthenticity and splitting) seems almost like the musical's textual confession of the impossibility of its o"n utopian project, setting loose a rogue, unanchored discursi\ e ficld "hose energies can only be contained by the magical deli\cry of the c\()\\n \\ho pulls aside the curtain.
(1-1
APTER
.5
The War/Combat Film: Genre and Nation
U)92:
NOTES I. On thc 'cincma of attractions'. SCT hclm\ (:Jupin 10 , FdLh\ SlTCTIl prCSC11l'T is .slIl'Tilll"lh Llplurul ill \\mdden\ (")~2) dc.slTiption of him as a 'singing liTe'. 3. \\'omh \lIcn\ thr P/lr/,!r NilS,' II/em" (Il)~~) Ilukc.s simiLtr assumptions 'Ihout \\omcn\ susccptihilil\ to thc .sircll SOIl~ of thc slhn sLTL'CIl. ~. ,:otc, hm\c\n, that .\'('1/' \ "d'. \('/1' \ IIrk su~~csts that .Iillll11\ (,lI1d \\c) runaill in Ihrall to such m\ tholo~ics: fm thc 111m cnd.s 11\ holdin~ out thc' prospL'c·t initiatcd \1\ .I im m \ of the coupk\ rcullion, onh ti,l' l'c~~\ to rcfu.sc, not \\ithout lT~ITt. thc offer. I Lt\ 1I1~ so ullspal"lll~h dcmonstratcd that thc.sL' t\\O pc<>pk ,llT ddlllitiH'h 11111 SuilL'd to hc a l'Oupk. tIll' 111m slill pla\S on and offthL' ,ludiL'llcc\ \c'lrnin~ (IikL' I'c'~~\/ !"LllllillL') lor such a ITdcmptiH' conclu.sion, '111d C\POSCS it ,IS nLIsochistic ,111d driH'n ollh \1\ thL' ~ellre\ pO\\nlul n'lI'LltiH' l"lll1\cntion,tlil\.
I
n a spectacular seljuence one of manv - mid"av thrOLwh Giovanni P,lstrone's silent epic Ca/I/l'lil (Italy, I()I{), a po"erful Ron;an fleet lays siege to the f(Jl'tified city of Syracuse, ally of Rome's nemesis Carthag·e. The imminent threat rouses :\rchimedes, a Syracusan scholar, from his esoteric ruminations to ill' ent a radical ne" "capon to save his city from the invader by harnessing the po\\er of the sun itsclf. His "ildly anachronistic, da Vincilike invention uses an array of mirror 'petals' around a central lens to f()Calise ,I deadly beam of light and heat that incinerates everything in its path. The \\e,lpOn - particularly in its small prototype bears a striking; resemblance to one of the ne\\ high-intensity inGmdescent lights that were in the early I<)IOS rapidly tranSf()J'Jlling the nature and range of lig;hting; effects being achien~d on sound stages throughout :\merica and Europe, its 'petals' identical to the 11100ie light's adjustable 'barn door ' shutters. The association is heightened \\ hen\rchimnles tests his ill'ention on a square of "hite camas that could p,ISS f()r a mO\ie screen; the lethal ray itself looks for all the \\orld like a projector beam. \\'hen the death ray is turned on the Roman fleet to dnastating efkct, as \larcia Landy (2000a: 34-) notes, the combination of paracinematic technolog;y \\ith scenes of barrle and terrible carnage underscores cinema'5 long-standing; aninit~ \\ith the technolog;ies of ",II'. \\arf:lre has been one of the mO\ies' principal subjects since their inEl1lC\. The ill\cntion of cinema coincided \\ith a decade of imperialist milit,I;'y contlicrs (the 1!'\<)!'\ Spanish-~\merican \\ar, the 18<)9I<)02 Boer \Var, the t904- 5 Russo-Japanese \Var), and consumer demand to see these e\cnts onsereen stimulated the ne" medium (Bottomore, 2002: 23<)). :\Ithouf!,'h the technolog;ical ,11ld representational limitations of early cinema inhihited the immediacy of such depictions, "hich comprised either staged recreations or scenes filmed \\ell to the rear of the front lines, the elaborately st,lged battle scene, the larger the scale the better, emerged as a Llyourite cJ'(md-puller in
106
FILM GENRE
early feature films - including, of course, Griffith's Birth lila Na/ioll (1915). Griffith's masterful synthesis of the deYeioping grammar of narratiye film, and his innovatiye use of the close-up and object-gaze (point-of-yiew) shot sequences decisiyely relocated the audience's relationship to screen warfare away from the simple consumption of war-as-spectacle towards narrati\'e participation and empathetic participation in the terrif)ing experience of modern war. While occasional films such as FIIII.tie/al JatA>e/ (19S7) or The Thin Red /,ille (1998) haye rendered battle as a distanced object of spectatorial contemplation, a far more consistent theme of the \V,lr film e\er since has been the progressiye annihilation of the self-preserying distance between the cinema audience and the bloody realities of military connict, deploying increasingly innoyative and high-intensity stylistic and technological strategies, fi>om-111 Q/lie/ 1111 the Wes/em Froll/ (1930) through.-1 Walk ill the SIIII (1945), COllie alld See (USSR, 19S4) and Pia/lloll (19S6), to SaI'lllg Pri,'ate R)'a II (1997). It is these combat scenes, playing a central dramatic role, that generically dc/inc the war film. A comprehensi\c historical account of any connict, or of war as a whole, necessarily includes the home fi'OI1t, supply lines, espionage, diplomacy, goyernment and military general staff, to say nothing of the build-up to and the aftermath of connict, alongside accounts of battle; and eyery national cinema of course includes a large number of films dealing with most or all of these subjects, some of them such as spy films and stories of returning \ctcrans - comprising; distinct sub-genres in their O\\n right. Rubenstein (19<)4: 456) identifies eig'ht major generic variants of the (Hollywood) war film - the Embattled Platoon; thc Barrie Epic; the Battling Buddies (in which two riyals, fi)r example for the Ion: of the same girl, fight each other as much as the enemy but eyentually bury the hatchet, prototypically What Price G/II/T? (Uj2(l), [ later FI)'illg Fllr/resses (1942), Crash Di,'e (J()43)); the Strain of Command; the Anti\\ar Film; the PO\\ Escape; the War Preparedness Film; the Sen icc Comedy-.\lusical (an extremely elastic category that runs fi'om jO\ial Llrces like Blldi Pri,'a/es (1941) and moraleboosting musical l"C\UeS like Stage DOllr Call/em (1943) to fierce later .mtiwar and anti-military satires like .H*-/*S*H .1I1d Ca/(h-22 (both uno)). Such a list olwiously makes the war film a di \crse and expansi ye category, and for this reason most commentators tend to foll<m lhsinger, \vho argues that the 'war film' as such 'does not exist in a coherent generic fl)rm' (I 9S6: 10) and sets aside war-related strains such as musicals and the PO\\ film to isolate the film of combat, represented primarily by the first fllUl" categories..\s eyer, such distinctions .lre anything but \yatertight: combat scenes /Cature importantly, for example, in both the classic \y.lr preparedness films TIll' Figh/illg 69/h (1940) and Sergeall/ Lnli (1941 ).2 The \yar/ combat film deals distinctly \\'ith modern \yarLIre: \yhile historical dramas \yith milit,lry themes,
THE WAR/COMBAT FILM: GENRE AND NATION
10 7
from TIle Chalge o(/Ile L/~f(ht Brigilde (1936, GB 1968) to Briluhcart (1995) ob\'iously intersect \vith the modern war film in their presentation of military t.lctics and staging of battle scenes, it is the experience of modern, mechanised warfare that gi\es the genre its distinctiye syntax. Notably, too, the connicts which ha\'e proyided the most enduring generic variants - the First \\'orld War, the Second World War and Vietnam - were all fought by conscript armies, thus lending an important representative quality to the seryice experience (although more recent films dealing with the modern profession.I1ised military like BlatA> /-fa /1'1.' /)0/1'11 and Behilld EIICllI)! Lilies (both 200 I) suggest that perhaps the notion of soldier as EYenman is so firmly established that the combat genre can dispense with thi~). . The operatiye definition of 'combat' in the warlcombat film is from the military analyst's point of yie\y quite naITO\Y and excludes many if not most key areas of modern \yarfare. The combat film usually focuses not on strategic military planning - indeed the ignorance, cynicism or nen contempt of sen ing troops for the grand strategic designs that haye placed them in h,lrm's \yay is a repeated generic motif ,- but on the direct experience of battle of the small military unit \vith clearly defined membership and boundaries (paradigmatically the infantry platoon, gunship or bomber 'crew). Badsey (.W02: 245) obsencs that these units arc 'a yen small minority in any re,;1 ()\crall \var-effi>rt', compared to log'istical, planning and supply ;)perati<;ns or homeland defence, but their dramatic appeal is precisely the clarity and simplicity of their task: they eng'agc in fighting' 'as Hom~r understo;)d it'. Pierre Sorlin (1<)94: 359-(0) argues that this emphasis on the self-contained unit, crcating: an 'imaginary \yar ... rcpresented as the sum of heroic actions clrried out by handfuls of indiyiduals' so well suited to narrativc cinema's dramatic needs, O\yed something to changin ot'>' modern military" theory in the hlte nineteenth cent ury in the light of colonial episodes such as the siege of \lafeking or the battle of Rorke's Drift (fictionalised on film in ,),) /)a')'s a/ Pd-II/g (ui)3) and ZI/III ([()(q), respecti\ely). The e\'()lution of the \\ar (or combat) film is marked perhaps more directh than any other by dnelopments in the \vorld beyond the frame. The shif:t from The Big Pamde (1<)25) to Til" Slll/ds or/mo Jill/a (u)45) and thence to Pla/olil/ (I<)S(l), Three Kil/gs (H)<)t)) and BfacA' Hall'l.' /)011'11 olwioush cannot simply he explained in terms of internal ~eneric c\olution or 'lif~-C\cles'. Changing perceptions of particular \\ars and of war itself, arising fi'o~ the cumulati\e sharcd cultural experience of difterent conflicts and their embedded politics, elicit unusually direct effects in the shifting: tenor, iconography and generic \crismilitudes of \var films. Thus, as \ve shall sec, \\hile First \\'orkl \\'ar and \ietnam combat films tend to emphasise the futility, brutality and sufkring of \\ar - in the uni\ersal or the particular - Second \\orld \\ar mO\ies are more likely to emphasise 'positi\e' \alues of valour,
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patriotism and purposeful sacrifice. Similarly, different national experiences of conflict and of \ictory or defeat ensure a remarkable dissimilarity in the generic conventions by which wars are rendered in different national cinemas - sometimes even curtailing direct representation altogether (for instance the 'un,lvailability' of Second World War combat as a direct topic in postwar German cinema). At the same time, war films exercise their O\vn pO\verful capacity to structure popular memory and hence to 'rC\\Tite' history. Finally, the war film is also notable for the high degree of interest and sometimes active iIwolvement (or interference) it attracts from national gO\ernments and its implication in propaganda efforts. For all of these reasons, while retaining a focus on Holly\\ood, this chapter will throughout consider and compare variants of the war / comhat film across se'Tral national cinemas, sampled primarily through their different representations of four major confliers: the two World Wars, the K.orean War and \"ietnam.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR The consequences of the First World War (Il)q-18) for global cinem.] \\ere in their way as far-reaching as for \\orld politics and economics. The deformations the war eff(lrt inflicted upon the economies of the \v.lITing' European nations retarded the dnelopment of distinctive national cinemas; in Russia, the most extreme case, military collapse, revolution and civil \var etfecti,'Cly annihilated the domestic film industry until the mid-Il)ZOS. COl1\Trseh the American film industrY, sustained lw. its hug-e intern,tlmarket and ..\merica's " late entr\' (:'v1arch [()I/) into the \\'ar, \vas well placed to t'lke competiti\'e ad\',mtage of the situ~1tion and emerg-ed from the \var enormously strengthened, f(JI" the first time clearly the g-Iobally dominant industry. The \var also made plain lilm's unprecedented potential as a 1001 for disseminating inf()rmation and propag-,mda, resulting- in sig'nificant changes to the relationship bet,veen g'overnments ,1I1d national film industries. In the CS ..\, as \LInt (19 8 :;) argues, although lilm h'ld only a limited impact upon .\merican audiences during the brief CS il1\ohement in hostilities, intlustrygo\'ernment collaboration on \\ ar bond dri\ es led to former Trelsury Secret.lry \Yilliam :YlcAdoo's .Ippointment to a senior position at the ne\\ ly f(lrmed Cnited Artists, setting- a precedent f(JlO \vhat \vould subsequently become a L1irly frequent l'\chang-e of personnel bet,\'een go\,ernl11ent and Holly\\ood and a br more Ll\ourab\c ,1ttil ude in g-oyernment circles g'Cneralh I(lr the hitherto unrespectablc medium of film. In .Iddition, the \Yilson administration's acceptance th.n the film's industry's economic independence need not be compromised or curtailed for the cinema to be mobilised in the national interest would pro\'e hug-ely significant f(lr the next \\ aI'.
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\Vhile all the \varring countries produced highly partisan patriotic wartime dramas and propaganda films, no clear generic template for the representation of the First \Vorld \Var coalesced until later in the silent period, when it formed part of a much larger cultural and political reckoning with the meaning and implic1tions of the \\ar. :\"otably lacking during the war itself \V,IS the later identification of combat scenes as central to making dramatic sense of the \var, \vith spy films, hagiographic biographies of military and politic11 \caders and - especially - sensational melodramas that purported to depict (largely imented and soon discredited) German atrocities on civilian populations in occupied Fnll1ce and the Lo,v Countries all vying to define the \var f(lr audiences at home. Perhaps the most lasting; consequence of such in LlIllOUS en tries as TI,c Beas/ Bali" (Il) I 8) \vas the later reluctance of Allied film-makers in the Second \Vorld W,lr to inflict such crude, bare-knuckle propaganda upon sceptical audiences (sec Dibbets and Hogenkamp, 199:;). Cinem.nic representations of the 'Great \Var' in the 1920S and Il)JOS demonstrate \cry clearly the close relationship between this genre and contemporary politics. In the-\lIied countries, the initial jubilation of \ictory quickly gave \\ay to a negati\T perception of the \var's afterm'lth thM in turn came to colour understandings of the \var itself. The best-knO\vn expressions of this mood of disillusionment arc t\VO larg-c-scale anti-,var melodram,ls, \bel Gance's .7'-l(({{sc (France 1(19), \\ith its uncompromising depiction of the horrors of \\ar folll)\\ing hard on the\rmistice itself, and The B,p, Parade (I()z:;), \\hose hero returns from the trenches minus his illusions, most of his comrades and his leg' to find a glib and shallO\v civilian \vorld that shabbily C\ploits fighting men's sacrifice for its 0\\ n self-interested ends. This contr.lst het\\een the fierce integrity of the blood brotherhood of comhat troops and the ullo\\ness or indifference ofci\ilians and, somclimes, military brass became .1 hallmark of First \Vorld \Var films. '\otably, this sympathy \\as able to cross the lines of fortner hostilities in the name of ,I shared humanity, most Ltmously in /II Qllle/ 1111 /he /It's/em Fro/II ([(no), the story of a young German soldier's suffering' and death in thc trenches. (The rl'\Tlation of German \var crimes and the Ilolocaust \vould make the svmp.nhetic treatment of Second \\orld \Var Gcrman soldiers much more difficult, although a clear distinction \\as ofien dra\\ n bet\veen 'decent' Wehrmacht oHicers such as those plaved by \ lichad Caine in Tilc h'ag/e !las I,allded (1<)I(l) and James Coburn in Cross 0( /rllll ([()II) and their cOl1\inced ;,\LlZi superiors.·') It is \\orth noting incidentally that this \videspread ele,ation of the experience of the trenches into a kind of C1hary or existential crucible, geIll'!'.lting pri\ i1egnl insights tLll1scending' the Iri\ialities of the home front, \\.IS not necessarily associated \vith pacifism or liheralism: 'Ilthough the :\'azis (still .In opposition party) and other right-\\ ing German natiol1
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shared a perception of the war as a transcendent experiential moment that demanded expiation and restitution. The dominant iconography of the First W~orld \Var that emerged from ..11/ QlIlcl ... and its European counterparts notably Wesl/i'(ill! 1918 (Germany I<)3I) - is of the trenches, the moonscape of No Man's Land, mud, decay, squalor and (physical and moral) confusion. Chambers (1994) suggests that such 'anti-war' films should be generically distinguished from 'war films'; Kane (1988: 87) on the other hand insists that such films, which operate by complicating or imerting standard generic dualities, 'represent a predictable place on the established genre continuum'. In LlCt, very few combat films about any \var arc 'pro-\var' in any simple sense: most retain a serious awareness of the suffering and loss war entails even if they wholeheartedly endorse the reasons for fighting (as is the case with the overwhelming majority of US and CK Second World \Var combat films through the 1960s and in most cases beyond). The situation was somewhat different in Britain, where despite the intluential portrayal of the war during the I<)ZOS by (mostly officer class) veterans through memoirs, novels and abO\e all poetry as 'wholly traumatic and catastrophic', films tended to cleave more closely to official versions (which as recent revisionist histories have suggested may also have in Llet more closely retlected the common soldier's experience and understanding of the war: see Burton, zooz). Thus although 'they deplore the carnage of war ... they do not question the necessity of duty' (Landy, I<)91: IZO). In this sense British portrayals of the Great War did not 'catch up' with other national cinemas until the 1900s, when according to Korte (ZOOI: IZI-Z) 'a new contcxt of sceptical self-examination' definitively disassociated the image of the First World War from positive notions of patriotic s,lcrifice ,Ind attached it exclusi\Cly to suffering and pity. (Korte notes that this is the period when the war poetry of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfrid Owen became standard school texts.) Burton suggests that it \V,lS in Llct the institutionalisation of the Second World War as Britain's 'finest hour' that reinforced the cinematic representation of thc First \Vorld \Var as, by necessar: contrast, brutal carnage at the behcst of a corrupt and cynical establishment, for instance in kill/!, illld Counlr)' (19(>4) and more recently RegClleralioll (I<)(n); such early sound-era Great \Var dramas as Tell Ellglillld (1931) may accordingly prO\e upon closer inspection less blindly patriotic and affirmative than often beliC\ed. It would be \\Tong- to suggest that every cinematic treatment of the First World War is polemically anti-war in spirit and bkak in tone. :'\otably, a robust sub-genre depicting the (in strategic terms Elirly marg-inal) air war cekbrated the dashing elvalry spirit of the fighter ace (Willgs, I<)Z7; The [)il lI'Il Pillrol, 1930, remade I<)38; more recently ~1ces High, GB I
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]ollrlle)"s Elld (193I), which like Tell Ellglillld eulogises the tragically honour,Ible British officer class, is perhaps the classic example (see also Kelly, 1997; Burton, zooz). ~onetheless, so firmly \vas the image of the First World War ,IS futile slaughter lodged in the American public mind by the 1930S that the earlier war presented real problems as a background against which to encour,Ige war preparedness in the years leading up to Pearl Harbor for those studios that were keen to do so - notably \Varners, who did manage to produce two of the most important preparedness films, The n:e:hling 691h and the multi\cadem y-:\. \vard-\vinning SClgeil III }'o!'l', in First W orld War settings (sec Leab, 19(3).
THE SECOND WORLD WAR Lniquely, the generic paradigm of the Second World War combat film was established during the \var itself, and has been largely maintained since. \loreO\er, this generic model subsequently becomes the principal frame of reference for almost all later combat films. Regarding the Hollywood combat film, key Elctors in this speedy and enduring generic crystallisation, comp,lreu to both earlier and later major conflicts, \vould presumably include the l1luch more extensive (compared to the First World War) conversion of US society to the \var eff(Jr!, the high degree of consensus about the necessity ,1l1d value of the \var (unlike Vietnam) and clarity about its aims and outcomes (unlike Korea). ~\merica's four-year participation in the confEct (19-P-43) also allowed ample time f()r the establishment anu refinement of a \ iable generic model (by contrast, post- \ ietnam conventional campaig-ns, with the notable exception of the second Iraq \Var (zo03-), have been completed in weeks or days). \loreO\Tr, what is true f()r Hollywood is true as well !<)r the national cinema of every other major combatant. Also without exception, testifying to the \var's political and cultural centrality not only for the war generation themselves but f()r those who were children during the war ,InU those born in the following decade (in CS terms, the 'baby boomers'), national cinemas ha\T periodically returned to the Second World War combat film, updating and revising the classic generic paradigm in the light of both ne\v unuerstandings and perceptions of the war itself~- notably, the growing centrality to Second \\orld War historiography of civilian sufferingin general and the Holocaust in particular - and the changing contemporary political em ironment (the two arc of course closely linked). For this reason, this section is subdivided into t\VO parts, dealing respectively with Second \Vorld \Var combat films made during the war and those made subsequently.
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The Second World War COIl1bat Film 1939--45 The experience of the Second World War highlights the extent to which the war / combat film is implicated in the political needs of its moment of production and subject to wholesale revision. Hollywood was cautious about dealing with war-related, let alone explicitly anti-Nazi themes during the late 1930S, mindful of the still-fragile state of its finances in the lingering Depression, its reliance on lucrative foreign (principally European) markets, and hostility from isolationist elements in Congress. With the outbreak and spread of the European war these markets were progressi\"ely closed to Hollywood, until only the UK - in any event Holly\\ood's most important overseas market - remained (thus confirming the studios in an anti-Nazi, interventionist line). Simultaneously, as Schatz (I 99H: 92--+) points out, Roosevelt's massive rearmament drive after 1939 both put a definitive end to the Depression and boosted working populations and incomes in those \"ery urban industrial areas where mO\'ing-going \vas strongest - thus ensuring that Hollywood's own rising fill'tunes \vere firmly hitched to the war economy. 'Nevcr before or since', he argues, 'ha\"e the interests of the nation and the movie industry been so closely alig"ned, and nc\er has Holly\\ood's status as a national cinema been so \ital ... I with an I cfTecti\"e integration of Hollywood's ideological and commercial imperatives' (p. H9). The production of war-related (though rarely actual combat) themes rose from a bare handful in 1939--+0 to some three dozen (still only 6.S per cent of total output) in the last year of peace, 1941 (see Shain, 1(76). As Thomas Doherty (1993: HS-121) argues, neither of the t\vin paradigms established filr Hollywood representation of the First World War during the 1920S and early 1930S - pacifist despair in the trenches, giddy heroism in the air - were appropriate to the needs of the conflict into \\"hich the US,'\. \\as finally impelled by the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 19-+1. The gTOUp ethos promoted during" the conflict would require not only the recasting: of existing war film motifs but the subordination of prnalent attitudes and their corresponding narrative templates in Hollywood g-cnres and filr that matter in America at larg-c, 'The necessity of personal sacrifice and the \"alue of communitarian purpose were not exactly main currents in ,'\.merican thought ... The cheeky newspaperman, the lonesome cO\vboy, the private detective, the single-minded inventor, e\cn the \\"ill to power of the urban gangster strike chords unsounded by the re\vards of group solidarity and communal work' (Doherty, 199]: IOS). Thus the theme of'col1\"ersion' emerged as central to the wartime film industry, both as narrative template of \var-oriented films and a touchstone for the reorganisation of production processes, as studio operations and establishcd story formulas and star personae \\cre retooled for the war effort.
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Building on thc lessons of the First World War, the US government maintained an arm's-length relationship to the film industry during the war, liaising and coordinating production of war-related films through the Office of \\"ar Information (0\-\"1) but stopping \vell short of gross propagandising or direct state control in the German or Soviet mode. Indeed, democratic pluralism and diversity, as \\e shall see, became the defining motif of Holly\vood's \var effort, The dominant tenor adopted by the combat films produccd by the Hollywood studios during the \\"ar itself was - contrary to the popular recei\ed wisdom of Boy's Own heroics- a hard-bitten, sometimes g-rim professionalism rather than the sho\\y valour of prewar period military films such as Tile C/Ill/:e:e orllte J,lgltl Brigade (1936). In keeping with governIllent concerns not to raise unrealistic expectations of early victory, the war \vas presented as a tough, often grimly attritional struggle ag"ainst fierce, on.>;anised and ruthless enemies (in the case of the Japanese, often freighted with negati\"e racial stereotyping). In the first disastrous months after Pearl Harbor, as Allied forces \vere rolled back across the Pacific Theatre, Holly\\ ood combat films \\ ere not guaranteed happy endings: the Embattled Platoon \ ariant found its classic expression at this time in such tales of heroic annihilation as /I id'e Islalld (19-+2) and Balaall (19-+3). In any case, with some six million CS sen"icemen and women sening' O\erseas by the war's end, Emtasy \crsions of the \var could be quickly discredited. Such bctors, combined \\"ith the imperati\cs of historical immediacy - Columbia's SulJII/llrille Raider (H)-+2) \vas in cinemas \vithin six months of Pearl Harbor, and such tight turnaround times \vere not unusual - and the influence of wartime nnvsrecls, lent Hollywood a ne\v degTee of realism, One shou Id not o\"erstate the clement of \vartime innO\"ation as opposed to traditional industrial adaptation: Schatz for instance notes how not only James Cagney's Crmiliar tough-guy persona \\as carried over into the \-var milieu in Tile Fig/I II II,!!, hi)lll but also a rcfill'll1ation/ cOl1\ersion narrative here, his suppression of his anti-social super-individualism in Ll\our of the team bmiliar from his gangster film "Illgeis Willt Dlrl)1 Fa(es (I<)JH) and aided by the same means - a priest played by Pat O'Brien. Yet combat film narrati\cs did sho\\ marked differences with the pre\var norm, Dana Polan (19H6: I I2) argues that Holly\\ood's classical narrati\e paradigm with its indi\"idual protag'onist and clearly resoh"ed conflicts unden\"ent a temporary but profound shift to accommodate the \\"ar effilrt, subordinating the indiyidual to the collecti\'e (or 'team') and the romantic couple to the g-cnderspecific \\artime duties of men and \\omen (see also Ray, 19H5). The theme of sublimating personal ambitions and desires into a larger unit becomes commonplace, focusing either on the need for se\eral indi\iduals to pool their differences or on the lone nuverick \\ho becomes a team player. Paris (I <)<)7) shows hO\\ the depiction of the bomber ClT\V in an early Second
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World War film like Air Pllrte (1943) consciously mo\es away from the 'lone eagle' heroics that characteriscd 19305 aviation movies, with their emphasis on fighter aces, towards the prevailing model of democratic 'teamwork' exemplified in Air Fllree by the transformation of the initially embittered failed pilot Winocki into a 'team player'. As part of the dneloping pattern, war films showed how the sen-ices could reward all skills - and not just the ostensibly more 'glamorous' ones -- with a key role in the team: in Rear GUllller (1943), pintsize crack-shot backwoodsman Burgess Meredith finds his ideal niche in the tail cockpit of a B-2S bomber crew. Such examples, readily multiplied, support Basinger's argument that the 'hero' of the Second World War movie is a collecti\e one, the combat unit - the inL1I1try platoon or the bomber crew, an ethnically and socially variegated CIT\\ whose differences arc suppressed, superseded or set aside for the duration of their mission and whose different skills and abilities (and sometimes nen weaknesses) complement each other to mould a unit whose value is definitively more than the sum of its constituent parts. (Landy (1<)91: 1(12) identifies a similar project in the British combat film: 'War narratives like Tile Way .iltead (19-+0) are dramas of conversion, but unlike traditional cOl1\ersion patterns, \vhich focus on a single character, this film focuses on transformations of the group.' In both Air Fllne and He Dic'e .11 Dall'll (GB 1<)-+3), the opening credits identify characters by rank or function rather than name.) Although Kane (I<)XX) notes the general lack of er/ll/eil ideologising in Second World War combat films, the 'tean1\\Ork' model \\.IS instantly legible in terms of the preniling ideology of the 'good \var': Wood (H)X I: (8) describes the bomber crew as 'an idcal democracy in microcosm' \\ho achieve 'a perfect balance ... between individual fulfilment and the responsihility of each member to the whole. The cre\v enact the v,dues they arc fighting fllr,' a reading wholly supported by contemporary industry publicity and correspondence with the OWl and uni\ersally endorsed hy commentators. ))emocronic diversity importantly extends to demography too: the ethnically diverse platoon - emblematically enacted in the roll-call of recognisably 'hyphenated American' names - is of course an abiding genre cliche, and, as Basinger (I <)86: SS) obsen es, mcrtly invokes the 'melting pot'. This in terpretation again confl)rms to industry and gmernment's contemporary relay and fllrms part of the cOl1\entional critical \visdom. Thus Paris (I<)<)j: -+X) arg'ues that 'from Gillig IIII! (1<)-+2), in \\hich a .\larine colonel ... orders his racially mixed unit to "cast out prejudice, racial, religious, and every other kind", to Pride 1I(tlte /fiatilles and 1 1/ idA' in 1111' SIIII (both J()-+S), the combat group has stood as a metaphor fllr a democratic society.' This democratic inclusiveness, however, has its contradictory dimensions, particularly in relation to race. Not only were mixed r,lcial groups at odds with the realities of military segregation (in Gnllg HII! and Balaall they are accounted for dramatically by
THE WAR/COMBAT FILM: GENRE AND NATION
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the ad hoc nature of these films' combat units, patched together for special missions from the remnants of routed larger forces);-+ Slotkin (2001) argues that the broadening of the CS ethnic and racial community enacted in films like these' \\as achievable only through the outward expansion of the 'racial frontier' and the projection of the negative stigma of the racial Other onto the enemy, usually the Japanese. Street (2002: (3) records that British wartime films were popular and highly regarded in the US. In Samuel Goldwyn's opinion, the war had enabled British cinema finally to discmer a distinctive style of its own, 'broader and 11101'1.' international' than HollY\\"(lod and expressive of 'the intimate univers,dity of everyday living'. Like its US counterpart, British wartime cinema used depictions of combat not only to record the course of the war but to project the core values of the struggle: whereas US combat films reinforced and extended traditional A.merican democratic principles, however, their British counterparts helped construct a nmel collecti\ist ethos that was defined hy its differences from pre\var society: 'The ideology of the people's war \\ hich emerges from (British) wartime films is one of national unity and social cohesion: class differences have all but disappeared and han.> been replaced instead by a democratic sense of community and comradeship' (Chapman, [l)l)X: I(JI; sec also Kuhn, J()XI) ..\s a na\-al power, maritime combat fcatures Illore prominently in British tl1<1n in US war films, and the enclosed comIllunity and enfl)rced intimacy of scagoing warfare lent themsehes readily to object lessons about about the ne\v professional alli.mces emerging from the liar effort, challeng.-ing and superseding traditional class differences. In the submarine film Ifi' lJ!L'e al Da!l'n, successful soldiering resolves the confusions and complications of domestic and civilian life. (The British war film has probably been the most thoroughly explored of any national cinema: sec also Hurd, «)X-+; Landy, 1<)<)1: q6-66; Chapman, Il)9X; J'Vlurphy, 2000; Paris, 2000.) '\oting' the relatively small number of Smiet front-line combat films made during the \\ar - particularly in light of the genre's notable and consistent popubrity in the post\var era - Kenez suggests that 'perhaps the struggle was fllr the SO\iet people too serious an aff~lir to be depicted as a series of adventures. Or maybe the directors considered the st.lbility of the home front a greater concern than the behaviour of soldiers under fire' (2001: 176). By contrast, films about partisans \vere more numerous, more popular and generally regarded as better quality. Parallels to the multi-ethnic combat unit in the Holly\vood war film <:<111 be flmml in the stress on multinational and pan-Slavic cooperation against the ~azi threat - an important propaganda line gin:n '\azi attempts to exploit (justified) anti-Bolshnik nationalist resentments among the minority nationalities in the Soviet Cnion. Hmvever, a distinguishing; feature of Smiet films such as Site De/ends lite _Hllt/lerlant!
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(USSR H)+3), The RIlII/liOIl' (USSR 19H) and Zolll (CSSR I(J-!.-I-) is their ftlcus on female protagonists whose sex mitigates neither their inyolyement in the resistance to the Nazis nor indeed thc ferocity of their yiolence (here dnnving on Soyiet cincmatic precedents, ttl!" example PudoYl.;in's Thc .Hother, 1(26). Another notable difference was the stress in Soyiet 'historical' wartime epics on heroic inspirational leader figurcs such as l(utUZO\ (with the incvitable and transparent analog'y to Stalin). Gillespie (zOOT IzR-9) finds the Russian war film 'deadly serious, with a more \'isceral immediacy' than its western counterparts, and notes the much more graphic depiction of extreme and sadistic yiolcnce. Unsurprisingly, gi\ en that thc Soviet film industry \\ as wholly state-owned and con trolled, Soyiet \var films were also often more crudely propagandistic than Amcrican or British films, as reyealed, for example, hy a comparison of the deliberately low-key depiction of submarine warfare in We DI,'c 11/ DIII/"Z w'ith the absurd heroics of SIl/Jlllilril/e T-q (USSR 1()+3), in which 'a single submarine sinks countless enemy ships, raids a German port and C\ en lands some marines ashore to blow up a strategic hridge,
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The Second World War Combat Film since 1945
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Broadly speaking, the Second World War combat film was a staple of the principal Allied national cinemas -- the USA, the USSR and Britain - until the late HnOS, at which point the genre Ellis into disuse until the end of the Cold War and a series of large-scale public commemorations of Second \\orld War anniyersaries prO\oke a revival in the 1990s.1> Kane (1<)88: 86) identifies Z-I- Holly\yood combat films produced between 19-1-2 and 19-1-5; after this there is a two-year hiatus until production of combat films resumes in 1l)+7, follo\ving which at least one Second World War combat film is released each year until 1970. By contrast, in the defeated Axis powers, the combination of defeat, wholesale social and economic reconstruction, rapid incorporation into the western anti-communist alliance and the shameful but largely unaddressed legacy of \\'ar crimes made the production of combat films, particularly in (West) Germany or Japan, too problematic and contentious a proposition to generate more than a handful of films until much later. The mythology of resistance in Italy and France offered alternative narrative p
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the H)50S a moye away from the collectiyist tone of the \\ar years towards a renewed focus on the officer class alongside a new emphasis on processes of elite planning' and decision-making. The Cmel Sea (1953), one of the decade's most successful war films in the UK, eliminates much of the below-decks material in adapting :'\ieholas Monserrat's best-seller and focuses more narrowly on the captain's sometimes intolerable burden of command. The popular sub-genre of POW-camp escape films such as Tlte lJoodt'll Horse and Tlte Coldil;:, Slor)' (both [()55), confined to the ofEcer class, emphasise meticulous planning and the role of a 'management class' (the escape committees). Scientists and strategists - 'boffins' in wartime lingo - emerge from the shadows to stand alongside selected cadres of specialist commandos in recreating notably nmTl, and now declassified, tactics such as midget submarines (Abrn'e Us Ihe Wat'es, [()55) and the 'bouncing bomb' (Tlte Dam Buslers, 195+). (On the postwar and H)50S British \\ar film, see \ledhurst, 11)8+; Pronay, 1988; Rattigan, 199+; .1\1urphy, 2000: 179-239; Geraghty, 2003: 175-95; Chapman, 2000). Far more than its US counterpart, the British 'war film' is yirtually synonymous with the Second World War: colonial and postcolonial conflicts (such as the 1982 Falklands War and British military il1Yohcment in :\'orthern Ireland from H)67) haye not been depicted on-screen as generic combat situations (see McIlroy, 1998). The British combat film shri\clled alongside other traditional genres during the near-collapse of the domestic film industry in the [(nOS; \\hile it would appear to offer suitable material for either of the dominant genres of the 1980s, social realism and the heritage film, combat films of any kind did not feature until the turn of the millennium, and then only in such generically marginal examples as the First World \Var-set Regmcralioll and f)ealhll'a/(It (2002, a trench \\arelIT-horror hybrid). The defining US engagement of the immediate postwar period \\as the 'police action' in Korea (19+9 53), in which US fi)ITeS, leading a liNsponsored international coalition, confronted the new Communist enemy for the first time in the shape of first the :\'orth Korean and subsequently the Red Chinese armies. The absence of an~ immediate thre,lt to US territory, as well as the anti-Communist hysteria dominating the domestic political landscape throughout the war's duration clim,lxing in the diyisiye Redhunting campaigns of Senator Joe ~lcCarthy, made Korea a difficult war to 'sell' in the inspirational terms of the Second World \\',Ir by now firmly established in US national mythology as the 'Good War'. Despite its later reputation as the 'fi)rgotten \\'<11", hmYe\cr, at le,lst t\\"() dozen \\ar / combat films dealt with Korea, the great majority made betwcen 1952 and 1956. In the absence of a distincti\c iconog-raphy, Korean combat films like Relreal, Hell! (1952) and .Hol al War (1957) tended largely to adopt the established
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(iE'JRE A'JD NATION
11<)
Second World War platoon model, superficially updated to include new military technologies such as the helicopter and jet plane (e.g. Sabre Jet, H)53) and new social realities - notably the racially integrated military. The confusing, attritional nature of the conflict (in which periods of stalemate .dternated \\ith enormous campaigns of manoeU\Te, while objectiyes changed hands seyeral times oyer the course of the war), howeYer, may account fi)r the weary, unillusioned tone that increasingly characterises both Korean and Second World \Var combat films in this period. Porl' Chop Hill (H)59), a late Korean War entry - released closer to the start of full-scale liS military in\"()lyement in Indochina in 1965 than to the end of the Korean conflict itself - includes most of these elements alongside interesting glances at earlier genre traditions. The action takes place during literally the final hours of the conflict, and depicts an inf:mtry battalion charged to retake and hold a North Korean position of minimal strategic yalue other than as a counter in the negotiations concurrently taking place between the L.'\/CS and Communist commands. Some traditional Second World War clements are updated: the multi-ethnic platoon now includes a Nisei (second g;eneration Japanese-,\merican) junior officer as well as Black soldiers, onc of \\hom is mutinous (it is implied, as a result of his experiences of racist treatment) and has to be persuaded that his country desencs his loyalty. Enemy propaganda - often glancingly featured in the genre in the fi)rm of .Iirdropped leaflets or (as in Balaall) a radio operator inadyertently tuning into 'Tokyo Rose' '. is a major presence in POI'/'" Cltop IIill yia the character of a Chinese Communist broadcasting morale-sapping news to the troops. (So-called 'brainwashing', a nmTl Korean War fear prominently featured in LS media, \\ould supply the premise of TltcHaudl1lrli/l1 Caudidale (19 62 ), \\hich opens with a Korea combat sequence.) A striking; anachronism remarked upon as such by the protagonists - is a fixed-bayonet 'oyer the top' assault on the Korean lines: in fact, the cross-cutting between the fighting men, the operational HQin a shell-beset bunker and the \\ rang;ling top brass whose choices about lines on maps are life and death to the men under their command combine with the iconography of trenches (complete with street signs and chicken hutches) and barbed wire to lend the film at times a decidedly First World War ambienceJ Giyen the \\idespread interest in gO\erning elites disseminated down from -\merican sociology during the 1950s, one might expect a similar pattern in CS combat films to the prominent 'boffins' in the British war film. However, this is not ob\-iously the case. Arguably, the bbrication of technocratic military-scientific-gO\ernmental alliances in confronting external enemies becomes a major feature of the science fiction films of this decade (see Chapter 8; see also Biskind, H)83), bu t it is noticeably less prominent in combat films. In fact, second-waYe combat films retain the wartime films'
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FIUvt GENRE
focus on the day-to-day experience of ordinary fighting men. If anything, more than eyer the infantryman's perspecti\e, which (possibly with Korea in mind) now emerg'es as clearly the paradigmatic combat experience, is depicted as remo\ed, e\en bamingly distant, from the grand strategies of generals and politicians. Baftlegro/llld's (HJ-I-9) portrait of 'the battling bastards of Bastogne' shows the platoon poring; oyer week-old copies of Sfars and Stripes to determine \\hether they are in France or Belgium. The footslogger's perception of his role in the opaque workings of grand military strategy is a simple one: 'nobody cares'. Here and elsewhere in the period, with the real war won and in the past, morale-raising' and O\ert ideological lessons arc superseded by weary resolution and an eyer more hard-bitten tone that increasing'ly \erges on outright cynicism: Balliegrollllil's reluctant hero explains that his PFC rank stands fllr 'Praying For C:i\ilian'. The implicit indi\idualism of such attitudes, strongly at odds with the didactic collecti\ism of the classic Second World \Var model, emerges strongly postKorea in the loners played by William Holden in T/ie Bridge Oil flii' Ril'er AIl'ai (1<).17) and StC\c McQueen in Hell is For Ili'l'oes (u)6z). In Tlie Dirty Do::,ell (] <)67) and other late I <)60s 'dirty group' films, almost any sense of shared endea\our has been jettisoned in Ll\OUr of a brulally Darwinian landscape in which friend and foe alike are percei\cd as merely obstacles to the o\erriding objecti\e of imli\idual suni\al. While undergoing these generic shifts, Second World War combat films continued to thri\e into the late 1<)60s in the contest of the bipartisan consensus on CS stratq6c objecti\es and policies: the ideological dogmatism and ruthlessness of these films' l'\azis and Japanese could be readily construed as stand-ins for the equally Lmatical Communist opponents .\merica confronted in theatres from I tl\ana to Hanoi. :\s this consensus fractured under the combined strain of military Llilure and increasingly strident domestic political opposition during the \ietnam War, howe\er - with student protestors decrying GIs as 'babykillers' and comparing CS leaders to :\azis - the resulting ideological \acuum appeared not only to put Vietnam itself off limits as a dramatic subject, but to ha\e stripped away the credibility of all and any heroic depictions of US military action, Disaffection with unaccountable authority and disinclination to concei\e e\en the 'Good War' in terms other than imli\idual self-preser\ation arc elements that grow stronger in the coming decades: Neale (1991: -1-8) identifies .illart:.! (19.16), Tlie Dirfy Do:::,eJ1, Play Dirty (19(l7) and Tolmil..' (1967) as films in which representati\es of command draw up plans and issue orders "\hich arc both contrary to the in terests of the men and (in some cases) ... of Ii ttle or no strategic \'alue'. Rather earlier th,m the \Vestern and in a more condensed period, the ideological disjunction between genre and its socio-political con tnt results in a heightened re\isionism foli
TIlE WAR COMBAT FIL\\: (jE'JRE A'J[) NATION
1Z1
between July 1969 and July I <)70 ten US-made Second \Vorld War combat films (and one Korean War film, AI*.i*S*H - although the film's anarchic 'Korea' was uni \ ersally umlerstood as a transparent mask for Vietnam) were released onto US screens, a rate of production in keeping with the rest of the decade..\nd just as highly traditional Westerns like Chis/lll/ (uno) and B/~f!; 7(/1:1' (Hnl) were being released alongside re\isionist landmarks like I,illie 'Hi~ \la II (J<no), some of these combat films, like T/ie Bridge af Rell/agell (J<J6<)) and 11 OSij/l ifo Sijuadroll (1970), hewed \ery closely to the traditional model; others (Too !.afe f/ie Hi'l'o, 19(9); KellJ"s Heroes, 1(70) - in both cases l he titular 'heroism' is beyond ironic) pushed the demythifying tendency to ;1n extreme, while still others (Ca{(/i-22, 1(70) were coloured by countercultural sensibilities. The poor box office of the massi\e CS-Japanese coproduction Tom.! Tom.! Tom.! (uno) tarred the combat film \\ith the same brush of npensi\e f;lilure as the Lunily musical. Thereafter production dwindles to almost nothing: the next twel\e months saw just fi\e releases and then no Second \Vorkl War combat films of any kind until the blockbuster historical recreation , \lidII'Il)! in un6 (possibly encourag;ed by the upsurge of patriotic sentiment attendant on that year's Bicentennial celebrations). ~ The late I <nos saw a handful of prod uctions, including Cross of !rOil, the 'critical epic'} Bmlgc Too Far (1977) and Samuel Fuller's magisterial Tlie IJi~f!; Red Olle (1<)1'\0); following the release of The Deer Hl/llter (Un7), howC\cr, the combat film's centre of historical gTa\i ty had shifted decisi\ely to \ietnam (see below) ..\part from oddly anachronistic \ehicles like, \lempills Belle (I <)90, a fictionalised retelling of William Wyler's J()-I-.1 documentary of the same name), the Second \Vorld \Var combat film remained in abeyance until its spectacular re\i\ al in Sa,'IIIp, Pn,'ofe Ryall (liJ<)X), fol!<med by Tlie TIl/II Red I,ille and h'IlClll.J' af fllc Gafes (zooo, a panEuropean co-production about Stalingrad shot in Eng-lish with British and \merican stars). In the other major wartime\lIied nation, the SO\iet Union, the 'Great P.ttriotic \\ar' (as the Second \\orkl War was officially known) became the focal national cult during Stalin's last years and beyond; numerous wartime re-etuctments produced according to rigid Socialist Realist principles glorified SO\iet military accomplishments and Stalin's personal military genius (most notoriously T/ie Fall Ber/ill, 1<)-1-9). Critical attcntion h,IS focused on the ways in which, starting with the 'thaw' period under Kruschn in the late J()'=;os and earl~ 1960s, new approaches to this central plank of So\'iet ideology became a means of exploring hitherto illicit complexities and alternati\e perspeeti\'es on the Communist experiment in Russia, and ultimately of challenging the \alidity of the entire system (sec Ll\\ton, 199Z; Youngblood, 1<)96, ZOOI; Gillespie, ZOOT (l-l--79). Collaboration, for example, long a t,lboo subject in CSSR cinema, emerged tentati\ely during the 'thaw' (e.g. Tile
or
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FILM GENRE
Fate ora Mall, 1959) and with much more force in the 1970S anu 19i\os, with a growing suggestion of the unuerlying moral equivalence of Nazi and Stalinist tyranny in Trial Oil lite Road (1971, rdeaseu 1986), Tlte ~.Jsrelll (H)76), Sign o/Disaster (lqi\6) anu the shattering Come af/d Sec. Youngbloou sees the latter film as 'a cinematic reflection of the SO\'iet public's morale near the end of the regime, No one belie'"es in the cause in Come alld See; no one seems to unuerstand it. All humanity h,IS uegenerateu, ,I1though the Germans are unueniably much worse than others' (Youngbloou, 19q6: 9+). As the uefeateu aggressors in the most uestructive connict in world history, further burueneu by the re"elation of war crimes anu crimes against humanity, Germany anu Japan, the principal Axis powers, in uifferent ways confronted throughout the postwar periou the challenge of what Charles Maier (199 I) has calleu 'the unmasterable past', This still incom plete process of cultural reckoning in both cases, although to uifferent uegrees at uifferent times, entaileu processes of abjection, amnesia, uenial, guilt anu uefiance, The perception that Japan anu Germany hau faileu fully to work through their tarnisheu historical legacies ensureu that any representation of Japanese or German combat experiences woulu be greeteu with suspicion and subjected to an unusually high degree of critical scrutiny in the former Allied nations. It is therefore understandable that before the late twentieth century very few combat films of any kinu emerged from either country, A conspicuous exception - and a major critical and commercial success - was Das Boot (The Bo(/I, 19i\1), which earned a theatrical release as a three-hour film edited down from the original ten-part West German tele,"ision series. Possibly the perception of the Battle of the Atlantic as a 'dean fight' largely unembarrassed by the atrocities of the Occup<1tion and the Eastern Front (to say nothing of the Holocaust) accounted for its enthusiastic reception as a stirring story of men and the cruel sea. The attempt in Slalilign/(1 (1992) to recast the Russian war in similarly unproblematic generic terms was correspondingly less successful. Japanese war films ha"e until ,cry recently focused almost exdusi'"elv on the national trauma of atomic devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the 2001 release of JJerdd:a marked virtually the first point at which the combat nperience of Japanese forces was made the central uramatic focus of a major Japanese film.
VIETNAM The history of the Vietnam combat film is well km)\\n: absent, with the notorious exception ofJohn \V ayne's Tlte Greell Berels (1968), from CS screens during the conflict itself (US troops were engaged in Vietnam from H)65 to 1973; South Vietnam finally fell to the Communist :\orth in 1975),<) the
THE WAR'C01\lBAT FILM: GENRE AND NATIO;\J
123
Vietnam combat genre emerged in the late 1970S in several diverse forms, some (Go Tell lite Sparlalls, Tlte Boys III COif/pail)' C, both 1978) clearly p,ltterned after the stanuard Second World War model, ~t~ers (Th:' Deer Illllller, 1977; ~ .Jpoeal)'pse ;Von" 1979) owing more to the stylIstIC expenments of the early 1970S 'Hollywood Renaissance', The Vietnam combat film peaked in the mid-Iqi\os with Plaloon (19i\6), Hall/burger Hill (1987),8.; Char/le Mople (191\9) and others: these too largely adopted the 'embattled platoon' variant of the Second World War combat film (notably, given the jungle setting, the p"cific campaign version), but combined a familiar generic syntax with novel scmantic elements such as napalm, drug abuse, 'fragging', rock music soundtracks, graphic, visceral violence and a distincti'"e and memorable jargon ('grunts', 'gooks', 'clicks', 'on point" and so on) to cstablish a distinctive and brieflY yen popular generic strain (see Adair, 191\9; Auster and Quart, 191\1\), Both the Vietnam combat film's belatedness and the terms on which it eventually crystallised into a recognisable sub-genre reflect the intense and lT J)oliticisation of the ,var and the fallout from modern AmericI's first onlToin C' C' experience of defeat (see Klein, J()9+)" The Vietnam film foregroundeu a thematics of male identity formation through combat that drew on the consenative discourses that had developed by the late 1970S for making sense of the war. To some extent, the Vietnam film's focus on masculinity C"xtends a well-established aspect of the combat film generally, which Susan Jeffords characterises as first and foremost, a film not simply about men but about the construction of the masculine subject, and the combat sequence - or, more generally, scenes of violence in combat films, whether as fighting in hattie, torture, prison escapes, or explosions - is the point of excess, not only for the film's narrative, but for masculine subjectivity, .. Ueffords, 191\9: +1\9)
It has often been pointed out that the combat film is one of the few genres in ,vhich men are 'allowed' to cry without being diminished, This element of pathos points up the combat film as another melodramatic modality, albeit one in which, unusually, masculine rather than female subjectivity is explicitly thematised. That issues around the (re- )construction of masculine identity would come to the fore once Vietnam emerged as an acceptable commercial proposition Was perhaps innitable, given the terms on which the CS defeat in Indochina had already been culturally concei'ed. During the conflict itself, US President Lyndon Johnson repeatedly justified his obsessive commitment to the war in terms of competitive phallocentricity - a 'pissing contest' between himself and both :\orth Vietnamese leader Ho Chi \linh and "Iso anti-
124
FII.M GENRE
communist hawks at home (see Dallek, IqqX). According to Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon, post-Victnam thc US risked ~Iobal ridicule as a 'pitiful, helpless giant'. C nsurprising;ly, therefore, in this climate of urgent phallic anxiety the principal foreign policy project of the '\e\\ Right, \\hich took the White House with the election of Ronald Reag'an in IqXO, became what Susan Jeffords (lqX9) calls 'thc remasculinisation of .\merica'. Vietnam films, both combat and homefront, were highly recepti\e to this cultural discourse around masculinity: sexual dysfunction as a result of \yar \\ounds is the dramatic focus of both CIIII/Illg HIIII/e (J()7X) and Bllm /III Ihe Fllurlh of ]/1 I)! (J()X9), the Vietnam yeteran anti-hero of Rllilillg Tllllllder (1977), a surviYClr of VC torture, suffers a symbolic cmasculation by haying his hand forced into a \\aste disposal unit, and a G r is actually castrated by the NVA in J)eild Presldellls (J()<)5). Hollywood's mobilisation of these tropes of damaged and/or recoyered manhood has been highly ambiguous. The idealised images of '\lichael, the hno of The Deer Hlllller, posed on the trail against misty peaks and mountain streams as a model of the American frontiersman, explicitly il1\oking -"latty Bumppo, the eponymous J)eerslayer in James Fennimore Coopcr's celebrated nineteenth-century nmel and thus by extension associating :\Iichael's personal 'one shot' ideology of the clean, 'pure' kill \\ith the long; .\merican tradition of 'regeneration through yiolence' (see Slotkin, 1<)<)X) - also provoked comparisons \\ith Liscist imag;ery. Ho\ye\ er, \\hether 'one shot' and all it metonymically stands fCl!' should be seen as undermined or reaffirmed by its tr'lLlmatically parodic IT\\"Orking' as Russian roulette in the film's pi\otal Vietnam combat anti captiyity sequence, the film lcayes (deliberately?) unclear. Oliyer Stone's two Vietnam films of the I<)XOS, Pia 11111 II and Rllm 111/ IIII' Fllllrlil 111']111)' - the first a 'pure' combat film, the second like The Deer I1l1l1ler a would-be epic sag;a whose Vietnam combat episode organises and defines the film's thematic and ideological concerns- explicitly foreground the emnging trope of Vietnam as ,I mythic bndscape across \\hich symbolic narratives of American Illale selfhood are enacted. \\'hile its dominant mode is clearly the Second \Vorld \Var comtxlt film, Pia 1111111 also disintcrs some First \Vorld War 'lost g'eneration' motifs in its Llble of :\merican e\eryman Chris Taylor's passage to disenchanted manhood and lost innocence (the jung'\c setting; offers opportunities fClr such hCl\yhanded Edenic touches as a lurking coiled serpent) Yia the symbolic intercession of 'good and bad LIthers' in the shape of his platoon's t\\O sergeants, the saintly Elias and the demonic Bates. Bllm 11/1 tile Fllllrlh IIj]lIl)' is e\Tn more explicitly Oedipal, as idealistic recruit Ron KO\ic returns from Vietnam a paraplegic. The film deYCltes the greater part of its second half to Kovic's reckoning \\ith the loss of his sexual function, an emascubtion the film strongly associates - in a repla~ of Iq50S pop-Freudian myths - with his 'castrating' patriotic mother and KO\ic/
TilE WAR C01\IBAT FIl."'!: GE'JRE A'JI) NATION
125
:\merica's entrapment in an infantile dependency, both sexual and ideological. The film's climax, in \\hich the radicalised Koyic leads lello\\ veter,ms in 'taking" the hall at the J()72 Republican "\ational C:ol1\cntion, .Ipparently proposes a commitment to the public and political as a \yay of breaking' free from this complex; ho\ye\cr, it is notable that the \Try last images of the film - which see KO\ic, no\\ an honoured actiYist, taking the pbtfclI'I11 at the 1<)7(1 Democratic COl1\ention - arc filmed as a recapitulation of the opening, \\ith applauding expectant f:lces beaming down at the \\heelchair-bound KO\ic as befclre at his childhood self, fulfilling his mother's yision of his destiny \\hich echoes, \yithout ohyious irony, on the soundtrack (see Jeffords, IQX9: J(»). If Stone's Vietnam films chart an Oedipal trajectory of sorts from dependency to\\ards adulthood, the hugely successful FIrsl Bllllld (IQX2) and NOII/IIIi: FIrsl Bllllld Pllrl 11 (I <)X4) fix their eponymous hero, the child-man \ietnam yeteran John Rambo, in a rq~Tessi\e spiral. The monosyllabic simplicity of Rambo's understanding of the \\orld - he is \\ounded by the ah,lIHlonment of his symbolic 'parents', the nation betrays an emotional and ideological ndnerability at odds \\ith the hypertrophic masculinity of his pumped-up hody, and the key mediating figure in his battle to make sense of the incomprehensible complexities, insincerities and hetrayals of the adult \\orld is his former commander and surrog'ate father, Col Trautmann. At the end of FIrsl Blo/ld, it is Trautmann to \\hom the besieged Ramho \\hose sClpegoating in the film represents an extreme \crsion of widespread cultLIral 111~ ths ,Iround the yictimisation and rejection of returning Vietnam \Tterans (sec Lembcke, j()<)X) - explains that '\\e li.e. Vietnam \etsl just want our country to Ime us as much as \\e Ime it'. :\t the start of the sequel, given the opportunity to return to Vietn,lm on ,1 PO\V rescue mission, Ramho fi'ames the film's ensuing Lmtasy rerun of the \\ar ,IS a GI Joe-style LIntasy \\ith the childish question 'Do \\e get to \\in this time?' RillI/f,o's centr,Ji premise that .\merican troops remained, to obscure purpose, capti\ e in Vietnamese camps a decade and more .lfrer the \\,lr'S end, a i\e\\ Right shibboleth shared by ( 11(111111111111 l'iI III,. ( IqX 3) and. H Isslug 111 . lellliu (1 9X4) - offers a 'rescue bntasy', analysed by Burgoyne (1994) in terms of a rq?;ressi\e complex operati\e at \arious Inels. (.\mong others, these films 'return' to the goal-oriented certainties of O/J/t'iII7.·l'. Bllrll/lI.' (lq45) and its like: RIlII//Jo's 'Vietnamese' soldiers are indistinguishable fi'om the Imperial Japanese in Second World \\ar combat films.) It also connects to the Yietnam film's preoccupation \\ith Ill,lsculinity inasmuch as it offers ,I contemporary \ariant of the captivity narrati\cs that featured prominently in :\merican popular culture during the nineteenth century of the Indian \\ars, In the Yietnam PO\V myth, howe\er, the tLlditional object of sa\age capti\it~- \\hite \\omen - arc substituted by soldiers. The soldiers' reco\ery (they arc usu,l11y roused fi'om passi\e despair
126
FILM GENRE
THE WAR/COMBAT FILM: liENRE AND NATION
127
to play an active role in their own liberation) represents a parallel restoration of American manhood - particularly since defeat of the Yietnamese enemy (sometimes accompanied by Soviet advisors, in an even more uncannily exact inversion of US involvement in Vietnam from 1<)60) is typically accomplished in the face of indifference or actual opposition from an incompetent, hypocritical or even outright traitorous governmental bureaucracy. [0
POST-VIETNAM CONFLICTS
The 'asymmetrical warf:Ire' of post-Vietnam conflicts - "ith CS forces deploying overwhelming manpower and military technology pO\\er in lightning campaig'ns against hopelessly overmatched developing-world opponents in Grenada, Panama, Iraq and Afghanistan- apparently offered fn\ compelling: narratives to shift the combat film's dominant paradigm a\vay hom the Second World War/Vietnam composite. Certainly, these mismatches have enjoyed little screen time: Hear!break RI{~l!,e (H)S6, Grenada) and TitreI' Kings (I<)99, Iraq) are exceptions. In fact, as perhaps the 200-1- remake of The /Vland711rlal1 Calldldil!t' suggests (relocated to the first Gulf \Var of 1<)91 but, with obvious overtones of the second, substituting for the original's mindbending Communists a ruthless military-corporate entity clearly patterned after Halliburton Inc., f()l'mer employers of Vice President Dick Cheney), the ramified, op;1que and infinitely extensible 'war on terror' declared in the wake of the September I I th attacks will propel film-makers closer to the espionag'e thriller's shadowy world of sUr\"Cillance and cO\"Crt action than the combat film's terrain of pitched battles aIllI firefig·hts. ,'\daptations of Tom Clancy's bestselling techno-thrillers such as Pil !rio! Gallles (1992) and Clear ilnd Prt'st'll! Danger (1<)9-1-) illustrate the f()rm these spy-combat hybrids might take. 'Humanitarian' interventions, "'hether successful (I\..osovo) or catastrophic (Beirut, Somalia), have proved equally unattractive as combat film subjects, although Blaik HillI,k Do 11'11 , an account of the disastrous Somalia episode that adopted many motifs of the standard 'embattled platoon' type, was released amid the post-September 11th "ar on .'\fghanistan and quickly pressed into service as a true story of American heroism in llcfence of universal freedoms.
CAS EST LJ D Y: .~·.1 T J S G PRill Tl;' R LL\
(I 9 9 8 )
Upon its release in July 1998, Steven Spielberg's SilL'llig PUL'iI te RJ'II// waS quickly recognised as a self-consciously traditionalist Second \Vorkl \Var combat film, thus reviving a strain of the combat film that had been largely
From Slii'lllg PUi"Ilt' Rpll/ ([()<Jil). Rcproduccd c"urtcS\ I )rcarl1\\'()rks I J .C/Thc "-"hal C"lkcri"!l/I)a\ id Jamcs,
in ,Ibeyance since the late I<J7os..-\s noted above, from that point on the llolly\\ood ",Ir/combat film became largely synonymous with the Vietnam film albeit the latter in numerous \vays appropriated and adapted the Second \\'orld \\ar p'ILHligm. '\Jone of the few clear inst,lI1ces of the f(Jrm in this period - including as "ell ,IS the films noted ,lbove the somewhat IT\ isionist .1 .H Idlll!!,I/! Cleilr (I ()1)2), "hich imported the well-known Great \\ar trope of festive-season felll)\\ship across battle lines" into the Second \\orld \\'ar 'embattled platoon' genre model - ,,"Cre commercial successes, and it has been suggested that studio executives "ere unn:ceptive to what t he\ perceived as an uncommercial subject. SiI"'"g Prl,'iI!(, R)'all is, as has also been "idcly perceived, very much a post-Vietnam (film) Second World \\ar film: both the beach-head sequence (in its unprecedented bloodiness and hyper-realism) and the subsequent rescue mission (in recalling the 'missin!!" in action' Yietnam sub-genre: see abme) imoke the Vietnam film. \\hat has been less remarked is that Sm'illg PriL'iI!e RYillI not only rehabilitates the Second World \Var combat model but in so doing undertakes a clear project of generic correction in specific relation to the intenening \ictnam combat film." Sill'llIg Prl,'lI!e RYlIlI is carefully modelled after the classic Second \Vorld \\ar platoon film, "ith its ethnically and reg:ionally diverse company including in time-honoured Llshion a Je", an Italian, a Southern Baptist (a deadeye
From m:'illg Prii'llle RYflll (r99' ). Reproduced L:nurtes, Drearnworks LLC/The Kobal Collecrion/! alid Jllm:s.
128
FILM
CiE'JRE
sniper who prays before shooting), a tough-as-nails ~CO and e\cn the inevitahle platoon member from Brooklyn. Unlike many Second World War (and even more Vietnam) combat films, ho\\e\cr, in R)'illl it is an officer, Captain Miller (Tom Hanks), \\ho is the dramatic and affecti\c centre of the film. Many wartime comhat films, as Basinger (1<)86: 53--\-) notes, kill off the commanding officer early in the narrative - demonstrating, she suggests, in the loss of a symholic Elther the inevitable costs of \\ar. C-\ Second World War film with an officer hero that R.J'il II closely recalls is O/~jC(! Ic'c, Burma I, whose combination of quest and 'last stand' narrati\·es R)'il// also echoes. Errol Flynn's Capt. Nelson in the earlier film is a schoolteacher, a profession shared with Miller in R)'illl, although \liller is - pointedly - a lils!lIr)' teacher.) In making' a commissioned officer the protagonist and moreO\er rendering him as a model commander: tough, sensitive and principled -- R)'illl establishes a positive attitude to\vards established authority that informs the entire film. The ultimate example of this attitude is the portrayal of Gen. George ~larshall as a beneficent and Llrsighted paternalistic leader (explicitly identified with Lincoln hy his quotation fi'om memory of the 'Bixby letter'). The respectful - in .\ larshall's case \\orshipful treatment of authority might be read as an act of generic restitution in relation to the Vietnam films of the I<)80s, in \\ hich combat officers \\ere typically portrayed as irrelev,mt or incompetent (Lt Wolfe all but imisible in Plil!OIlIl; Lt Gorman in the Vietnam/SF h~ brid lliclIS, H)86) or dO\\I1rig;ht craz~ (Col h:ilg;ore in lpllCilI)'psc NIII/'). It mig'ht also be considered a 'screen memory' (in every sense of the phrase) cancelling' out the traumatic history of 'fi"ag'ging' (infantrymen killing their commanding officers) in \ietnam. (Fussell (1<)8<): 1-\-21".) cites instances of this occurring' in the Second \\orld \\ar as \\ell.) I lowe\ er, it also re\ ises the e\cn longn"-standing comhat film trend noted by :\'eale (H)<)I: -\-8; sec ahO\c) to\\ards ,I deficit of accountability and duty of care by officers to thc men under their command. This is of consider,lhle importance in R)'illl sincc thc mission Capt. .\ lillcr's team arc sent on initially damncd by :\liller himself as a 'puhlic relations stunt' \\ould seem to excmplif~ "'eale's cltegor~ of orders issued that arc 'contrary to the interests of the men' or 'of little or no stLltegic \alue'. \liller and his men come to belie\ e that finding, and saving', Ryan is an ohjecti\ e of enormous, C\en inestimable, value. Rather as in O/Jjn!ic'l', BUrll/il.', the suniving GIs realise only at the \er~ end of the film the role thcir mission has played in the Ln"ger strategic plan, the higher humanit~ of miliLlr~ authority hecoming ,lpp,lrent to the diminishing' ranks of \ liller's platoon ,IS the~ fight their \\,Iy to\\ards the rendez\(llls \\ith R~an. HO\\ever, the military \\isdom thus justified is if anything' even more rarefied than in OII/cc!lc'l', Bllrt/lil.' as it relates not to a miliLlry objective - the im asion of Burma - but to an ,lbstr,lCtion, the deeper humanity of .-\merican v,dues as exemplified and embodied by Gen. \Iarshall.
THE WAR CO:\IBAT
FtLM:
CiE;\lRE A'JD NATION
12<)
This tics in elosely \vith R)'i1Il's depiction of the Second World War as the 'Good \Var', an understanding fully in line \vith that of Stephen Ambrose, the author of se\eral hestselling popular histories of the European war from the perspective of the CS inLmtryman (1<)<)3, uN5, 1<)<)7) that heavily stressed the unique contribution and heroic, unstinting sacrifice of America's 'Greatest Generation' to the ClUse of liherty and democracy. Amhrose's ,lpprO\al of R)'illl \\as solicited (and secured) by Dreamworks prior to the lilm's release. (.-\mbrose \\as suhsequently an adviser to the Spielbergprod uced HBO mini-series Eil wi IIF Bm! liers, 1<)<)<).) While challenged by some historians (notably Fussell, 1<)<)3 and Zinn, 1<)<)5), this remains undoubtedly a dominant mainstream understanding of the war in US culture. The question is \\hy this memory needed to be reaffirmed at this juncture, and h(m R)'ilU exploits genre to do this. Three contextual ElCtors defined the terms of SilL'lllg PrlL'il!c R)'illl's rnival of the Second World \\ar combat film. First, a rediscO\ered confidence in LS military pnmess f()llo\\ing victory in the I<)<) I Gulf \Var diminished the appeal of the then-dominant combat genre paradigm, the Vietnam film, with its typical focus on victimhood and disenchantment. -"\t the same time, as \uster (2002) notes, the Gulf \Var itself \\as too one-sided (and its final outcome, \,ith CS ally-turned-archenemy Saddam IIussein forced out of I'\..u\\ait hut still in po\\er in Baghdad, too amhiguous) to offer viable gnlCric material as a direct alternative. The 50th anniversary of the end of the Second \\ orld \\ar, in particular the commemoration of the D-Day landings, thus Il:licitously spurred Icne\\ed interest in a hard-fllllght, purposeful \\ar \\ith a dean and dearcut victory. Finally, the \\ar albeit an aspect of it remote li"om, and in the main suppressed in, com entional combat films had retained a strong and disturbing presence in .\merican collecti\c memory \\ith the increasing' \ isibility of the IIolocaust as a subject of public education, political debate (Ill[" example, on possible parallels \\ith the ongoing ethnic and confessional \\ars in the Balkans) and cultural product ion, culminating in 1<)<)3 \\ ith the opening of the CS Holocaust \Icmorial .\luseum in Washing'ton, DC and the release of Spielberg's 0\\11 multi-_\cademy-.-\\\ard-\\inning Sellilldin's 1,ls! (1<)<)3): Holocaust awareness is one of the nO\cl elements in Silc'llIg PUc'il!e R)'illl's careful mixture of generic tradition with innO\ation (see also Chapter 11, section III). _-\uteurist Llctors also played a part, with Spielberg's elnation to the status of 'serious' historical film-maker secured by the success of Sell/lldler's 1,ls!. Cniquely among; the 'movie brats', as Doherty (1<)<)<): 303--\-) notes, Spielberg's films had repeatedly il1\oked the \\ar e\en prior to Sell/l/dll'r's Lis!. \loreO\er, Spielberg's assiduously culti\ated personal mythology stressed the centrality of the \\ar - or an imag;e of the \\ar mediated by film and television - to his creat ive imagination since his youth.
130
FILM GENRE
Rvan unusually frames its combat narrative within an explicitly retrospecti\e framework: the film opens with an elderly man (revealed as Pri\'ate Ryan when we return to him in the film's closing moments) stumbling through a vast war cemetery and falling to his knees before one among the thousands of headstones. A slow dolly close into his grief-stricken face then cuts to 'June 6, 1944' and leads directly into RVilll's most celebrated passage, the astonishing 2s-minute sequence at the Omaha beach-head. This framing of the war as a past event both remembered (by the \eteran) and commemorated (by his family - \\ife, children and grandchildren - tagging along behind him) is generically atypical: while many combat films both during and after the war opened or ended \vith title cards recalling to the audience the actuality of the events dramatised in the ensuing film and dedicating the film to the memory of those who laid dO\m their own lives, R)'l/Il's eulogistic opening is more typical of nostalgic hnitage films like LilJI)rCl/(c o( Arabia (1<)62) - one of Spielberg's most admircd films - or Chariots o(Firc (1981), both of which unfold as (unmotivatcd) flashbacks from memorial sen'ices for the protagonist. At the samc time, Ryan's 'memory' is both uniquely his O\vn and clearly collective ' thus, in a sense, generic: for not only is his recollection situated physically in a space of public commemoration, \\ith other veterans and their bmilies glimpsed among' the graves and thus generalised, but the 'flashback' which ensues is not R)'l/lI 's 011'11. Ryan, as we learn in due course, parachuted behind enemy lines \\·ith the IOlst A,irborne Division: thus thc landing at Omaha, and indeed everything th'1t foll<)\\s until the point at \\hich \liller's platoon of Rangers meet up with Ryan's decimated compal1\ in the cornfield, is known to Ryan himself only second-hand at best (and then only if we imagine he either heard the story from \liller in an elided offscreen exchange prior to taking on the Panzers, or elicited it from the sole suni\'()r Upham after the battle). Yet the hyper-real quality of the beach-head sequence at least allO\\s us no room to accept it as anything but 'reality' experienced ,11 first hand indeed, traumatically so. In some \vays, the landing sequence stands outside genre conventions, a traumatic assault on the spectator that cannot be readily accommodated to any expectational matrix and simply has to be experienced 'survived' -. by the audience as by \liller ,1ml his platoon, "ith whom an intense identification is thus sutured, \\'hile this might be considered another instance of Spielberg's 'Cmtasy of witnessing', discussed by Weissman (199S) in relation to ,')',.hilldlcr's Lisl, equally \arious devices in the film- including the presence of the elderly Ryan's camera-clicking gTandson, the almost subliminal re-enactment of Robert Capa's famous war photographs amid the frenzy of the landing, and the inclusion of the bookish outsider Pn C pham in the platoon as a more ambiguous version of the reporter familiar from O/Jialiu', BIII'II/iI.r, Thc Stor)' o( G.1. .loe (19-1-5) and
THE WAR/COMBAT FILM: GE"JRE AND NATION
131
other combat films (see I3adsey, 2002) - hint at the mediated, collective and (re-) constructed nature of this history / memory. I would not suggest that the C'-plicitly generic terms of Ryan's remembrance (a suitably ambiguous term that denotes both personal memory am! collective acts of tribute) suggest, like Ransom Stoddard's unreliable memories in Thc .\Iii II 11'110 Shot Liberty J Il!all(C (discussed in Chapter 2), the il1\idious inescapability of myth: rather, R)'illI's explicitly generic aspects may in L1ct sen'e to adYl:rtise the representatin' quality of the story and its trans-personal dimension - an important element given the film's generically atypical emphasis on individual rescue.
1\\OTES I. Thi, strain \\as sOIllctimcs ]..no\\n a, '(~uirt-I:lag:g;' aftl'!' thc sparrillg; protag:ollists of ,
fllilll 1'1'1'<' Glorl'.i roFs publicit\ pac].. includcd 'Ill authoriscd statcmcnt h'om thc rcal-life First \\ orld \\ ar hero II hosc stOrl it dram'ltiscd alII crti,ill~' thc film's timclillcss (scc
S<'Igi'lllll }
Shindler, '<)7 'j: +3)· ". ,\ distinction larg:cll cra,ed hI recent rcseareh alld thc cOlltrllll'!'sial Il)l),:; nhibitioll of \\ ehrmacht Il'ar l'!'illlCS in Ihmbur~·. +. L S armed forccs IITrc dcscg:rcg:ated In Truman's prcsidcllti,d ordl'!' ill 1(I+X. , filllllill/'S orig:inal sl'!'cenpLII Includcd a \,'atil'c ,\ml'!'ican character. 1>. Russian lIar film production continucs throug:hout thc period of g;lasno't <md
percstroika in the Il)XOS until thc dissolution of thc LJSSR in ")l)': scc hclllll. /. Pori.' Cliop IIi/I lIas directed hI LCllis .\lilestonc, Illw also dirccted III QII/(/ 011 III" 11 <'.\11'1'11 Fro II I as \\cll as thc nujor Sccond \\ orld \\ ar com hat films I 1'1111.· III 11i<' SI/II ,lIld 'l'1i" III/lis rI Iioli/<'~.IIIIII/ (Il)S I), .~. For a com]lrchensill' annotatcd listing; 01',111 comb,lt films rcleased onto thc LS markct bUllcen Ill+' md Il)XO, scc Basing:er (ll)X/>: 2XI ,13.1). l). Bcnjamin Siorr (ll)l)7) Ius l'\plolTd parallels bl'tlleen thc tr;\LIm,ltic and contrlllersial l'\peril'nccs of thc \'ieln,ml \\ar In thc L S,\ and the :\Ig:erian \\'ar in Francc. The ,lbscl1l'l' of direct im'lges of thc conflict itself is notahle, as is the scnse of an 'absencc' surrounding: rhc 11;11' despire SOIllC thrcc dozcn \']ellch tilms ,incl' Iljll2 dcaling: direct" II ith thc conflict (,I1most II hoI" throug:h homcfnml m I l'teran l'\pl'ricnccs). III thc "Imc toJ..cn, I ,a l\'ton (llll)2: I (7) and others ha I c com]l'lI'l'd btl' SOl il't-era and post - [<)() [ films ahout the lIar in .\fg:hanist'lil (1Iidc" characteriscd in thc Ilestcrn media throug:hout the Il)XOS as 'thc SOIil't \ictnam' alld itself illladcd in 'I surrcal ju\uposition bl thc \ iclILlm leteran/rcdccmer John Klinho in RI/I11/Jo III, Il)XX) in thcir emphasis on the confusioll of phlsicalil and p'lchiLII" maimcd Il'teram Ilith thc \ il'[]um Il'teran tilm. 10. Scc also rhc di,cussion of ,,)XOS al'tion film in C:hapter 10, I I. 1'01' ,1 compcllin~' account of thc leg:cndan 'Christmas trucc' on thc \\cstl'rn l-'ront in Il)q (,dso illlflkcd on film in this period in Paul .\kCartl1l'l \ lal ish I idco promo f(lI' thc sing:1e 'Pipes of Pcace', I<)X3), scc Eckstcins (Il)Xl): rOll 1+). I' "'rin Gahh'lrd (2001) sccs S<"'III~ l'rl,'1/11' RYI/II as 'I ITbutt'll of thc \ictnam era, I'l'ndering: 11'11' oncc a~'ain 'lll object of 'tClscin'ltion 'lild I'l'l ercnce' in thc sen icc of a rcnellcd patriotic militarism I ,Ig:rce Ililh this rcading: and Ilould 'Idd tlut il has bccn 'Imp" bornc out bl suhsl'Llucnt clcnts. HllIlcler, Ciabbard docs not 11m].. his critiquc of Rr<1I1 throug'h ,m 'Ina"sis of thc film a, ;1 ~'l'IHl' tl'\t.
THE CiA"JfiSTER
CIIAPTER
6
The Gangster Film: Genre and Society
os /\n~·des,. 1<)<)+. Professional hit~llL'n \.incellt rega and Jules \\infield, ITrurnlng' from another successful assignment, h'l\e to deal \\ah an unnpected problem: engaged in an ,1I1imated discussion of chance and fate, Vincent unintentionally prO\es a point by accidentally discharging his pistol and killing their assoL'iate l\lanin more nacrly, he splatters his brains copiously O\er the bad; seat and \\indo\\s of their Lincoln Continental. Understandabl\ 'Ipprehensi\c of the ul1\\e1eome attention their sanguinary state might dLI\\ should they continue cruising the L\ IiTe\\ay, Jules arranges an emergmcy pitstop at his friend Jimmie's pbee. The cool \\deome Jimmie gi\'es them has nothing to do \\ ith any moral re\ldsion or e\en physiL'al squeamishness ,Ibout murder and bloodshed, and L'\erything to do \\ ith his apprehensions at hO\\ his \\ ife - a night-shift nurse, entirdy innocent of Jimmy's unden\orld connections - \\ill respond upon her imminent return: 'I f she comes home and sees .1 bunch of g;ang;sters doing a bunch of g.lngster shit, she's going to /lip', In this celebrated (or notorious) sequence fi'OI11 his bre'lkthrough hit Pilip FI(lloII (I ()(!+), (.b.lentin Tarantino's characteristically memorable slllllm.ltion of his (ddibeLIt eh) t \\o-dimensiona I criminals and their milieu .IS 'g.ll1g'ster shit' re\c,lls a good deal about the place the gangster genre occupies in contemporan I Iolly\\ood film. In the first place, \\C .UT referred to .m inst<mrly recognisable and moreO\er highly stylised and cOllified \\orld, \re, Jules and Jimmie's \\ife all knO\\ 'g.1I1gster shit' \\hen \\ e see it. This bmiliarity is accentuated, flattened out comic-book style, and pushed to a parodic extreme by T.lrantino, recasting the gangster's tradition,d interest in self-expression throug;h person,d cool .1I1d sartorial style as an ironic mod uni/()rmity: rincent and \'brcellus inherit fi'om the LTL'\\ in Tar.mtino's debut film Rcscr-i'lllr Dogs (1<)<) I) a parodic unden\Orld 'uniform' of black suits, \\hite shirts and skinny bhlCk ties, in homag'e to the earh I()(JOS style of the contract killers playnl by
L
FILM:
GENRE AND SOCIETY
I]]
Lee \lanin and elu Galag;er in Tlie Killers (196+), among others, This retro intertextual styling immediately ,mnounces these gangsters' distancc from 'rcal' crime and their imbrication in an ebboratc, hermetic \\orld of their O\\n (it also makes the 1 L1\\aiian beach gear in \\hich they begin and end the film still morc richly incongruous) (see 13ruzzi, I()9T 67-9+), Tarantino's \crsion of gangsterdom may be by some distance the most highly stylised and re/lni\e in contemporary CS cinema, but the in\ocltion of a codified, sdf-consciously ritualised flctin? uni\'erse is common to many other films of the H)90S and zooos, In Tlilllgs 10 Do III Dem:er H'II('// YOII're I)(ilil (]()():i), the sharp suit and slick mO\ es of doomed gang'ster Jimmy 'the Saint' instantly out him as a gangster to the society girl he dreams of rom'll1cing, \Iiehad \Iann's gangster films push to a hermetic cxtreme a 'professional ising' tendency built into the genre from its emergence in the earl\ j(J3os, excluding' the ordinary public almost entirdy fi'om their daborate L'ops-and-robbers (and killers) arabesques: in nl/e( (lq'K I), !fcill (I()9S) and Cllililicrill (zoo+), theft and murder arc largdy impersol1
134
THE GA"IGSTER FILM: GENRE AND SOCIETY
FILM GENRE
assumed to be familiar "ith the g'enerie norms and hO\y Tlie Soprallos plays with them (sec Creeher, 2002; Nochimson, 2003-+).
OUR GANGSTERS, OURSELVES: CRIME, AMERICA AND MODERNITY As these examples help demonstrate, the gangster has become a highly yisible figure in contemporary cinema. Indeed, "hile recent decades haye seen Hollywood's other classical genre protagonists (the CO" boy, the song-anddance man, the pri\ate eye) suffer a Elirly steady decline, the gangster has gone from strength to strength. Since Tlie Godlii/lia launched a major generic re\i\al in the early l(nOS, the genre's popularit~ has gnmn, to the point where the gang'ster can Elirl~ claim to stand alongside the Western hero as a glohally recognisable :\mericm cultural emblem (albeit a much more ambiyalent and contrO\ersial one).\s "eale (2000: 77f.) notes, the film gangster like the Western hero has often been discussed in socially symptomatic terms; in EICt, the gangster is frequently reeei\cd as the \\'esterner's urban mirror imag'e, en,teting the conflicts and complexities of an emergent urban modern imaginary as the cO\ybo~ enacts those of a residu,d agrarian myth. r Like the VVesterner, the gangster and his yalues ha\c been embedded in a Elirly stable thematic and iconographic uniyerse established and consolidated throug-h decades of reiteration and reyision, and ,I certain masculine style and the claboration of a code of beha\ iour throug-h acts of decisiye \iolenee arc central concerns in hoth g"Clues ..\ number of "Titers draw parallels bet"cen the t\yO genres: "lcCarty (llJlJJ: .xii) describes the gangster film as 'the modern continuation of the Western - a ston' the \Vestern had gTO\\"Il too old to tell.' Direct narratiye translations from one genre to the other, lHl\\eyer, thoug;h not unkn()\\n, arc infrequent - Tlie ()lda!lOlIIa A.'id (I(n(») is a straightfof\yard transposition of the \Varners gangster model to the frontier, complete "ith Cagney and Bogart, during a transition,d period f()r both genres; fAlSI .Hall Slallililig (H)lJ(») relocates ,1 FislliI! of Dolla rs (llJ6+; itself a Western remake of Akira Kurosawa's samurai film 1"!J/III1/!O, Japan 19(2) to a Depression-era gangster milieu. The rarity of these generic exchanges may point to some more fundamental di\ ergenLTS. In the first place, during the classical Holly"ood period the gangster featured Ell' less frequently as prolagrlllisl than the CO" boy or gunfighter. The sensational success of the first "aye of sound-era g'angster films in the early HnOS fired a (larg'el~ synthetic) moral panic that has been "idely cO\ered by g'enre historians (sec Roso" , IlJ7H: 1,:;6-71; .\laltby, J()9:;b; .\lunby, IlJ99: 93110) and \\'hose outcome \yas the announcement in IlJ3:; by the Production Code Administration of a moratorium on Holl~ ,,00l1 gangster film production.
135
In f~\Ct, the gangster cycle may haye run its commercial course by 1935, and since the Production Code - an enforceahle reality from 19.H - was going to make the sympathetic or eyen balanced depiction of any kind of professional criminal \ery dif1icult if not impossihle, the studios may haye felt the s,lnifice of the gangster film \yell \\orth the public relations benefits it secured, The upshot in any e\ent \\',IS that after 1935 gangsters became hCI\ies - antagonists to such 'official' heroes as police detectiyes, FBI agents ,llld T-.\lcn (Treasury .\gents), or the balefully anti-social presence that ensured that an 'outla\\ hero' like the priyate eye, howeyer often at odds with official h1\\ enforcement, nonetheless remained yisibly on the side of the ,lllgcls (sec Ray, H)H:;: :;9-(6). Often enough, the same actors \\ho had risen to stardom in the first \\a\e of gangster films, like James Cagney and Edward cr. Robinson, nO\y represented the f()rces of hI\\' and order (frequently with t:lirly minimal retooling of their screen personae). As early as IlJ3lJ, the tr,lditional racketeering, bootlegging mobster had already become something of a nostalgic figure: Cagney laments in Tile Roarillg TII'C11lies (llJ3lJ) that 'all the .\- I guys are gone or in ,\leatraz ... all that's left arc soda jerks and jitterhugs'. Films f(JCusing once again not on heroic gangbusters and undercm er agents but on the career criminal himself ,md his organisation became possible only \yith the gradual relaxation of the Code during the IlJ50S and its final ,lbolition in IlJ6(). Tlie Godlii/lia- by no means the only Mafia chronicle of the late IlJ60s and early I (nOS, though by far the most successful combined a careful sense of prior genre history \\ith a ne\\ emphasis on the intricate, hermetic inner \\orld of the .\1<1Iia, and its scale and seriousness as well as its huge popularity established ne\\ and durable parameters f()r the genre. \Vesterns and gangster films share a defining amhiyalence with \\hich the~ engage the yalues of settled ciyilis'ltion. Howeyer, where the \Vestern t\ pically offers the spectator a subject position olllside comntunity fi'om \\ hich to measure its gains and losses, the gang-ster's story unf(llds f(ll' better or \\orse wholly \\ithin the domain of a highly dC\cloped and aboye all urban culture. In E\Ct, just as the \\'estern \yorks through issues around the closing' of the historical frontier, the gangster genre ans\\ers to the metropolitan experience of rapid, large-scale urbanisation. Both distil nuteri,ll history into a set of narratiye p,lradig:ms, character types and typical settings that reshape historical experience into meaningful aesthetic form. The gangster is the man of the city as the cO\yboy, is the man of the frontier. In terms of genre history, the same endemic critical selectiyity we haye already seen at \york upon the \\estern and musical canons has in this case ensured that the reeeiyed \ersion of the 'classic' gangster film and its iconic prorag:onist in the most influential and \\idely-read accounts has been deri\cd fi'om ,1Il extraordinarily small number of films. ,\eeording to Schatz (llJH I: ~6'-9:;) 'the narrati\e formula seemed to spring fi'om no\\here in the early ,
1]6
FILM
GENRE
i
THE GANGSTER
FIL:\I:
GENRE AND SOCIETY
137
'I
I<)3os', when eflecti\ely just three films make up 'possibly the briefest classic period of any Holly\\ood genre'. These films - Tltc PI/Mic Dll'II/J' (1930), [jl/lc Cacsar ([()JI) and Scar/ilcc (193Z), the first t\\O at \rarner Bros., the last independently produced by Ho\\ard Hug'hes ha\e hugely o\ershadowed both their predecessors in the silent and \ery early sound eras and all but a few later g'angster films until the gangster rni\al launched by The Glld/ililter. IIardy (I<)<)R: 304-lz) direclly contradicts Schatz's account of the genre's origins, Slating that 'the genre did not spring to life fully formed', but while extending Ihe gangster film's prehistory back into the late silent period and [ftlilcrtl'lIrld (I<)Z7, scripted by Ben Hecht, \\ho also \\Tote the screenplay for Scar/ilce, also cited, though not discusseu, by Schalz), he too takes the canonical 1<)30S trio as generically ddiniti\e. Shadoian (ZOOT .P--()[) declares that 'the flurry of early thirties gang'ster films laid dO\\l1 the bases for future de\c1opments', but discusses only [,il tic C(/CSI/ rand Tltc PI/Mic 1:'I/CII/J' and otherwise refers in his section on 'the Golden\ge' of the 1<)30S only to S({/r/iw' and one other 11)J0S gangster film, the comedy Tltc I,il/lc Giant (().n), \\hich is cited in passing' to exemplif~ the \\ays in \\ hich (exactly t \\ehe months after the release of SCilr/i/(c, 'the ultimate expression of the g;enre's early phase'2) the HollY\nJod gangster had become 'a domesticated creature ... an anachronism ... the stuff of legend more than bct' (p. 3 I). Howe\er, Roso\\ (llnR: 120-ZI0) lists at least nine other directl~ contemporaneous gangster films of the late 1<]20S and early 1<)30s. In bct, Hardy, Schatz and e\ en Shadoian do all make reference to one \ery much earlier film abou t urban criminal gangs, \). \ \. Ciriffit h 's Thc Hl/sA'i'lars II/P/~~ IIIC)' (1<) 12), but none of them explore either the intencning t\\O decades or the possible relationship bet\\een the (earl~ /Iate) silent-era gangster and his more celebrated successors. Shadoian's \ ie\\ that after Griffith the gangster film 'strugg'led in unfertilised soil through to the end of the t\\enties' (p. 2<)) seems to be the majority opinion. Ilo\\e\cr, GriC\eson (2005 f()rthcoming) discusses a range of more than thirt~ silent gangster films dating' back as early as 1<)06, of \\hich Rcgcl/aalilll/ (1<)1.:;) described by its director Raoul \\alsh as 'the first full-length gang'ster picture e\er made' is perhaps the best-kno\\ n. \\'hile some of these films, such as the series of films in the mid-I<)los on \\hite sla\C ring's (notabl~ Traffic III Sill/Is, 1<)13) and another, slightly later series about ChinatO\\l1 and 'Tong' gangs, seem remote fi'om the concerns of later g~l11g'ster films, others ha\ e quite clear connections: f(Jr n:ample, the films dealing \\ith the Italian 'Black Hand' (in 'I'IIC Gild/it/ita, Pari !J, the predatory Don F~lI1ucci, thc young \ito Corleone's first 'hit', is identified as a member of the Black lland).' This genre archaeology is of more than narnmly academic interest since it bears directly not only on the standard accounts of genre c011\entions but also on the \\ays in \\hich the gangster film has most often been historicilly located.
:\umerous studies of the genre, including the three cited abo\e, take it as that the seminal gang'ster films are directly contemporary with the phenomenon they depict. The banner nC\\'spaper headlines screaming of mob \\arf~ll'e that spiral dizzily out of the screen, an instant genre cliche (nostalgically i11\0ked in Tlte Gild/iI/iter's 'mattresses' montage), arc taken as metonymic of the gangster film's O\\n determined topicality. Organised crime h'ld of course rocketed, and hence come to national prominence, during \merica's e:\traordinary and \\holly unsuccessful experiment with Prohibit ion from IlJI9 to 1<)33 (although as Ruth (1996: 45) points out, both as crimino10giclI [ICt and as a public figure the gangster 'predated his bootlegger incarnation '). The unremarkable desire to ha\'e a drink set millions of other\\ ise Ll\\-abiding citizens on the \\Tong side of the law; quenching their thirsts required the establishment of regional net\\orks of illegal production, distribution and sale of aleohol, an immensely profitable if risky business that \\on huge f(Jrtunes and in a fe\\ cases - most notably Chicag'o's f\1 Capone, the original 'Sclrf~lCe' nation\\ide notoriety, aided and abetted by a sensationhungry press. ,\s clearly rele\an t as Prohibition-era gangsters \\cre to the (()J0S gang'ster cycle, hO\\c\er ' Roso\\ (I InR: 20 I-10) incidentally identifies not [jl/Ie Cacsar but Tltc DllllrtI'il]' III !Jell ([()J0) as the first film based on ,.\1 Capone and a ,trong influence on the better-knO\\l1 later films - if the gang'ster is truly to be identified \\ith the Prohibition-era mobster one might ask \\hy such C\ identl~ topical and compelling material only f(lllnd its \\ay onto moyie screens \ cry shortly bd()re the \ olsted .\ct \\as repealed in I <)33, Schatz ( I()R I: R5) and ot hers argue that the gangster film had to awai t the coming' of ,ound (in IIJ27) fiJI' the soundtrack of gangland 'gunshots, screams, . ,creeching tires' and also ~I specific style of [1st-paced, hard-boiled dialog'ue to bring the gang'ster and his urban milieu fully to life," 110\\ e\ er, \\hat (irie\cson and other scholars of early cinema's relationship to urban l11odernit~ demonstrate is that throug'hout the silent era in US political terms roughly congTllent \\ith the ProgTessi\c period there \\as a \\ellest~lblished discourse that comprehended crime and \ice in\merica's hurgeoning metropolises (abO\c all :\e\\ York and Chicago) in terms of social 11\ giene and rd(mll (see CiriC\eson, I<)In, 2005 f()rthcoming'; Gunning;, [()In), and that the silent-era gangster \\as more likely to be concei\ed in these terms than in the quasi-:\ietzschean mode ofien identified \\ith the (()J0s film g'angster (Roso\\, IlnR: 67 also notes that gangster films first appeared 'in the contnt of Progressi\e documentary realism'). In other \\ords, the silent gangster film used a different, rather than simpl~ an inadequate, 'Ll11guage' to articulate the e:\perience of urban modernity. The emphasis on social e11\ironmental ElCtors in the production of crimin,!lity, and the ~Issociated C011\ iction in the efficacy of refi)rm, meant that one ~l\:iomatic
138
THE GANGSTER FIl.1\1: GENRE AND SOCIETY
FILM GENRE
of the dominant themes of silent-era gangster films \vas the concept of personal redemption from a life of crime (such coO\'ersion narrati\es also dominated the Victorian and early-twentieth century stage melodramas that provided early film-makers with many of their dramaturgic models), The striking absence of any suggestion of remorse or efforts at restitution from the protagonists of the early 1930S films who - with the possible and limited exception of Tom Powers in The Public Enemy - go \\'holly unrepentant to their violent ends is often cited as a decisive break and an indication of the classic gangster's breakout into modernity from the residual Victorianism of the silent era, In fact, the reintroduction of such moralistic motifs into later 1930S gangster films, both pre-moratorium VHallllll/!a/l J/lelodraI/{a, 1934, whose gangster protagonist BIackie (Clark Gable) \irtually lobbies his best friend the DA to send him to the chair) and after (Dead E/ld, 1936, \vith its slum setting and strong elements of social critique, and" -l/lgels W"h Dirty Faces, H)3R, whose gangster anti-hero (Cagney) feigns co\vardly breakdown on his way to the gas chamber to save the next generation of street kids from wanting to emulate him) is often cited ,IS evidence of their g.'eneric inauthenticity and the gangster film's general decline after .')'tilrlilcc, HO\\c\er, if the H)30-.12 classics are not regarded as the g;angster film's originary moment but located in a longer generic history, it is if anything the repcntance theme that starts to look like the mainstream generic tradition and the titanic SUlljilCCstyle individualist the exception. Gi\cn for example that the genre has influentially been read as an allegory of both the allure and the potentially catastrophic consequences of untrammelled individualism, it may be no accident that the gangster film thrives in the early years of the Depression, in the immediate aftershock of the Wall Street Crash of October 1929. The traumatic collapse of the 1920S boom fuelled by wild stock-market speculation rather than industrial n:pansion not only undermined the triumphal capitalism of the Coolidge ,lI1d HoO\er eras, but called into the question the very premises of the A.merican social ,lI1d economic system, In the years before more positi\e, pro-social models of responding to the crisis emerged under Roosevelt's ,\'e\\ Deal, the screen gangster \iolently articulated the disturbing; possibility that the quintessential1y \merican values encapsulated in the 'Horatio .\lger myth'- the poor boy who makes good throug'h his O\vn determination, hard \vork, dedication to achieving his goals and so forth - might actual1y prO\c destructi\t~, both to himself and to the wider society, if left uncurbed. The gangster shares the Alger myth's ,lttracti\e qualities of vitality, \igour and determin,ltion; but he also exposes their dark underbel1y: recklessness, seItishness, sadism and ,111 ultimately self-defeating spiral of \ iolent self-assertion, Thus the gangster film typically stands in an at least implicitly critical relationship to the society it depicts. In Robert \Varshc)\\'s (l194Rl rc)/ sa) inf1uential argument, to the
139
{-\merican) audience the gangster is an exemplary and admonitory figure of fatall~ o\erreaching ambition, yet one \\'ho also bespeaks some uneasy truths about :\merican capitalism. This critical dimension to the gangster film may be qu,l1ified by the perception that the gangster's typical narrative trajectory , hom obscurity to \vealth and power, only to end in inevitable downfall and defeat - is constructed to underpin a simplistic moral that 'crime does not pay'. As ~lunby points out, hO\vever, the intense contro\'ersy culminating in the Hays' Ollice 'moratorium' implies at the very least that such a message, nen if intended, \vas not \\holly or satisElCtorily transparent to contemporary Establishment viewers of H)30S gangster films. On the contrary, elite opinion in this period was persistently exercised at the prospect that the glamorous portrayal of ~lob life in these films notwithstanding the gJngster's ine\it,lble bloody doom - \vould attract impressionable urban youths to\\ Jrds a life of crime rather than deter them from it (sec also Springhall, J{)9R).
.\ lunby and other commenutors also suggest, howC\er, that elite deprecation of the gangster film \vas in ElLt less a ref1ection of real anxiety about these films' role in encouraging an upsurge in violent racketeering than a IlKal point for a deeper nativist hostility to the growing visibility and political and economic po\\cr of ne\v ethnic groups in the early twentieth-century Cnited States, directed at Catholics in general and Italian-Americans in pJrticular. The Depression-era gangsters might thus serve JS cautionary I~lbles not only of indi\idualism rampant, heedless of social constraints, hut also of the dangers of ethnic particularism \crsus assimilation, Portraying 1t,l1ian- (as in Lillie Caesar and Scarline) or lrish- (as in Tile P"hlic Fl/e/llY) \mcricans as gangsters might seem to sene such xenophobic ideolog'ies r,llher \\ell. (The scenes of public outrage at gangland e:\cesses in Scarlilcc interpolated just prior to reblse O\er director Boward Ha\vks's protests and \\ ithout his cooperation include a reference to thc g;angsters as 'not e\en l citizens ' suggesting that one part of the gJngster film's agenda is to render criminal violence 'un:\merican'.) Cnsurprisingly, prominent ltalian-.'\mericans like :\e\v York ~ layor Fiorella La Guardia quickly denounced such characters 'IS Rico (in Lit/Ie Caesar) as debmatory. (Vigorous protests accompanied the production and release of The Codlil/ha, and ha\ e themsehes become the object of satire in The Sopral/os.) On the other hand, by implying th
140
FILM GENRE
the gangster prO\'ides a powerful- and a transgressi\T - figulT of identification for the ethnic, urban constituency he represents, Alongside ethnicity, as an urban form dealing \\ith responses to depri\ation in a highly materialistic culture the gangster film also ine\itably sheds light on a greater unmentionable, not only in Holly\\ood but in :\mcrican society generally: class, While the 'official' :\merican ideology - including the Turnerian myth of the frontier - stigmatised class societies and class struggle as 'Old \Vorld' nils that had been purged fi'om the idealised\meriean commonwealth, the gnmth of labour unions and such political mo\ements as Populism meant that class conflict \\as in Elct at its most intense in .\merican society in the years immediately before and after the First World War. Lulled by the briet1y shared prosperity of the 1<)20S, the onset of the Depression S,I\\ the spectre of class cont1ict return \\ ith a \Tngeance (see Parrish, H)<J2: +O~-2I). As \\ith ethnicity, the gangster ambi\alently enacts some of the brutal realities of class in modern ,\merica, both csposing and falling \ietim to the csigencies of class struggle. In Elct, the g;angster might be seen as an exemplary subject of ideological misrecognition: Tony Camonte in Stilljinc mistakes the ~1(hertising slog;an 'the \\orld is yours' as a personal messag'e and sets out to act upon it. Established at the outset of the narrati\e as belonging to a lower prokssional and social order than his boss or patron, the g'ang'stcr de\'(ltes his ferocious energies not to assaulting or O\Trturning this social and economic hierarchy, but to triumphing \\ ithin it by a more ruthless csploitation of its \alues than anyone else. Far fi'om being disatlccted or alienated fi'om the system, the gang:ster displays an cstreme degree of in\estment in it. :\s Ed\\ard ~litchell (IlJ7(l) arg'ues, he \\holeheartedly adopts the logic of the key elements of early t\\entieth-century :\merican ideology that underpinned the existing' distribution of resources a secularised Puritanism (\\hose concept of the 'elect' could be adapted to underpin the notion of a heroic 'man of destiny', Elted to triumph \\here others Liil) and Social Dan\inism (\\'here the neutral processes of natuLiI selection \\ere recast as 'the sun i\al of the fittest' and used to justify the \ieious dog:-eatdog: contest of laissez-Eiire capitalism). The g:ang:stcr's progress up the professional ladder is accompanied by the traditional trappings of selfimprO\ement not only fine clothes, List GlrS and the \\oman of his dre,lITIs, but a self-conscious culti\,1Iion of taste (rony Camonte attends a perfilrmance of Somerset ~Iaug'ham's Rllill, 'a serious shO\\'; Bug:s Raymond (Ed\\ard G. Robinson) in the g:angstcr comed~ Tllc Ijl//c Gill 1/1 studies Plato and acquires abstract modern art). Yet his gutter orig:ins ultimately betray him, both to the audience and to his peers: Poppy finds Tony's ap,lrtment 'g:audy', the Corleones endures \\:\.SP jibes at their 'g:uinea charm' and 'silk suits'; I\oodks in (JlltC ['pOll 11 Tilllc il/ .llllaim finall~ accepts his lost lo\e's Deborah's insig:ht that 'he'll ahYays be a t\\o-bit punk'. In Elet, it is the
TIlE GANGSTER FIL\t: GENRE AND SOCIETY
I4I
(j',lI1gster's deracination that finall\ dooms him: his il1\estment in ascending ~1e 'ladder of class compels him t(; adopt an alien identity and attenuates the powerful energies of self-assertion that ha\e taken him this far. .'\ .\lar'\ist reading of the genre \\ould stress this notion of self-alienation ,1S an ineradicable function of clpitalism, ,md might point to the corruption of the f~lmily, a repeated motif in g,mgster films since the ICnOS, as a key 1l1'lrker. :\ccording to .\Lin ,lOll his collaborator Friedrich Engels, the cultural pri\ileging- of the 'Holy hlmily' under bourgeois society is a characteristic ideological ruse - di\erting the \\orker's \alid aspirations to\\anls self-realisation in a politically harmless direction (\\hich is also economically necessary to replenish the \\orkforce) \\hik offering- him a petty tH,ll1ny of his O\\n (O\Tr his \\ife and children) to assuage the misery of his I;\\n class oppression. The bmily unit thus becomes a gTim parodic mini,ltulT of the unjust and t\\isted pO\\er rehllions that typify bourgeois clpiLilism as a \\ hole. HO\\C\ er, this implies th,1I the inherently unstable coni radict ions of class society and their potential for cltastrophic implosion might also be encountered in the family. From such a perspecti\e, the gangster's characteristic obsession \\ith presen ing 'his' Elmily, \\hich nonetheless leads ineluctably to its destruction, becomes enormously re\Taling. In .','((Il/ila, Tony Camonte's incestuous bond \\ith his sister Cesca, \\hieh dri\es him to murder her husband, becomes a 100Tr's pact that sees them die side In side in a hail of police bullets. \Iichael Corkone insists throughout Tile Cod/il/iler. Pllrl II that his criminal enterprises, like his Either's, arc ,ill intended for 'the good of the Llmily'; but as his po\\er crests his family is progressi \ely decimated, and he is himself cit her direct Iy responsible for, or implicated in, the deaths of his brother-in-hl\\, his brother and his daughter (and his unborn child, aborted by his \\ ik kay in IT\ulsion ag;ainst the 'e\ il' \ Iichael has \\Tought). His uncomprehending' mother reassurcs him th,lt 'you can ne\Tr lose your Llmily', but \lichael realises that 'times ha\c changed'. \Iichael's blind pursuit of pO\\er, ostensibly in the n,lme of the Lunil\, unk
142
FILM GENRE
skin-deep and ultimately vulnerable: unlike the Westerner the gangster - an orp;llnised criminal - is he~l\'ily reliant on others not only for his po\\er but for his identity. For all that his story apparently enacts wild self:'assertion and radical self-fashioning, from another perspective it becomes apparent that the gangster:s selfhood is really constructed through the group. GOIII(/dias (19 89) opens wIth the bald statement in voicemcr: ':\11 my lik I ahyavs \\anted to be a gang'ster', but the remainder of the film \\orb throug'h' \\ith brutal thoroughness the mutually contradictory thrust of the desire on the one hand to belong, and by belonging' to confirm an apparenth secure selthood (knowin[!: what one wants and actin[!: to achieve it) versu~ on the other the inherent logic of violence that will inevitably end up making victims of the [!:ang's mvn members and reducing the gangster himself to a state of paranoid uncertainty S Warshow's sense of the gang'ster as thrO\ving into relief the yalues of mainstream America is captured in the gangster's ambivalent relationship to his 'L1I11ily' (the [!:ang or his actual blood relations), \\hich may n:press the prof(llIndly ambi[!:uous place of community in a society that supremely valorises the individual at the expense of the collective. Typically, the gang itself is both indispensable and a burden, even a threat, to the gangster: he needs the support of his soldiers, and it is 1)\ his ascent from th~ r~;nks that his self:'assertion is measured; yet the gangster knO\vs onh' too \vell how dang"Crous it is to rely on any tics, even those of blood. i'\ot o'nly the outright treachery, but the simple unreliability of one's associates is a repeated trope of the genre: Fredo Corleone's weakness and resentment make him an unwitting accomplice to an attempt on his brother \lichael's life in The God/ii/her Part l! (in the first God/ii/her it is Fredo \\ho is drivin[!: his Lither, and who Llils to draw his own g'un, \yhen the Don is shot down in the street); Carlito spends most of Carlilo 's /I ill' (H)(J3) trying', and biling, to n:tricate himself from the toils of his attorney Dave Kleinkld's [!:reed and recklessness. The g'ang'ster film implicitly ironises its subject inasmuch as it stresses the self-suflicicnt individual the g'angster desires to be and insists he is, vet precisely because he is a p,lIlIp,".I·ler - he can never become. ' This performati\c contradiction of radical autonomy and dependency can also be read in psychoanalytic terms: the gangster's 'riotous se1f:'asse~tion, whether expressed through the violence he inflicts on others or throug'h his characteristic ostentatious displays of \vealth and pmver (clothes, cars,'guns, womcn), literally embodies Lacan's notion of the 'gaze of the Other'. The g'angster concei\"Cs of himself as self-authored/authorised, in thrall to no one - in bct, as classically in Tony Lamonte's ruthless rise to pm\er in Smr/ilCe, being in the power of, or reliant on, others is intolerable to him. Y~t as Lacan's account of the subject's constitu tion throug'h entry into the Svmbolic order (paradigmatically language, but by extension' all of ;he social stl:uctures
THE GA"'JGSTER FILM: GENRE AND SOCIETY
143
through \vhich the individual is socialised) makes dear, individualit~ is a function of relationality: identity is confirmed only by its constitution in the regard of an Other. Refusal to register the role of otherslthe Other in lil11ning the subject's selfhood is at best regressive inLlI1tile f~lI1tasy, at worst psychotic. Elements of both tendencics .lre present in the classic 1930S gangsters; as the genre takes on 1I0lr shadings in the post\var period, in the mother-fixated sociopath Cody Jarrett Games Cagney) in Wltile Ileal (1949), both arc wholly uncontained and violently acted out. In this section \\"C have touched on several themes that have structured g,mgster films since the silent era, including imliyidualism and the 'American ])ream', selfhood and subjectivity, masculinity, urbanism, the Llmily, class .lI1d ethnicity. ,\11 of these \\"Cre very much 'live' categories in the cultural discourses of pre-Second World War .\merica. Following the I<)J5 moratoriUI11, the gangster \\as displaced by the pro-social 'official' hero - the polin: detective, Treasury or FBI agent - in the later HUOS and by the early 1940S had become a nostalgic figure. During the \\<11' years eyen gangsters (onscreen at least) placed their patriotic duty bdi.)re their priyate gain (see Young', 2000). Throughout the 1950s, in such films as The B(e: IIl'al (1953), /hi' Big CIIJII/JII and The Phl'lIl.\ CII)' SllIr)' (both 1(55) gangsters featured as increasingly impersonal antagonists - quasi-corporate crime syndicates that, like the pods in 11I7.'asloIl0(tlll' Hod)' SlIlIlllters (1<)55), mirrored contemporary .1I1xieties about both Communism .1I1d the domestic culture of confi.JrInitv to 'official' heroes \\hose o\\n motives and methods became increasingly qucstionable. \lason (2002: (17-119) sees the films of this period as preoccupied with conspiracy and thc systemic Llilures of 'straight' society to protect and enable masculine indiyiduality, consequently proyoking that indiyiduality to take on ever more stressful and 'illegitimate' forms. Other major genres suffered br mOlT fi'om Old Hollywood's terminal crisis than the gangster film, which was neither ideologically central to the outgoing system (like the Western) nor directly implicated economically in its collapse (like the f~liled musicals of the late I<)6os). The Production Code's .tl)()lition in H)66 and its replacement in 1<)68 by a national ratings system also meant that the remaining inhibitions on content - massiyely attenuated by the mid-I<)6os, but still with some f(lrce to the n:tent that exhibitors were attached to the Code Seal of _\pprO\al - \\ere no longer a problem. The remainder of this chapter will look in more detail at the \\ays that since the return of the g'angster as protagonist in BIIIIJlie IIlIrI CirriI' (1967) and Tlte Glld/lillter, the thematic preoccupations of the HBOS gangster cycle haye been rene\\ed, re\ie\\cd and ntended, in a period nurked in the g'angster film as in other traditional genres by an in tensc self-consciousness concernmg :,;cneric traditions and the uses of genre revisionism.
1..1-4
FILM GENRE
THE GANGSTER REVIVAL
The Gild/it/her - whose success was a major [lCtor driying Holly\\ood's early 1970s nostalgia boom established an enduring popularity fi)r the 'retro' gangster film, often layishly mounted prestige yehicles, sometimes on an epic scale, dramatising the halcyon years of the pre-Second \\orld \Yar \lob: e\amples include, in addition to GIII(lit/hers II and III, LepA>e (uns), Lucky [,ilIl), (un6), F*I*S*T(Hn'l:l), Ouce ['plill a Till/e III_iII/erica, The Clllllllchables (19'1:17), Miller's Crossing (1990), Bill)' Badlgale (1991), Bllgs)' (1992) and Tlze Road III Perdil ill II (200 I). Grandiose thematic pretensions, generally aspiring to statements about the (lost) .\merican Dream, alongside the self-conscious rendering of the gangster as a quintessential _\merican figure, arc notable feat ures inherited by m,1I1 y of these films from Coppola's saga (\yhich opens with the line 'I bclin'e in America' spoken symbolically enough by an undertaker), as is a Stygian \isual register aping' Gordon \Yillis's atmospheric photography fi)[- the first t\\ 0 films and in tended to communica te the murky moral uni\erse inhabited by the characters. :\lost retro .\lob films fi)Cus on the trials of leadership and seHTal ad yertise the parallels bet\yeen the objecti\es and the methods of organised crime and those of 'legitimate' corporate business. This marks a subtle yet clear ideolog'ical shift in the presentation of the generic material. In post-classical I lolly\\ood the gangster becomes less of an C\ceptional and cautionary figure, and increasingly representatiye of the fi-ustration and disillusion that ha\e terminally corroded the promise of America. E\ploitati\e, ruthless organised crime itself is represented- most ClIllously in Tlte Gild/it/her as not a caricature but simply the unmasked truth of 'straight' contemporar~ A.merican society, in all its relentless dehumanisation. Rumours about ~Llfia implication in the ass.lssination of President l'..ennedy in 19(13 had gained \\ide circulation by the start of the I
TIlE GANGSTER FILM: GE"iRE AND SOCIETY
1..1-5
structures of la\\ enforcement in many of these films, the identificatory conl1ictual locus reorients itself around the clash bet\\een an 'old-school' criminal - characterised by loyalty to cre\\, (some) regard for human life and rug'ged imliyidu.rlism - and an impersonal, quasi-corporate criminal organis'ltion. The anti-heroic yersion of the American Dream embodied by the classic indiyidualist gangster seems to dissipate alongside the decline of its 'ot1icial' counterpart in mainstream society; thus the old-style gangster becomes a nostalgically heroicised figure standing in opposition to a machinelike bureaucracy \\hose ruthlessness is intensified, rather than diminished, by its depersonalisation. This sub-genre is fiJreshado\\-ed in both some prewar l2;angster films like Ti,e Roarillg TI/'elllies and Hlj!,-II Sierra (1941) - compare C:arlito Brigante's (A.I Pacino) characterisation of the contemporary scene \\here 'there ain't no rackets ... just a bunch of cowboys ripping each other off with Eddie Bartlett's s\\ipc at 'soda jerks and jitterbugs' in The Rllanng TJI'CIIlies, quoted abO\c .1I1d post",rr IIlIir g'angster films like Fllrce IIr /:'7.'11 ,Itld The Gangsler (uH9). Ho\\'eyer, its paradigmatic film is {Jllilll ElaIlA' (l
146
FILM GENRE
(itself strongly influenced by P,NJlini's A((ilIOlle, 1(60), though lacking Scorsese's kinetic, yisionary style. The focus on urban small-timers in some cases - such as DOlillie Bmsco imparts to the mainstream urban gang·ster film some of the fatalism traditionally associated with its rural yariant. Films relating the exploits of Depression-era outlaws from Machille GUll Kell)' (I (58) to Blood)! .l1ama (I(nl) and Thiel"C.I· Like Us (197+) emphasise the roots of their protagonists' turn to crime in dispossession, deracination and despair, and offer fewer correctiye alternative models (the priest, the crusading journalist) than their urban counterparts. The most famous rural g·angster film, BOlillie and C!)!de (1967), identifies its highly glamorised couple explicitly with Dustbowl victims of economic banditry - at one point, Clyde hands his gun to an unhoused f~lrmer (and his Black farm worker) to take cathartic potshots at their former smallholding, now foreclosed on by the bank - as well as morc loosely with the youth counterculture then adopting a more militant stance in relation to the straight Establishment. While both rural and urban gangsters arc typically doomed, rural gangsters seem to enjoy few of the glamorous fruits - the penthouse apartments, sleek automobiles and designer clothes - of their urban colleagues: their pickings arc slimmer, their liyes more fugitive and itinerant. The rural gang closely resembles a LJmily horde like the James Gang or the Daltons and is correspondingly small-scale, lacking the hierarchical, crypto-corporate aspect of the urban crime Syndicate. \Vhereas the urban gangster film has usually, as we have seen, been constructed in mythic polarity to the Western, there are strong links between the rural gangster film, some film versions of the Jesse James and Billy the Kid myths (notably Bill)' Ihe Kid, 1930, Pal Garr{'/I alld Bill)' Ihe A"id, 1l)73, and Jesse .Jallles, 1939), and the outlaw tradition that Eric Hobsbawm terms 'social banditry'. Another traditional syntactic feature of the Western to migrate to the contemporary gangster film is the dream of escaping 'across the border', which features in Carlilo's 11 lI.l' and the Tarantino-scripted Tme ROil/illite (I(J9+): these films playoff the established post-God/iilher concept of organised crime as the image of a uni, ersally oppressive and destructive social reality and suggest that \\hereas for the classic gangster Lmtasies of self-adYancement ami fulfilment were sustainable and nen (however briefly) realisable within society, these arc today only achievable in an imaginary 'elsewhere'. The most obvious innovation in the gang·ster film in recent years is the incorporation of the African-American experience into the classic ethnic gangster paradigm, with films like Boy::. X II,e Hood (1990) and Dead PresidCllls (1995) faithfully translating classic models like Deild Elld and The Roarill!!. T,7JCIlI;cs to the modern urban ghetto. Other films, howeycr - notably" HCIlace lJ Sociel)' (1993) - evince a nihilistic despair at odds with all but the most
THE GANGSTER FILM: GE"IRE A"ID SOCIETY
147
dyspeptically revisionist ~e\\ Hollywood white gangster films. As Munby (1999: 225-6) and "lason (2002: 15-+"-7) argue, these differences can be
BEYOND HOLL YWOOD \lost national cinemas - other than those, such as the Soviet-era Eastern Bloc, for whom domestic crime was an ideological impossibility - haye produced their indigenous variants of the gangster genre, with particularly strong indigenous gangster traditions in Britain and France. Few, howeyer, have used the figure of the gangster himself in the culturally and socially paradigmatic manner of his American incarnation. A notable exception to this rule is Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), the London gangland boss in The JAilig Good Friday (GB 1980), whose plans to internationalise his operations b\ a link-up to the CS ,\lafia and to di\crsify into property development are depicted as a cautionary Thatcherite fable. Harold's plans are ironically undone by the return of a political and colonial repressed, the Troubles in '\orthern Ireland; Swain (1998: 2) argues that Harold's 'railings against an unseen and unknown enemy (which turns out to be the IRA) are suggestiye of a generic as well as political anxiety,' and the film indeed suggests that Harold's aspirations to leave his roots behind (he lives on a boat) and become a player on the global gangster stage are doomed by his (and Britain's) bloody unfinished business at home. Whereas the :\meriean screen gangster takes paradigmatic shape early on in the genre's history, the British gangster mutates through several guises, from the postwar 'spiv' cycle, including Tile)! Made HI' a Fugitire, Brt~~hfOIl Rock (both GB 19-+7),11 "ill/Jays Raills Oil SUI/dal's and The Noose (both GB HJ+8: see .\lurphy, 198<): q6-67) through Stanley Baker's Americanised crime boss in Ti,e Crill/illal (GB 1<)60). HO\vever, arguably it is only with the
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THE G A:'oJGSTER FI LI\I: Ci E:'oJ RE AND SOCIE TY
I'ILM GENRE
emergence of the Kray Brothers as mythic g,lngland archetypes that the British gangster film acquires its defining semantic element, the 'firm'. British gang'ster films of the early 1970S such as 1'1///1111 and Gel Carler (both GB 1(71) as well as PerjimllallCt' (GB Il)70) clearly imoke the I(ray myth, which becomes an increasingly nostalgic informing presence in later gangster films including The LOllg Good Friday, The IIiI (H)8.j.), Gallgsl('/" .Yo.[ and Se,,:]! Beasl (both GB zooo), as well as the liS-made The rillle)' (ZOOI). (Several of these, as Ste\c Chibnall (zoo I: z81-9 I) notes, adopt revenge motifs from Jacobean tragedy.) The late Il)90S saw a cycle of semi-comic g'angster films (including I,o(!.:, Slor/.:, IlIld 1'11'0 SII/(J!.:illp, Barrels, GB 199 8 , and SnaIr/I, GB zooo) whose casual \'iolence and macho posturings hare been connected by Chibnall \\ith the concomitant rise of 'lad culture' in the UK (see also "lurphy and Chibnall, Il)99). Bruzzi (Il)9:;: z(J) compares the American and French genres in terms of the g'angster's personal style, arguing that whereas classic :\merican gangster films arc characterised by fi'enetic action and LIst talking', their French counterparts arc quiet and exaggeratedly sl(m, and despite their generic similarities, 'the French amI :\merican films hare always diverged on the level of tone. Though the gangster film may come more naturally to .\mericans, the French do it with more st\le.' In non-western cinemas, I(eiko ~lcl)onald (H)9Z) explores the longrunning popularity of the Jlpanese }a/""u::.a film since the IlnOS as an example of a genre, like the Western, that ()\er its long lifespan directly reflects changing Japanese social consciousness. Perry Farrell's The IIarder The)' COllie Uamaica, 1(!7Z), set in the slums of l(ingston, reno\"
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betrayal and loss, dishonour among' thie\cs. In the years after the First \,"odd War, Prohibition transforms four petty teenag'C hoodlums fi'om :\'C\v York's Jewish Lower East Side into \\calthy throug'h still small-time gansgters. .\lax, the leader of the gang, ambitious beyond his parochial comrades and restless at their self-imposed limitations, embroils the gang with ,I more po\\erful :Mob outfit and finally proposes a \\ildl~ ambitious and almost certainly
'>uicidal heist. Degg'ed by .\lax's mistress to save her l()\cr fi'om himself~ his tello\\ g,ll1g member anu best friend :"oodles agrees to rat out the gang on their last bootlegging run together so they em share a cooling-off period in the can. But :\ooules misses the job, and in the police ambush resulting fi'om his tip-off .\lax anu his t\VO other friends arc gunned u(mn - Max's body roasteu to an unrecognisable cinder in the firefight. :'\ooules escapes the
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150
THE
FILM GENRE
Syndicate killers out for his blood and escapes ;\'ew York - but not before discovering that someone, sometime, has stolen the gang's accumulated loot, stashed since their first teen exploits in a left-luggage locker at Grand Central station, and to which, as the sole sunivor, I\'oodles is now entitled. Dazed, alone and tormented by guilt for the death of his friends, Noodles buys a one-way ticket to 'anyplace. First bus.' Thirty-five years pass: it's now 1968 and the aged Noodles receives a mysterious summons back to the city. Returning to the transformed streets of his youth, he e\'entually discovers that all those many years ago l\lax had double-crossed him, manipulating Noodles and the others, feigning his own death and stealing the gang's money to purchase for himself a new life as Secretary Bailey, a powerful political player. Noodles is innocent of the burden of guilt he has carried for decades. 'Bailey' - who has also married Noodles's childhood s\veetheart, Deborah, whom Noodles had long ago alienated by a self-destructively brutal act of sexual violation - now bees exposure by an impending Congressional hearing, and confronting Noodles at his opulent Long Island mansion he imites his old friend to take his long-overdue revenge. But Noodles refuses, preferring to cling to his memories of a 'great friendship' that 'went bad' long ago. Noodles walks away into the night; looking back, he sees "lax/Bailey at the gates of his estate. A garbage truck passes bet\veen them: when it grinds by, Max/Bailey has disappeared. Has he ended his life by throwing himself into thc chopper? Or have the gangland interests threatened by his imminent exposure assassinated him? As a passing carload of revellers dressed in the flapper [Ishions of the 'Roaring' 1920S recalls for us Noodles's gangster heyday, the film ends on a note of deep ambiguity. The most ambitious of a series of period gangster films made in the wake of the enormous success of the first two God/ii/her films, Ol/c(' .. , selfconsciously embraces Coppola's vision of organised crime as less a re\e1atory mirror image of the American dream (the classic model) than a simple, direct and logical extension of American \'alues into a realm \vhere their \iolence and corruption are made manifest. As Fran .Mason puts it, like The
G()((/illher, Once .. , extendls J the metaphor of the 'double-cross' to the le\'el of American society which is re\ealed to be a culture of betrayal and complicity ... where a depersonalised and hostile sociality cannot be transcended, but ultimately extends its ruthless logic. (Mason, 2002: q3) The film's bootlegging and union racketeering milieu exploits similar material to Llldij' Lad)' and F*I*S*T, two routine and unsuccessful earlier entries in the Mob nostalgia cycle. However, the film's formal complexities ,- which ha\e some similarities to The G()((/il!her, Parl II, and like that film
I I
I
GA~GSTER
FIL:\t: GENRE
A~O
SOCIETY
151
encompass at once the gangster's myth of origins, the alienated present-day reality of corporate crime and an ironic relationship between the two Jdn~rtise its ambitions to comment both on its parent genre and, through the !!:Jngster film's generic tropes, on American life, Leone's str'lightforward plot ~nfolds as an intricate skein of memories, with Noodles's story unfolded in .1 series of fi'agmentary interlinking f1ashbacks and f1ash-f(lr\vards with no clc
152
FILM GENRE
'The History of Westerns'), Once ... appears reflexively to acknowledge its own periodisation as precisely a function of style and of genre. Amid the elaborate recreations, certain jarring anomalies stand out, notably in the 1968 sequence: a TV news bulletin that looks nothing like TV news footage; Deborah's strangely unaged face when Noodles meets her again, thirty-five years older. These devices not only sustain the reading of the film as Noodles's opium dream, but may be taken as textual parapraxes (Freudian slips), confessions of the inescapably manufactured nature of any cinematic past. When Noodles, on his return to Manhattan, hires a car, the wall of the rental office is hung with 'period' photographs of the island - 'framing' the frozen, reified memory of the past as commodity (the scene is scored to a muzak arrangement of Lennon-McCartney's 'Yesterday'). This in turn invites comparison with another New York image glimpsed earlier in the same Iq68 sequence: the wall in Grand Central that in 1933 bore a mural advertising Coney Island in the style of Thomas Hart Benton - crowds of archetypal New Yorkers teeming towards stylised rollercoasters, in turn recalling the milling; throngs in the film's Lower East Side sequences - this has been replaced in Iq68 by an abstracted rendition of thc midtown skyline enveloped in New York's corporate urban logo, the Big Apple. People are wholly absent from the image, and in many ways this is a film about the loss of not only a future but a p.lst as well - one in which \\e have almost as much invested as Noodles, but which is as much a fabrication as his own. Leone is significantly less invested in the mythic grandeur of his protagonists than Coppola. Only Max aspires to truly grand criminal schemes, and only in his stolen second life as Bailey does he in bct become imohed with the political circles, grand schemes and ultimately (and terminally) Congressional hearings with which Michael Corleone's Cuban enterprise imolves him: and in the film this is only hearsay and TV footage, not centre stage. As mobsters, Noodles's gang's horizons are confined to the (considerable) rewards to be gained from rum-running; Noodles himself is Clll1ceived as a nobody, albeit a complex one: his romanticism \itiated by (in LICI, indissociable from) his brutality, and unable or unwilling; to see beyond his illusions about Max (and Deborah), he remains an outsider and a definiti\'e small-timer. A,s the plot summary above indicates, in what is ostensibly 'his' story, 0:oodles is most frequently a bystander, too confused, undirected and distracted ever to match up to the Promethean gangster model of Cagney, \Iuni or for that matter Brando or Pacino (De :\iro of course played the young Vito Corleone in God/ii/her In. The film's meandering plot unfolds at a meditative, even funereal pace with few generic set-piece highlights apart from the shoot-out in the dO\m f;lclory and the drive-by shooting, \vhich Shadoian (2003; 286) suggests is included as a consciously nostalgic thrO\\back to the 'good old days'. In their place Ollce .. , prmides only a series of unredeeming', nploitative and
THE C;ANGSTER FtL\1: GE"JRE AND SOCIETY
t53
apparently undirected elpers, {i'om the opening (frustrated) 'roll' of the drunk to the jewel heist (\\iIh its sidebar rape) and the callous maternity ward S\\~\p. \Vhat Leone's decentred n.IIT.lti\e and simulacrum of the g'angster (Iilm) past suggests, hO\vever, is 'the old days' themsehes were never more lh~lI1 ElI1tasy projections, the dcsire to defeat the alienations and disempo\\erJl1ents of capitalism through violent means that, as \lax understands but '\ oodles refuses to, could only ever replicate, newr challeng;e, tha t s~ stem.
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I I
I Part 2 Transitional Fantasies
I
~l
The two genres discussed in this section both have roots - in the case of the horror film, deep roots - in the classical studio era. Yet in important ways they also look ahead to the post-classical period, a period of reduced levels of tilm production and corresponding'ly weakened genre identities. As fantasy genres, both horror and science fiction depart in significant ways from the ;Jre\ailing canons of representation in the classical Hollywood style, whether one takes that mode to be a form of realism (not the chimerical 'classic realism') or, as I have suggested, of melodrama. Horror and science fiction ,tlso share an identity as unrespectable genres for an undiscriminating ju\cnile audience (or an audience that has its mind on other things), with strong roots in exploitation cinema, that have only [lidy recently emerged as attr,ll'tive genres for large-scale production at major studios. Finally, both genres have attracted significant critical attention in recent years, and in each case theories of postmodernism and - which is not always the same thing currents in postmodern theory have played an important part in reconceiving the genre for audiences and film-makers alike. This critical interest is, I argue, related to the relative weakness in hoth cases of traditional semantic/ S\ 11 tactic matrices of generic identity, lending them a protean aspect that is \\ ell suited to exploiting marketplace currents and trenus. That horror and SF LIke their core generic material from the body and technology, respectively, both engines of contemporary critical en4uiry and popular cultural dehate, has confirmed their relevance.
I HI'.
CHAPTER
7
The Horror Film
he experience of limits, and t~e tr.'msgression of limi~s, is ecntl'~1 to the horror film: the boundanes of samty and madness, of the conscIous and unconscious minds, of the external surfaces of the body and the f1esh and organs within, pre-eminently the boundaries of life and death, Yet merely to speak of 'boundaries' or eyen the transgression of bound.lries without registering the \'ery specific affecti \e charge with \yhich the horror genre enacts those mO\es would be largely to ignore its most distinctiye aspects ..\s the name sug;gests, while on the one hand horror insistently pierces and penetrates the yesscl of bodily and representational propriety, at the samc time it registers that moye as profoundly, e\en elementally transgressi\e, in a f100d of \isceral, disturbing and often \iolent imagery (though yiolence is not a giyen, being mostly absent from many ghost stories from The Jl/l/o(ml.l , 1962, and The Ifallillil/g, 196-1-, to The Si.\'i/I Sel/se, [qqq, and The Olhas, 200 I). Death, and of course undeath and death-in-Iife, are omnipresent in horror. usually personified as fearful forces to be shunned and/or destroyed, but occasionally as states capable of generating transcendent insight (as in He//raiser, GB 19H7), Horror films dramatise the eruption of yiolence, often (bur not imariably. and much less in recent decades) supernatural and always irrational, into normatiye social and/or domestic contl'.\ts, often \\ith an undercurrent - at times ,1 good deal more than that· of phobic sexual panic. The ag'ent of horrific Yiolenc: - the 'monster' - is often seen as embodying' and/or enabling the expression of repressed desire(s), One of the most obyious examples is Dracula, who animates intense sexual desire in the (typically bourgeois, demure) women he seduces/assaults \\hile at the same time enacting male ambiyalcnce towards female sexuality in blurring lines between seduction and rape, sex and yiolence, \Vith thc progressiye slackening of censorship this sexual dimension has become increasingly explicit. In SOs/I'ralll (Germany I(22), the \ampirc
T
HUKtHJK
1'ILIVI
I,y
Orlok's grotesque, rodent-like appearance and his yisual association with vermin (rats, spiders) mitigates the explicitly sexual aspects of the character in Bram Stoker's original noyel of [893. Dracula's increasingly suaye incarnations by Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Frank Langella (1930, GB 19SH (US title Horror ofDram/a), [979) progressively blu: the diyiding line betw:en violation and seduction, The 'underground' B/oodjor Dracu/a ([97-1-) speCIfIes Dracula's need for the blood of yirgins, In Bra III Slo~'er ',I' Dram/i/ (1992), the vampire's first assault on Lucy \Vestenra is associated with her own unsatisfied sexual appetites (when first seen she is paging through a pornographically illustrated edition of The .·1m/Ili/1/ KI/(f!)lIs and musing about 'unspeakable acts of desperate passion'), and Dracula, apparating as a man-wolf, couples with her in the gazebo, In ideological terms, horror is ambi\alcnt: on the one hand, it unmasks latent unspeakable desires in (white, patriarchal, bourgeois) society and shows the inadequacy and hypocrisy of the culture that demands such repression (although the graphic yiolence is restr.lined by later standards, this is a particularly strong strain in the British Hammer horror films of the late 1950S and Il)60s). On the other, it identifies its prot'lgonist(s) and through them the audience with a project of re-suppression, containment and restoration of the slailis iJlIO i/Ille through the yiolent elimination of deviance and disturbance- the destruction of the 'monster'. The status of horror as a critical object has underg'one a marked transformation in recent years (it is note\vorthy that neither horror nor SF merits a chapter in Schatz's HO//)'I7'ood Cmres, perhaps the most 'c1assically'-oriented work on film g'enre, but they are extensiyely discussed in the successor volume, which focuses on the transition from classical (or 'Old') to postclassical ("":ew') Holly\\ood (Schatz, [qH3). Indeed .1S jancuyich (2002: [) notes, the horror film has superseded the Western as the genre that is most written about by genre critics. This says something about not only the enhanced status of the genre but also about the changing priorities of genre criticism. For if, as was suggested in Chapter [, early film work on film genre prioritised the project of defining secure and stable generic boundaries and establishing a defined corpus of films in each categ'ory, more recent work has tended LIther to emphasise the porosity and leaky borders of genres; mindful that in am case that the work of definition, if regarded as anything more than a proYisio'nal project of practical utility rather than absolute yalue, is doomed to Quixotic failure, contemporary criticism is minded to embrace and explore textual diyersity and contradiction, Such qualities arc themsehes central to the kinds of theoretical paradigms that haye come to dominate what Feury and ?vlansfield ([9
and a renO\~~lted, multi-perspecti\al historicism. Horror, as a notoriouslY difficult genre to define satisfactorily- that seems itself to take on th~ polymorphic, elusi\e properties of so many horror-film monsters - is \\cll adapted to these altercd critical states. :'\ot only embracing' as narrati\e and thematic content contemporary criticism's concerns \\ith race, gender, sexual identity, the body and the self - sometimes in \\ays that seem quite explicith informed by contemporary theoretical positions (notabl\ in the films <;f Da\id Cronenberg and in such independent productions ~s SlIllIre, 1<)<)3) horror today, like science fiction and the action film, re\e1s ill the carni\alesque sub\ersion and re\ersal of g;eneric proprieties and expectations. Compared to horror's trickster moyes, the efforts of traditional genres like the \Vestern and the musical to come to terms \\ith the demands of the postclassical context can seem sclerotic and predictable. Fimlly, horror remains an attracti\e critical proposition precisely because of its enduring unrespectability: horror has ne\~er \\holly shed the 'disrepuLlble' f1anlUr noted b\ Robin Wood (1<)7<): 7.1), nor its pleasurable /;'/.1'.1'011 of the illicit or at lea~1 impolite. Horror films in general remain sensational, gory and relati\eh cheap, and arc promoted in \\a\s that discour,lge 'serious' critical attcntiOl~ The seriality and repetition to which horror properties arc prone (11<1//0)/'COI, fire instalments since I0. and RCplI/slolI, (Tn I<)fl5) to a different, non-generic Ji'ame of critical reference 'a critical site in \\hich the film's ,If'Cecti\(: li.e., its sensational ,lIld horrific I properties tend to be di\()rced fi'om its "artistic" and "poetic" ones' contemporary criticism's highly de\e1oped tr,lsh aesthetic is eager to explore the cult ural purchase of indelibly g;eneric, e\ en exploitati\ e materi,ll ,111<1 to take \ cry seriousl\ not only its sociological, ps~ cholog'ical and ideological formations but its form,lI and thematic dimcnsions too.
PI.ACI:"Je; HORROR
genre, \\hieh largely focus on postwar and in some cases e\~en more recent films, and historical accounts, usually directed at a broader readership, such as C1arens (1968), Gifford (197.1), Kendrick (1991) and Skal (1993)· The latter pay much greater, sometimes fondly antiquarian attention to the trick films of Georges .\lelies (see also Chapter X), British and American silent films such as the first adaptations of FraliRclIslcl1l (I<)IO) and Dr }dT// 1/111/ Mr Hyde (filmed se\cral times in the silent era fi'om 1<)08, the most celebrated \ersion featuring John Barrymore in 1<)20), and the films of Lon Chaney and Tod Bnmning at MG.\1 and Cni\ersal in the I<)20S, as well as the influence of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theatrical traditions, notably the g'ore-Iaden Grands Guig'nols spectaculars in Paris (sec Hand and Wilson, 2002) and the popular and long-running stage adaptations of JeRJ'//, FraIlA'clIslt,11I and /)ram/II in London and :"Jew York, the last of which \\as the direct source filr the first film in the Uni\ersal horror cycle, Browning''s Dram/II (1<)30), and prO\ided that film's star, Bela Lugosi. It is useful to note the inf1uence of the domestic stage gi\en the importance assigned in many o\eniews of the genre to European cinema, notably the German Expressionist films produced between 1<)1<) and 1923, as a defining moment in the crystallisation of the horror film as a genre and a decisi\'e inf1uence on the :\merican fl)rm. The argument fllr Expressionism's direct stylistic inf1uence on horror, as later \\ithjj/m lllilr (sec Chapter <)), can easily be o\ersLlted: "\merican directors and cameramen did not need the example of Clllip,lIri or Sli4;'ralll to teach them about the dramatic impact of shadow-play, silhouettes and 'low-key' lighting. Such techniques \\ere widely used by both British and American directors and cameramen prior to the First \\orld \Var and usually to cOI1\CY a sinister atmosphere, albeit more associated \\ ith scenes of crime and melodramatic skulduggery than outright horror. Domcsticated Expressionist touches are, hO\\C\Tr, yisible in the first I930S Cni\ersal horror cycle, fl», instance in the canted, yertiginous sets of Bride iiI' FI'iIIIR<'lIslelli (1<)35) or the sepulchral shadO\\s in the opening sequence of The tlll III IIlJ (1<)33): this inf1uence owed something to example and something' also to the direct p
I,
Like other g;enres, the prehistory and early history of the horror film is dellt \\ith rather sketchily in the critical literature. There is a significant gap bet\\een the 1110st ambitious contemporary theoreticll constructions of the
anu mise-en-scene, and aboye all in its delineation of a narratiH~ terrain that systematically threatened conyentional waking rationality \yith oneiric supernatural terrors. If Expressionism points towards the classic horror film, with a hea\y reliance on sinister, atmospheric mise-en-scellc and contained yisual uistortion to create a sense of threat and uisturbance, the other internationally celebrateu European cinema of the 1920S, SO\iet ","10ntage, contains important pointers to the more graphically confrontational aesthetic of contemporary horror. For example, uespite his emphatic lack of interest in the inner \Hlrkings of the human mind - motiyateu by the comiction that human subjecthoou was generated out of anu through material circumstances and characteriseu b~ productiye labour anu interaction with the material \\O\·lu rather than internal psychic processes - Eisenstein employeu 'shock' effects as a central part of his uialectical montage experiments. Indeeu, at the climax of the f~mlOus Ouessa Steps sequence of Thc BOlllcslJip PolclI/!.:ill (1925), a Cossack officer slashes his sabre uirectly anu repeateuly at the lens: a re\Crse shot of his eluerly female yictim, her eyeball sliced open, uemonstrates both the mut specular aggression and gruesome \"iolence associated with the contemporary, post-Ps}'c!/(J horror film. The first major horror film cycle, the 1<)30S anu 1<)40S Cniyersal prouuctions, mostly seem to mouern eyes rather calm affairs b~ comparison with later horror films. (In Llct, as Balio (1<)93) notes, there were t\\O Cniyersal cyeles: the first inaugurateu by Dramla, including the career-uclining per/llflnances of C ni\Trsal's series horror stars Lugosi and Boris I-.:.arloff amI running through until Bridc o( FraIlA'eIlSlcill, HJ35; the seconu following on the hugely successful re-release of Dramla and FrallA'cllsleill as a uouble bill in HJ3H and running through the more action- anu humour-orienteu sequels anu 'monster meet-ups' of the 1<)40S - starting \\ith FraIlA','llsleill .Hccls Ihc /l01( MOil, H)4(1- to the :\.bbot anu Costello horror burlesques of the late 1940S anu early H)50s.) Although James \\"hale in particular employed all occasionally baroque yisual style and at key moments something like 'shock' euiting - for example, the first appearances of Frankenstein's .\lonster anu of the Bride - fll!' the most part the Lmtastic, uncanny anu transgressiye thrust of the narratiye material \yas held in check by a restrained lI/iSC-CIl-SC1;IlC th,11 emphasiseu atmosphere anu the siueshow appeal of make-up effects oyer graphic horror. The Uniyersal horror film in which contemporary theory, with its imestment in marginality, has taken the greatest interest is the notorious (anu unseen for many years between its initial release anu the 19(1OS) Frco/..:s (193J: see Herzol-':enrath, 2002). A uiffcrent approach, e\Tn more reliant on atmospheric lI/i.\e-ell-su;llc but largely abjuring special effects for intense psychological protraiture, was auopteu by the 'B' feature prouuction unit heaued by Val Le\\ton at RI-.:.O in
the mid-1940s. The films of this unit, including Gat Pcople (1942), J Wal!.:ed With a ZomlJfc (1943) and The SCl'elllh Victim (1945), haye long been highly praised both for their 'restraint' (a term which suggests that these are horror films for people \yho uon't usually like horror films, anu was in any case partly predicateu on their budgetary ceiling of $ [50,000) and also for their unusual focus on female subjectiyity. In some ways, precisely in their avoidance of prewar generic monster cliches and their relocation of (often 'Old \Vorlu') supernatural threats to contemporary American urban locations (the most celebrated scene in Gal Pcoplc - replayeu to lesser effect in the 19 82 remake - features a woman stalkeu by an unseen creature lurking in the shadows around a basement swimming pool), the RI-.:.O films bring the viewer into unsettling proximity with the limits of this rational, 'ciyilised' world's ability to tame and contain the irrational. Althoul-':h critical praise of the 'power of suggestion' often betrays an unease with horror's more anarchic and carniyalesque aspects, the success of the Imy-budget, effects-free chiller The Blair Ililell Pm/c(/ (1<)99) testifies to the cnuuring power of this approach (as, in a yery difTerent way, uoes the inuistinct, uncanny, half-glimpseu terror of Vampyr, Sweden [<)32). Sequels notwithstanuing, the Cni\Trsal cycle had run its creatiye course well before the end of the Seconu \Yorlu \Var; after the rnelations of Dresden, ."-uschwitz anu Hiroshima, the C)othic terrors of Dracula, Frankenstein and the \Vollinan may in any null haH: seemeu too quaint to retain much of a Fissil/l for audiences. The cycle's studio-bound, dehistoricised Ruritanian milieu \\as also at ouus \yith the shift towards location filming and greater topicality in post\yar cinema. During the H)50S, the debatable generic status of not only the 'cre,lture features' (discusseu in more uetail in Chapter 8) but many other science fiction/horror hybrids bclilre and since points up the difficulty genre historians and theorists haye always had in uistinguishing between the two g'enres. Inasmuch as horror anu science fiction (SF) audiences were largely perceiyed by prouucers as identical, especially in the [950Shence exploitation directors such as Rog"er Corman as \\ell as stuuio uirectors like Jack ."-rnolu (11 Call/c Fmll/ OilIer Spacc, [<)53; Thc Crcalllrc Fom Ihc Blat!.: Lagooll, 1(54) switched between (\\hat might be externally cbssified as) SF and horror \\ithout any eyiuent prior sense of generic difkrentiation - Wells (2000: 7) is probably rig-ht in arguing that 'there is no great bene/it in seeking to disentang-Ie these generic perspectiyes' and that \\T should instead address our attention to 'the distinctiye elements of anyone text Within a particular historical moment' .."-11 the same, some e\'ident points of distinction may help illuminate important aspects of both genres. While in itself a uistinction between SF and horror drawn on the basis of 'science' \'ersus 'm,lgic' would be quite inadequate, if one accepts the criterion of scientific explanation not as an oillmll/c to be assessed (i.e. with
reference to contemporary scientific understanding), but rather as a form of rhc/rll"/r and a Illode o( presell/I//ioll, it may proye more useful. In the SF uniYerse, that is, the appearance of aliens, monsters and other destructiye or malnolent forces is not only depicted as e:xplicable according to the scicntific understanding diegetically ayailable (\\hich mayor may not map onto our own), but moreoyer is narratiyely subject to such analysis, e:xplanation and more often than not - systematic response, By way of e:xample, although the Monster in Frall!..'CIIs/eill (193 I) is manifestly a creation of misguided/ penerted science - stitched together from corpses, animated by electricity, his yiolence accountable by the erroneous insertion of a 'criminal brain' _. the film does not present him as a scientific problem but as a terrifying monstrosity, both pathetic and malign, On the contrary, Fmll!..'ells/eill's narratiye arc, spiralling: up through intensifying chaos and panic, could hardly be more differellt from the progress /hrollgh and PilS/ p,mic to\\ards a scientific/military solution that characterises innumerable SF alien imasion and monster moyies fro!1l The Thillg (It)51) to llli/epClldCII(c DiI]' (I<)<)(»), Yiolence, to be sure, may pla~ ,I ubiquitous role in defeating the intruder and restoring 'normality', but the yiolence of the SF film is LlI' more likely to be ostensibl~ rational and considered, that of the horror film, ritualised and reactiye (the pog:rom-like rnenge of the \illagers \\ith their flaming torches). These opposed generic rhetorics, of clarification and the occult, arc reflected too in the different yisual registers of horror and SF. SF {i'om the It)50S and J()(JOs in particular generally employs an unobtrusi\ e yisual style, \\hich might be seen as affecting a quasi-scientific neutrality appropriate to the solutions that \\ill nentually be fi)und to the threats at hand. This contrasts starkly with the highly stylised and often floridly E:xpressionistic IIl1sc-se-sl,;lIe of classic horror. /\s Yi yien Sobchack (I<)1'\T 2<) .W) usefully suggests, horror and SF arc also distinguished by the latter's tendency to lend its threats a public and collectiYe aspect, \\hcreas horror - :IS the recent dominance of psychoanalytic interpretative paradigms suggests - e:xplores realms both intimatc and - in all senses of the term - occult. The c1austrophobicall~ constricted spaces of horror magnify and condense profilllnd ami phobic impulses regarding the body, the self and se\uality. In the 1<)70s, hO\\e\cr, in SF-horror as elsewhere, such stylistic generic markers become inLTC
I
in the popularity, yisibility and hence market potential of 'cult' (usually SF and horror) film, teleyision and comic books, haye ensured that these former 'pulp' (or worse) genres are now taken \'ery .seri~JUsly_ by studios .and filmmakers. Yloreoyer, ne\\ genres such as the serIal killer hIm have splICed more mainstream forms like the police procedural thriller with horror tropes and themes to bring ghastly generic material before a far wider audience than horror's traditional inner-city and jU\eniIe demographic - nen, in the case of The Si/mlc o( the La III/JS (199 I), earning the ultimate seal of establishment appro\al, an Oscar fi)r Best Picture (on the generically ambiguous place of Silence or/he LillII/IS, see J:mcoyich, [2001 I 2002). Still, horror has not fully crossed oyer to the mainstream to the degree of its sister genre science fiction. \Yhereas since S/ilr Wars SF blockbusters (as discussed in the ne:xt chapter) hne regularly commanded vast budgets, top stars and directors, arc often the central 'tentpoles' of annual release schedules, and reliably feature in lists of top bO\-oflice attractions, this is rarel\ the case \\ith horror. Horror budgets remain relatiyely low, and major 'abo;'e-the-line' talent is only infrequently att:lched to out-and-out horror projects. The more clearly generic the material, the truer this is: thus while understated ghost stories like n,l' Si.r/h Sellse :lre perceiYed as relatively 'classY', especially if they have a period setting (like The Others) and can attra~t m,ljor stars such as Bruce \\illis and :\icole k.idman, a slasher film like SacillII, a traditional shocker like Ghos/ Ship (2003) or a rem,lke like Dill/'ll 0(//'" J)cild (2003) \\ill typically fe,lture :1 cast of lesser-known actors, someti~les \\i th :1 'l1:lme' (\)re\\ Barrymore in Sacil III, fil!' c:xam ple) in a featured or Clllleo role. \)espite the breakthroug;h success of William Friedkin's The F.ro!"lis/ (l<J73), fe\\ leading directors in the last thirry years haye undertaken out-:md-out horror films (n,l' Shill III,!!, (SLll1ley I\. uhrick, 1<)1'\0) and Bl'i/I/I Slo!..'('/' 's J)I'i/(f(/" (Francis Ford Coppola, H)(J2) being ob\ ious C\ceptions). Although they operate at a lo\yer le\e1 of \ isihility than the major summer blockbusters, horror films nonetheless typif\ the contemporary 1 Ioll~ wood preference fiJI', ill industr~ parlance, 'm:lrketahility' the technique of opening a film in as m:ll1~ \ enues as possihle simultaneously, with a harrage of high-impact print and spot '1'\ alherrising; O\er 'playability' (a film's ability to npand its audience \\eek-on-\Yeek through LIHlLIrable critical reception and \\ord-of-!1louth: see I.e\\is, 200,r ()3 70). Horror films usually 'open wide' in hundreds of screens on the same \Yeekend, perform strongl~ enough in their Erst weck to rise to the top, or ncar the top, of the \\eekly box-(~ftice list, hut then drop ofT sharply in subsequent \\'eeks to disappear from theatres after :1 relati\e1y short re1c
typical of Hollywood's marketing techniques for its most prestigIOus and expensive projects - wide opening accompanied by saturation TV, radio and print a
MAKING MONSTERS A concept th,lt binds together much cinematic horror is the idea of the 'monstrous'. ?Ylonstrosity is not a sclf-evident category: monsters are created, not born, Furthermore, as se\eral writers ha\e noted, //Iillisier has its etymological roots in the I,atin //I II IIsl ra re, 'to show': thus the monster exists to de-llIlIlIslrale, to teach an object (social) lesson of some kind. The visual trope indissociably one of the genre's semantic constants- of the tight 'choker' close-up on the screllning; (usually kmale) bce, giving the spectator ample opportunity to reflect on the terror and horror expressed therein, could be seen ,IS a textual marker of this educati\c process, an instruction in horror (what we find horrific), In some horror films, the process of 'monstering' - of rendering someone or something an object of fear and rentlsion itself becomes part of the narrati ye: in different wa~ s films like Freil ks, QUiller//liiSS i111t! lite Pil (GB I <)M\), Cronen berg's Tlte FI)' (I<)X6), EJIlJim! SrissllrilillIi!S (19<)0) and ncn FmllJ..'i'lIs!<'ili invite their audience to rellect on the psycho-social dynamics of monstrosity. The 1931 version of Dr ]eJ..~)'1I i111t1 \11' ill/tic emphasises Jekyll's 'monstrous' .tlter-ego as a manifestation of repressed sexual desires that are in themsehes perkctly 'normal', but rendered hyperbolic and destructi \e by their systematic frustration in a rigid social order predicated on denial. Such films might be seen ,IS taking their cue from Franz h.afka's bmous parablel1elilllllllp!/llsis, \vhose protagonist Gregor Samsa's sudden transformation into a giant insect and the rendsion and rejection this transformation prO\okes in his bmily and fi'iends allegorises bourgeois conformity, hostility to and fear of difference, and social isolation. Far more horror films, however, .Ippear simply to exploit the 'monster
reflex', posilIoning their audiences so as to share the hatred, terror and aggression justifiably directed against the monsters they depict. Indeed, the misguided sympathy for, or attempts to reason with, the monster on the part of ivory-tower scientists or well-intentioned liberals, usually ending in the cautionary death of the do-gooders, is a familiar genre motif. Robin Wood (19 86 : 7 0ff.) identifies this affective charge in horror as at once a graphic enactment of and a reaction to 'surplus repression" the structures of denial and oppression peculiar to 'patriarchal capitalism' (which go beyond the basic repressions necessary, on Freud's account, to the socialisation of the individual). Surplus repression relies crucially on the construction of a terrifying and hateful Other whose embodiment of the forces suppressed by patriarchy·, energies centred, for Wood, on sexuality, gender, race and class _ reinforce the perception of those desires as monstrous. Wood, ho\\cyer, goes on to argue that just as repression in the individual, on Freud's account, is liable to generate a 'return of the repressed' in the domain of the unconscious through dreams, bntasies and in some cases neurotic or hysterical symptoms, so too surplus repression in the social meets with a displaced and distorted rejoinder in the transgressive energies of' low' cultural forms like the horror film. I Horror film monsters are rarely wholly unsympathetic, Wood argues (dra wing the majorit y of his examples from the classic Cni\ersal and Expressionist horror cycles), and at some level they arc acting out our 0\\11 unacknowledged desires: thus horror films offer 'fulfillment of our nig'htmare wish to smash the norms that oppress us and which our moral conditioning teaches us to re\cre' (Wood, I9X6: Xo). The doubling motif'i that abound in the genre arc a textual 'symptom' of this ambivalence, re\caling the deeper affinity of the pro-social hero ,md the antisocial monster. (Wood notes that in 81111 III' FrallkmslCifI (1939), the eponymous ne\\ Baron comphtins that e\cryone thinks 'Frankenstein' is the name of the monster his bther 'merely' created; similarly, Hardy (19 X5: 107) points out the ways in which Frankenstein's creations in the Hammer cycle are mirror images reflecting back the Baron's O\\n 'moral flaws and emotional atrophy'.) Thus horror is an unstable and unreliable ally to dominant ideology, at once serving its purposes and articulating the desire to destroy it. One way of classifying horror's many monsters is proyided by Andrew Tudor's (19X9) historical study of the gcnre, \\hich maps out the n,lture of the threats in different periods across .1 schematic grid whose key categories are external/internal and supernatur,tI/secular. In prewar horror, threats mostly orig'inated from outside (the indi\idual or the community) and \\'eIT more likely to be supernatural in origin. The postwar decade, the heyday of atomic mutations and alien imasion, also stressed external threats but shifted decisi\cly to\\ards the secular. External threats could usually be effectively dispatched, given the right kno\\ ledge and technology (arcane lore, silver
hu Hets or, in the case of mutations and aliens, the combined scientificmilitary might of the modern nation-state). For Tudor and others, PSj'r!I{J along with the later Sigh/ II/he Lii'illg Dead (1968) mark the transition from the ontological and practicl1 security of externalised horror to the much more uncertain and radically destabilising threats that originate \yithin. That traditional Gothic horror has recently' been incorporated into the mainstream action blockbuster (TheHIIIIII/l)I, 199<); h i l i He/si/lg, 200-4-), largely shorn of its horrific elements, may suggest that the genre's focus has shifted ~l\\ay from such 'external' threats towards the less \\ell-defined ground of indiYidual psychology and the paranormal rather th~lf1 the supernatural.
I-I 0 R R 0 R SIN C E P ,..,. ) C f J()
Modern horror films ~lrc much morc likely to ccntre on threats originating from inside both thc imliyidu;ll psyche (ps\chopathic killers) and . bccause e\Tn isolated indi\'iduals liye in neccssary relationship of some kind to ~1 larger human comnlltnity - our O\\n social institutions (~lbO\e all the bmi!\), that arc patholo~6cal Lllher than supernat ural. '\ Ions tel'S' such as "orman Bates and his successors arc all the more terrifying becausc they ~ll-c not marked, or ~1l'C less olniollsly so, by the yisiblc indications of difference physical dcf(Jrmities, \ ~lst size, othcl'\\orldly appearance - of their coml(JI'tin!,dy unmistakable l()\"(:bears; they retain the lransgressi\l' l1lut~lbility of earlier shape-shilting monsters such as the \\olf \lan, but thcsc symptoms of difICrence and de\ iance ~II'C nOli internalised. ClO\er (1<)()2: .q) identilies fJs)'d/ll's 'sC:\lwlisation of 1l1oti\e and action' as a feature that clearh distinguishl's the lilm from preyious horror tilms. Of course, Ps]'dw is 'llso (in)C1mous l(n' massi\c1y intensifying the dq;ree of graphic \iolencl' horror films \\cre \\ illing ro inflict on their eh~lL1Cters and yicarioush upon their audiences (not\\ ithstanding that "orman's knife is ne\er secn to penetrall' \!arion Crane's lksh). Ps]'d/ll's m~1llipulation of audience sympathies to\\anl" characters (tirst \ !arion, th~n '\orm~1l1, then the im estigator\rbogast) onlY 10 \\ rench them \ jolcntly allay is also \Iiddy creuited \Iith opening' ~l nc\\ lickl in the play of sadi"m and the g~lze in popular cinema (echoed in the subplot ill\ol\ing Detccti\e k:.inderm~ll1 in 'flie /;',IIJrust), .\L1ltby (H)().:;: 211'1 20) credits PS)'tllII with the end of 'sccure space' in Hollywood film, both litcralh and tig'urati\c1y: audicnce" ~lfter PS)'tllli could no longer conlidenth rely on narrati\ e, generic ~1l1d representational con\cntions to 'pmtecr' the intq;rity of their \ielling e\:perience, ~lIlY more than they could be assured that a \iolent attack would still be prcp;lred fiJI' - as had hitherto becn the cOll\cntion - through eutaw,l\S to sinister fiplres shambling ~1t.TOSS mist \ marshes, etc.
Hitchcock's decision to make an inexpensi\e black-and-white thrillel using members of the production team from his eponymous television serie. broke \\ith his then-reputation, established during the 19505, as a master 0 the \;n'ish action-suspense film (pre-eminently i'\/or/h II)' Nortllll'l's/, 1(59) and the resulting film undoubtedly shocked and repulsed a proportion of both his mass audience and his critical admirers (see Kapsis 1992: 56-6-4-). Howe\er, his successful appropriation of such exploitation-circuit marketing gimmicks as refusing entry' to latecomers (a standby of the celebrated e\:ploitation producer \Villiam Castle) and more importantly his adaptation, extension and intensification of lurid amI grotesque narrative material more than justilied the experiment and re\caled the enon~10US market beyond Hollywood's traditional, but increasingly chimerical, 'family' audience for this pre\iously untouchable generic material. Saunders (2000: 75) describes Ps)'tllIJ as 'an act of permission for film-makers in the genre to further expose Isir] the illusol'\ securities and limited rationales of contemporarY life ro reveal the chaos which underpins modern existence and constantly threat~ns to ensure its collapse' . As Tudor's careful tabuhltions ntake clear, howC\er, the generic shift that occurs \\ith l\yr!11I is a shift in emphasis, not an o\ernight generic transformation. \Vhilc \arious cheaply produc~d imitations of PS)ldlll (and of the pre\ious season's hit psychological thriller-horror hybrid lA'S J)ia/Jo/ti/Iles, France 1<)59) quickly t100ued the market (JiII/IIICida/, 1<)63; DI'IIII'II/iil 13, 1964; etc.), the older, more restrained and comforting:ly distanccd - in place, time and nature of thre
or
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Norman's in the fade-out. Nl~r;ht ... , whose horror is more explicitly sociall~ grounded, uses its principal metaphors of zombies and cannibalism to portray US culture in the era of the Detroit and Chicago riots and the Vietnam War as both mindlessly conformist and endemically yiolent, and rams the point home by haying its (Black) hero shot by his supposed 'rescuers', and his body thrown onto an .\usch\yitz-Iike pyre at the end of the film. Night ... eyacuated comentional categories like heroism and good and eyil of any relevance to the horror film. ROSell/illY's Bilh)' looked inwards to open up an eyen more phobic field - the body itself.
BREAKING BOUNDARIES In her powerful reading of the sub-genre of 'body horror', Barbara Creed (1986, 19(3) il1\okes the notion of 'abjection' explicated in J ulia ~riste\a 's POII'Crs o(Hol"rol" (H)8z). Emerging in the mid-T970s in lilms such as Tilt" E,ol"cist (I
I -
horror films \yhere, in Kelly Hurley's (1995: z03) words, we find 'the human body defamiliarised, rendered other'. Thus conceived, the larger relevance of the abject to horror, the genre that aboye all concerns itself with death, decay and - in its su pernatural yersions at least - the persistence of life after or beyond death, is readily apparent. "Kristeya notes that this reyulsion is learned rather than instinctiYe (animals and infants do not share it) and names the process that results in it 'abjection'. Three points of her complex argument are releyant to horror. Firstly, as noted, the original focus of abjection is those substances and processes that are properly o(our bodies but become detached/imll it - thus alienating us from our sense of ourseh-es as coherent, integrated beings. Second, the establishment of a sense of the abject is a key boundary-making device: it sorts out what is clean and \\hat lilthy, hence (by social and ideological extension) what is right and proper and \yhat eyil and loathsome. That is, the constitution of the realm of the abject plays a crucial role in setting the terms of the normati\e and desirable: only through a sense of limits and exclusion docs the latter become a\ailable. But the process of abjection akin to acts of primary rcpression in a traditional Freudian schema is ne\er complete or secure, and the abject reappears in a yariety of displaced lilrms, all sharing a similar aspect as '\yhat disturbs identit y, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules' (Kriste\a, 198z : 5). Employing a diffnent theoretical \ocabulary, the work of the radical anthropologist !\1ary Douglas, :"oel Carroll (1990: 33) comes to somewhat similar conclusions about the issue of boundaries. 'Horrific monsters', he notes, 'often innl!\e the mixture of \yhat is normally distinct ... The rate of recurrence \yith \yhich the biologies of monsters arc \aporous or gelatinous attests to the applicabilit~ of the notion of f(lrmlessness to horri/ic impurity' (Carroll cites the yagueness of the descriptions of infernal creatures in the horror fiction of H. P. LO\ccraft). That monster.\. is categoricl1ly interstitial [using Mary Douglas's terms I causes a sense of impurity in us \yithout our necessarily being aware of precisely what causes that sense ... In ,lddition, the emphasis Douglas places on categorical schemes in the analysis of impurity indicates a \Ya~ for us to account fil!· the recurrent description of our impure monsters as 'un-natural'. They arc un-nalUral relati\e to a culture's schema of nature. They do not fit the scheme; they \iolate it. (Carroll, 19<)0: 3-1-) Like much psychoanalytic theory, ~risteYa's account of abjection has been attacked as uni\-ersalising - i.e. insufficiently attentiYe to historical and cultural differences and contexts. HO\yeyer, there is no real reason why abjection cannot haye an e\ident socio-political dimension, one moreO\-cr that is
immediately rele\'ant to the horror film, E\l~n if the processes of abjection are, as Kristeya insists, uniyersal, its objects are necessarily contingent. In our flight from the intolerable [lCt of mortality, it is possible to trace a process whereby those aspects we loathe and fear in ourselyes - as our body's traitorous confessions of its o\\n limitations, are projected onto specific Others \\ho then take on a murderous qualit~, as if they \\ere somehO\y responsible for the death that ineyitably a\yaits us, Creed's essay suggests the importance of feminism as a context for the films she discusses - construing the 'monstrous-feminine' as a manifestation of male phobic rage against the empO\\erment of women (as has also frequenth been noted, the eruption of the De\il in The Exor(isl into Washington, DC, in the era of Watergate and Yietnam is not \\ithout ob\ious satiric application), It is certainly possible to extend the application of abjection beyond this time-frame to a broader engagement \\ith the horror film's dynamics of protJna tion,
QUEER HORROR As suggesti\e as Creed's exploration of the abject has been, she still in the end finds horror to be a genre that articulates phobic fantasies of maternal monstrosity with the ultimate aim of recontaining female energies in socially acceptable forms. In this regard, her critique reflects the difficulties experienced by much feminist criticism in recO\ ering a positi\e dimension from a g;enre that seems so consistently to trade in the \ictimisation - the terrorisation and increasingly graphic physical \iolation of \\omen. This tendency has been particularly marked in the stalker I slasher films that emerged as belated after-echoes of PS)'c//O in the late HnOS, One marked stylistic de\ice of these films was their deployment of a point-of-\-ie\\ camera that seemed frequently to put the audience in the position of the killer stalking his \ictims and to encourag;e vicarious identification \\ith the murderous gaze, For \Yilliams (I <)i'\.1: (l I), the female spectator of a horror film is 'asked to bear witness to her own po\\crlessness in the [lce of rape, mutilation ,md murder'. More recently, howe\'er, \\Titing about horror from the perspecti\e of queer theory has fi)Cused attention on the \\ays in which the horror film's textual instability and focus on the 'category error' of the monster em be seen as articulating positions \\hose challenge to cOll\entional dualities of g'ender, race and especially sexuality are ultimately not recontained by the monster's final destruction. In some cases, indeed, \ictorious 'norm,llity' triumphs precisely by taking on itself some of the 'de\iant' properties of the monster. As pro-social as this mO\c may be in narrati\e terms . thM is, it is aimed at eliminating the monster - it produces not a 1'C\crsal but a trans-
valuation of the normati\e categories that Wood and Creed understand the horror film finally to reinforce, Thus identities are not resecured and the original (imaginary) integrity of the subject remains in process, This has little to do \\ith the narrati\e incorporation of gay, lesbian or bisexual characters into traditional Gothic horror subjects, for example the homoerotic elements in !nlerl'/eJl' Wilh Ihe Val/lpire (199-t) or the lesbian \ampires of The Hunger (19 8 9) (see Benshoff, 1997; lesbian \ampires have a lon~ ci~ema~ic his.tory dating back at least to Dram/a's Da/lghler, 19.16, and objectIfied m entIrely con\entional 'girl-on-girl' pornogr'lphic f~lshion in Hammer's early [inOS cycle starting \\ith The T'alllpire Lfreers, [(no: see Weiss, H)92 2 ). - A relati\ely early example of a modern horror text that resists final reincorporation (literally) is the [<)S2 remake of the classic [()SOS SF monster moyie The TlII/lg. The 19i'\2 \ ersion replaces the confiden t if watchful Cold War tenor of the earlier film's [lOWUS conclusion - 'Keep \Vatching the Skies' - with a much grimmer ending in \\hich the t\\O suni\'ing cast members wait amid the smouldering embers of their !\xetic research camp for ine\itable death. What makes the ending notable though is not only its bleakness but also its indeterminacy: the film's extraterrestri,JI is a shape-shifter, able almost instantly to mimic the physical appear.lI1ce of any organism it attacks. Although the Thing appears to ha\c been destroyed in the climactic conflagration th,lt has destroyed the base, neither the two sur\i\ing scientists nor the audience CII1 be absolutely sure that one or other of them is not an imposter, .lOd the film ends ha\ing; refused to resohc the question. The TllI/lg focuses narrative attention on the question of identit\ and 'passing' in its all-male g;roup and seemed to reflect anxieties proy(lked by the nO\el threat of the 'gay plague' ,\IDS in the early H)i'\OS (in a key sccne, the group members test each other's blood fill' ,Jlien con taminan ts). The film's threat originates in a definitive 'elsewhere' (outer space) but penetrates American male bodies in \\ ,IYS that render indi\iduals strange and terri(\ing. The TllI/lg also relies hel\iI y on prosthet ic effects to im,lge t hc monstrous transformations and transgrcssions. Such effects (as Ne,11e ([()i)O) notes, the object of refkxiYe commentan in The T/llllg \\hen a cll'lr'lcter responds to a particularly speetacuhlr/grotesque effects lour t/ejiircc \\ith the \\ords 'you\e got to be fucking kidding!') not only rcnder the hidden interior spaces of the body graphically visible but. by ill\ iting; the spectator to register their \isceral artifice, stress the constructed nature of apparent biological or bodily gi\ ens. The most inbmous instances of this probably remain the embryo alien's eruption Ii'om Kane's stomach in 11/1'1/ and the oozing \ideo slotlaperture in James \Yood's stomach in T,t/mt/ro/l/e (Il)S-t). T,lIli,1 .\lodleski (I ()i'\i'\: 2i'\<)) finds such im.H!,cr\ '\er\ Ell' from the reJim of \\hat is traditionally called "pleasun:" and m'uch I~earer to so-edled jO/l/SSil//U', discussions of \\hich . '1 eg;e terms \.1"e L " gaps ", " \yountI s, " "t-ISSlll'CS, " "I pn\l C C
'/J
Although relatively few horror films have explicitly explored this rapturous violation - one exception might be Hellraiser, \\ith its Bataille-Iike confluence of pain, mutilation and pleasure- this gives rise to the notion of horror as a 'critical genre' \yhose subversion of identities extends beyond the transformed or violated body to the text itself: :\lodleski goes on to a;'gue that
lthe 1 contemporary
horror film thus comes very close to being the 'other film' that Thierry Kuntzcl says the classic narrative film must always work to conceal [i.e. because of open-endedness, lack of identifiable characters, nihilistic qualitiesJ: 'a film in \yhich ... the configuration of events contained in the formal matrix \yould not form a progressive order, in which the spectator/subject \yould never be reassured ... ' (Modleski, [19H6] zooo: Z(1) Judith Halberstam (1995: 155) similarly asserts that 'the horror film makes visible the marks of suture that classic realism attempts to coyer up.' Hmye\cr, Halberstam and other queer theorists differ from \lodleski and other earlier feminist writers on horror in their attitude tmyards horror's textual politics. Q!.leer theory emphasises the disturbances and carniyalesque reyersals inflicted upon normative (,straight') identity concepts by the fundamentallY unstable nature of categories of sexuality and gender (and in a gTmYin~' number of queer theory formations also of race, disability and nen class), and the rampant semiotic proliferation that is encountered at the borders of such oyer-determined socio-sexual categories. So \yhereas \lodleski still questioned the political progressiYity of horror's oppositional stance inasmuch as it exploited male fear of, hence relied on yiolencc tmy.lrds, \yomen, Halbcrstam sees the postmodern splatter film (Tile Texas Cllil/llSa 1/' . Hassacre, 1974; The Texas Cllilil1Si1l1' ;Uassa(J'e 2, H)H6) as mmin o' beyond the demonisin o' binarism of the classic monster movie tmyards a riotous 'posthumanism' where 'orderly' categories of gender in particular are not only not reaffirmed but exploded. Thus whereas 'monster-making ... is a suspect' activity because it relies upon and shores up comentional humanist binaries', ~
~
~
the genders that emerge triumphant at the conclusion of a splatter film arc literally posthuman, they punish the limits of the body and they mark identities as always stitched, sutured, bloody at the ~eams, anj completely beyond the limits and the reaches of an impotent humanism. (Halberstam, 1995: 143-4) The endless procession of sequels that typifies the contemporary horror genre might itself be seen as 'queering' traditional notions of narrative closure and resolution: however apparently fatal and final the end inflicted on Jason,
Freddy or :\lichael, the audience is well a\vare that this is merely a formal marker of the film's ending that in no real sense genuinely 'ends' the story.
BEYOND HOLL YWOOD Horror films, like the musical, are found in every national cinema. Probably best-known outside Hollywood are the British horror films produced by Hammer. Hammer revived and updated the classic Universal Gothic series Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy - along with a variety of home-grown monsters in a series of mostly period films from the late 1950S until the mid1970s. Hammer horror is often approached in terms of its scrutiny of class relationships (with the middle-class specialist - Van Helsing , for example like the 'boffins' in British \\ar films of the same era, using' his technical expertise to triumph over the combined forces of medieval superstition and an outmoded aristocracy: see Hutchings, 19(3). These categories mig'ht not have been so releyant in the US, where Landy (zooob: 69) suggests that Hammer horror was able to capitalise on anxieties about authority gone awry and beleaguered masculinity and femininity. Street (zooz: I 6z) adds that 'the cycle's international popularity implies that these gender issues were eq ually relevant to other [i.e. non-eJB 1 societies.' The horror film has also flourished in continental European cinemas, with perhaps the best-known traditions those of Italy and Spain. Italian horror in particular received international attention as an aU/I'llI' cinema in the 1960s through the p, ia 110 tradition in the films of Mario Baya (The Mask o(ihe Di'7.'il, 1960; Blad, SUllday, 19(0), Ricardo Freda (The Termr IdDr llilrhmd" 196z) and in the 1970S Dario Argento (SLlspiria, H)76; Iliferno, 19Ho), all of which won critical praise fill' their bravura visual style and their refunctioning of art-cinema motifs in unexpected genre contexts (see Jenks, 199z). Outside Europe, the Japanese horror film, olien with a strong basis in folkloric and native theatrical traditions (Olli/Ja/Ja and the antholog'y film KJ7)aidall, both 1964) has been one of the most notable: recently, such Japanese SF/horror hybrids as Te/suo: The !rOil ;Uall (H)90) and its sequel TetsLlo II: BOIl}' Hammer (1991) have contributed to the 'body-horror' sub-genre, while a ne~ wave of turn-of-the-millennium East Asian horror films, principally from Japan (including Rillp,L1, 199H; fla II Ie Royall', zooo; .illilztioll, zooo; Dark Water, zooz; and The Grudge, Z003) and South Korea have achieved cult and Crossover success in CS and \\,(lrldwide markets (sec ~lcRoy, zooS). The expansion of fan culture, as well as horror's arguably universal preoccupations, has led to both the increasing visibility of non-European genre films in the US and UK, a greater - thoug'h still limited- penetration of English-speaking markets by non-.\nglophone horror films, and importantly
the employment on Hollywood horror films of genre film-makers like Guillermo del Toro (director of the widely distributed l\lexican horror films Crollos, 1993, and The Den!'s Backbone, 02001, as well as .HIII/ic, 1997, and the action-vampire sequel Blade fl, 02002). (On the internationalisation of horror, see Schneider, 2002.)
CASE STUDY: RIVGU (HIDEO NAKATA, JAPAN 1998)/THE RiNG (GORE VERBINSKI, 2003) Hideo Nakata's Rtllgu -- which quickly spawned two follow-up films, Rlngu 2 (1999) and the prequel Rillgu 0 (2000) - is perhaps the most celebrated of the new wave of East Asian horror films to be released in the late 1990S in Western Europe and the US, securing sizeable cult followings. Rillgu was quickly remade both in a low-budget South Korean version (Tlte Rlllg T lrtlS, 1()99) and in the US by Dreamworks as The Ring, released in October 02002. The American remake is largely Llithful to the Japanese original and indeed includes several shots patterned directly after :\akata's film." The plot involves a mysterious video whose viewers are condemned to certain death exactly one week after watching the tape for the first time. The faces of the victims are frozen masks of indescribable terror, and their hearts seem quite literally to have stopped from sheer fright A journalist (Reiko in Rlllgll/ Rachel in The Rillg) following the trail of what she originally believes to be an urban myth, having watched the video finds herself the victim of the curse. Her increasingly frantic search fill' the truth behind the video in the hope tlMt this will lift the curse, intensified when first her ex-husband (Kyuji/ Noah) and then their son (Yoichi/Aidan) see the curse \"ideo, makes up the main body of the narrative. The curse is re\caled to have its roots in the strange and tragic story of a child, Sadaka/Samara, born decades previousl~ into an island community with extraordinary but destructive telepathic powers. It is the vengeful spirit of this girl, thrown into a well and left to starve to death by her own bther after her mother committed suicide, that has sent the curse video into the world. The film Lllls into an established categ"ory in Japanese horror, the kaldall or 'avenging spirit' film (see .\lcRoy, 02005), typically as here fllCusing on a wronged, usually female entity returning in spectral form to avenge herself upon those who harmed her in life. Sadaka/Samara's appearance, her Llce cloaked behind a mask of long black hair apart from a single basilisk eye, is iconographically conventional in this tradition. (It has been sug"gested that the ongoing popularity of this motif in contemporary Japan reflects anxious and/or phobic negotiations in the masculine imaginary of the changing role of women in Japanese society.) The central device of the curse video illustra tes weJl the horror film's
From Til" Rill.~
(2002).
Merrick \ [orton.
Reproduced courtes\ of J)rean1\\orl.s J J ,C/The hobal Collection/
From The Rillg
(2002).
I\Ierrick :\lorton.
Reproduced courtesy of IJrc;Jmworks LLC/The Kobal Collectionl
178
FILM GENRE
capacity to update its semantic elements while retammg its characteristic generic syntax. The deyice of the \'ideotape substitutes for the traditional face-to-face imprecation an impersonal medium where the identity of the yictim is irrelnant (although Reiko's response to the curse may be seen as in classic horror-film style a challenge she rises to meet). The origin of the tape is left deliberately obscure, as is the precise means whereby (,lS opposed to why) it comes to be in the inn oyer the \yell. In the context of a medium in which sequels and series are de n~r;e/lr- and a film that would in due course generate two sequels of its own - there is at least the suggestion of an ironic ref1exive dimension in the idea of a Yideotape which demands to be exactly copied and passed on in an endless chain. Both Rillgu and The RiIlP, confront a perennial problem for the horror film the yisual communication of the othef\yorldly and the infernal - that has become especially yexed as the traditional 'external' (in Tudor's classification) terrors (Frankenstcin's monster, the Wolf Man, Godzilla) haye for modern audiences lost much of their capacity to frighten. Jacques Tourneur was compelled by his distributor to add seyeral shots of a fire-breathing giant demon into his otherwise yisually restr,lincd satanic thriller Sight o!' the Del1loll (1<)57), a mO\'C generally held to han: damaged a \yell-regarded film. Alongside the decline - or at least the shift into ,I less horrific affective register- of old-style monsters, howeyer, thc post-Psyc!to horror film faces a transf()rmed context of reception \yhere audiences anticipate and require intensified 'shock' yalue, usually measured in C\cr more graphic simulations of yiolence and bodily \'iolation. Films aiming to ITyitalise horror's traditional supernatural terrain thus perf()rm a difficult balancing; act bet\\een the 'tasteful' atmospherics of T!te Si.rth .')'l'Ilse and its imitators on the one hand and the full-on pandemonium of the splatter film on the other. The attempt in the SF-horror hybrid EUllt !Jori.::,oll (GB H)()7) to conn:y the experience of a parallel uniyerse of absolute eyi\ into \yhich the eponymous spaceship has slipped illustrates the problem. The transition into the hell-realm is imaged for the yie\\cr by the ship's yideo log, which shifts from recording routine tasks to fragmentary and f1eetingly glimpsed images of yiolence and madness accompanied by a soundtrack of shrieks, mad laughter and sonic distortion. While this achiC\cs a modestly satisfying \'isceral frisson in a crowded theatre, as an encounter \yith a \yholly Other order of being its horror-comic images (the ship's captain holding a denucleated eyeball in the palm of each hand and so on) lea yes quite a bit to be desired. The key textual and narratiYe mediator of the uncanny in Rillgu and The R illg is the curse Yideo, seen entirely or in part seycral times in both films: this is our bridge to the discourse of the Other in the film, Sadaka's demonic psychic effusions. Riugll attempts to communicate a sense of the uncanny without resorting to standard generic shock techniques \yhile ,1Iso not giying
THE HORROR FILM
179
,1\\
IHo
THE HORROR FILM
FII.M liENRE
verifiable evidence (the tell-tale distorted photographs that identif~ him as a victim of the curse) rather than in direct response to her expressed fear. This reflects a generally morc empirical attitude in Tlic Rillg that shifts the story away from Rill/!./I's roots in folk myth to\\'ards the cstablished generic vernacular in contemporary .\merican popular culture for rendering the paranormal (Tlic X-Files, etc.). The increased dramatic prominence of Samara's f:lmily compared to Ring/l reflects these different priorities, as does the wholesale suppression of the flllk loric e1emcnt, Sad aka as the child of a sea-god or demon. Tlic Rillg also introduces t\\O set-piece scenes, the uncanny panic of the horse ,lhoard the ferry and the scene in \\hich Samara's father electrocutes himself in the bathtub. :\either of these ha\e any direct parallel in l\akata's film and appear to ha\(~ been introduced to gi\'e an e\cntful boost to the narrative of Rachel's quest and meet audience expectations of disturbing and \iolent plot incidents. TI,c RlI1g also establishes a direct parallel between Samara and Aidan by reassigning telepathic abilities from ~yuji in Rillgu to Aidan - again accommodating the source material to LS generic cOl1\cntiol1s by echoing TIi,. Six/Ii SCI/SC'S trend-sctting portrayal of a child \\ith paranormal powers. Tlic Rillg emplovs a morc g'cnericalh placeable \isual st~ Ie than Ringu, using both shock cuts, List dollies and tracks, and the prosthctic/make-up effects the Japanese version abjures (for instance, the \cry bst track into the first \'ictim's face as she - preSL1l11,lbly sees Samara offscreen, the last frames of \\'hich substitute a horrific make-up effect fllr the actress' screllning f:lce, the s\vap masked by the speed of the camera mO\ement). \Yhereas Reiko is called to ~yuji's apartment by the police, Rachel discO\ers '\oah's deld body herself in a scene that is constructed as a horrific (ll1Ip d,. I!/(;cilr,., \\ith a tense build-up to the re\Tal of :'-.;oah 's corpse, posed tableau-like atop a eLlis (this is unexplained as \\ hen last seen [\.Jo,lh \\ as scrambling' along the floor, bur recalls fllr example Hannibal I,ectcr's spectacular body-compositions in The Silm(,. orllic IAlllllls), his [ICe grotesquely transfllrmed into the 'terror mask' of Samara's victims. Perhaps the most notable difference het \\ een the t\\O films, however, i11\ohes the ending'. Rill/!.II bdes out on a high-,mgle shot of Reiko's car speeding; up the moton\ ay: \ve knO\\ she is Liking her son Yoichi to shO\v her f:nher the curse \ idco, determined to sacrifice the old m,1I1 rather than her only child. The film thus ends on a ble,lk note: there is no escaping the curse, merely the ine\itable tLl11smission of the contagion. \\hile TIi,. Rillg reproduces the t\vist of the copy, at the of the film Rachel makes no ,I11S\\ er when Aidan asks her \\'ho she intends to shO\\ the video to: the specific sense of desperation and cruelty at the end of Rillg/l is considerably mitigated, \\ hill' also pointing up the different, more atomised, sense of bmily ,md community in TIi,. Rill/!.'s suburb,m LS mileu.
IHI
NOTES Its 'Itl\\ness' is key to its transgressivity ,as apparent detritus, the subH'rsi\e ch'lI'gc of horror so to speak creeps in beneath the radar of ideological censorship. _ For ,1l1 interesting' reading of the 'yuppie nightmare' film Single I1hile Fell/llle (1992) as .1 lesbian vampire lilm, see Creed (1<)9:;)· 3, For a shot-bv-shot comparison of the t\VO films, see the I:In site ,11 http:! hY\\'\v.mandiapple. com 1 sno"bloodl ringcompare. htm. I,
n CHAPTER
8
The Science Fiction Film
cience fiction (SF) is a dominant presence in contemporary Holly\\ood. SIll r IYII rs (1977) established a commercially potent alliance between SF
and a new breed of action blockbusters (see Chapter 10): of the 100 all-time box office leaders (adjusted for int1ation) eighteen are SF films (or, as some SF purists might prefer, action films that Jeri\e their narrati\e content and some or most of their thematic preoccupations from SF's traditional concerns), all released since H)77. SF films number thirteen of the t\\Tnty-seYen annual top-grossing films bet\\Ten [977 and 2003, and no fe\\er than t\\entyse\en of the top 100 (unadjusted) highest grossers in the same period. I Year in, year out, the principal releases onto the lucrati\'e summer market from the major US studios - the blockbuster 'tentpole' films around which a year's schedule is organised, and which can make or break a balance sheet and the careers of studio executi\es .- are dominated by effects-laden SF spectaculars, preferably entries into reliably super-profitable series 'franchises' such as the /Hillri.\' (1999,2002,20°3), Termillillor (H)8-+, H)9I, 2003), .1Iie/l (1979, 1986,1990, 19c)7, 200-+), or pre-eminently Slar IIl1rs (1977,1980, IC)8-+, 1999, 2002) series. Classic comic books like SpiderJIlilll (2002, 200-+) and X-. Hen (2000, 2003), which all centre on classic SF motifs (genetic mutations, radiation poisoning, mind control, etc.) and \\hich from the stllllios' point of \iew are attracti\e1y 'pre-sold' (i,e, ha\e \\idespread 'brand' recognition and a dedicated audience in their original medium), ha\'e also est,lblished strong film series.' Intensi\e1y marketed and subject to elaborate publicity strategies that build anticipation for months (in the case of SllIr 11 (Irs, years) prior to release, such films address themsehTs to a global spectatorship as crucial media 'eyents' (though still relying hea\'ily on their appeal to the jll\'enile, principally male audience that has traditionally prO\ided SF's core constituency)." Hyper-modern almost by definition, SF is \\ell-placed to 'lppropriate cutting-edge styles not only in \\orld cinema (for example, Japanese mll/lgil
Ft L M
183
film) but in music, Llshion and product design - and in turn to reformat these as 'must-ha\e' elements in co-onlinated global cross-media Illarketing and merchandising strategies centred on the film (the Ray-Ban sunglasses ,1l1d Nokia mobile phones prominently featured in the first .Hlllrix ,l\1 d a/lillle
a good example). It \\as not al\\a\s thus. SF has risen to industrial pre-eminence both ,IS a function of and; dri\ing force in the rise of the ':"Je\\ Holly\\ood', the lransf()rmation of the :\merican film industry since the IC)70S, in \\ays that could not easily ha\'C been anticipated prior to the mid- [970S, Bef()re SllIr 11 lirs ,Iml Close !:'/I(o/llllers o( lite Tll/rd kill,! (1<)77), whose combined boxortice impact transf()rmed pre\'ailing prior assumptions ahout SF's limited ,1IIdience ,Ippcal, the genre had generally occupied a dccidedly secondary position in Holly\\ood's hierarchy of genres, SF's current ascendancy has ~one hand-in-hand with an explosion in the \isual effects industry - grown :ince ."'/lIr /I lirs into a billion-dollar business in its o\\n right (with Lucasfilm's o\\n Industrial Light and \lagic subsidiary still pre-eminent) but cannot simply be accounted f()r in terms of the capacity to de!i\er eYer more astonishing and seamless \ isions of the future and transf()rmations of the present. In Llct, the dC\e!opment of a mass audience with an apparently innhaustible appetite f()r these technological \\ onders, \\hich con temporal') SF cinema both exploits and carefully nurtures, itself needs to be socially, historically and culturally contextualised. It \\Olild seem that SF's ,Ihiding concern as a genre \\ith the - usu,llly threatening - consequences of technological change on human society and identity is particularly \\ell placed to ,Iddress the concerns ,1I1d anxieties of a culture in \\hich achaneed technolog) is mon' central, in rapidly and endlessly mutating; forms, than e\'Cr before. ,\ny social history of the last fift) \ cars \\ ould stress the multiLIrious \\ays in which - from the unleashing of the rc,lrsome destructi\e pO\\Tr of nuclear \\eaponn, to the introduction of the umtracepti\T pill in the early 1<)60s \\ith its t~lr-reaching implications f()r \\omen's sexu,I! independence, to the ongoing digital 1'C\olution sLlrting in rapid technolog;ical change has accompanied and in many the late 1980s C\',es intensified the often dizzying pace of social and cultural chang;e. As a genre \\hose speculati\e futuristic orientation has often combined \\ ith a long tradition of both Lmtasy and soci,I! allegory, SF seems Llr hetter suited than either nostalgic genres like "esterns or musicals, or intensely topical genres like the \\ar or the social problem film, to mediate these changes and their possible meanings, in narrati\e f()rms that arc illuminating;, challenging, entertaining, yet in most cases not inescapably didactic or directly impliclted in ephemeral political debates. SF's public dimension (noted by Sobcl1,lck, [(J8i) adds to this critical currency. :\ lost clearl y typified by the spectacular sequences of urban panic
,liT
S
lIe SCI E'-' CE Fl cn ON
1K4
FILM GENRE
and destruction - or indeed of eerie post-apocalyptic abandonment - where the surging of terror-stricken mobs and/or the downfall of recognised landmarks like the Washington Monument, Golden Gate Bridge or Statue of Liberty via alien attack, natural cataclysm or nuclear war (Eartlt ,'.1'. the FI)'ing Saurers, 1956; Tlte Core, 2003; and PlaJlet o!, tlte ~-1pes, 1967, respectively) signify the destruction of human civilisation itself, SF emphasises the transpersonal. Even the isohted scientific crank or obsessin~, wilfully probing 'those things man must leave alone', embodies a larger crisis of scientific trustworthiness and accountability. Whereas horror films circle obsessively inwards to a Gothic interior realm of individual dementia and dysfunctionality, Sf's unguessable abysses of interstellar space or desert wastehnd by contrast minimise and ironise petty human concerns on a cosmic scale. Numerous SF films - especially those \vith epic pretensions - express this Ta1/itas theme with climactic long or extreme high-angle shots, representing nobody's point of view (unless it be God Himself), which dwarf the figure of the human protagonist against a backdrop of implacable nature and/or absolute devastation: Tltc World, tltc Fleslt, awl the !Jcri! (1959), PlaJlet o!,the 4pes, THX 1138 (I970), Thc OJlIi'/!.a ALIII (I<)7I). Sometimes humanity is et'L!ced altogether, as in the shot sequences that conclude the nuclear ~'\rma geddon fantasies 0" t/ic Be((r/i (1959), Or StrilJl.gclm·c (I963) and BCllcath the PlaJlct o!, l/ic "'Jpcs (uno). SF's pressing currency in film history and cultural studies is equally clear. As we shall see, SF has a good claim to be considered the first distinctively post-classical Hollywood genre, and as such occupies an important place in industry history. MOlTO\Cf, both literary and cinematic SF have become focal points fiJI' debates in contempor,lry cultural theory, and a tally of the kinds of characteristics of contemporary SF cited abmc helps nplain why. Institutionally implicated in shifring practices of global film distribution and marketing; placed at the cutting' edge of changes in representational practice such as digitisation that challenge traditiOlul assumptions about the ontology of the photographic image (notably its indexical, or reality-produced and reproducing nature); porous and hybrid across boundaries of genre and national cinema alike; centrally fiJeused on questions of technological change and their impact on human identities; and sceptical about the continuing validity of traditional assumptions ahout the stability and fixity of human nature: these key attributes of SF film also comprise a \irtual checklist of the hallmarks of postmodernism (see Bertens, J()95). SF can thus be reg;arded both as a quintessentially postmodern g.·enre (if such a concept is not a contradiction in terms) and as an imponan t vehicle fiJI' the dissemination of ideas in and about poslmodernism to a wide audience. The degree of generalisation in such comnwnts should certainly il1\ite a healthy degree of scepticism. In particular, givcn the notoriously elusi\'e
TIlE SCIE"iCE FICTION FILM
1KS
location of material history in much postmodcrn criticism and theory, it may be useful to tesl ,md justify these claims through a historical consideration of the ~\merican science fiction film.
.\ GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY: SF FILM TO
1977
\mericlI1 SF film befilre Star Hilrs may be divided into three distinct phases: horror themes and jll\enilia mark the genre's indistinct beginnings preSecond \rorld \\~,u, sensational pulp narratives and Cold War allegories of interplanetary conf1ict and atomic mutation dominate the 195os, while dark d\Slopic visions predominate in the late 1960s and HnOS. ~'\s broad-brush as s~ch periodisations inevitably are, it is perhaps more important to recognise from the outset that these are as en~r not really ey(llutionary stages: each responds as much or more to its immediate industrial and cultural context than to prior stages of generic dn elopment, and clements of all three are clearly \isible in the post-1<)77 SF film, true to postmodern form less synthesised into a ne\v and integrated form than jostling in an energetic I,rimla/!.e of periods, styles and ideologies. It is also worth noting, hmve\cr, that if this eapacit\ to incorporate a wide variety of elements is to be regarded as one of SF's 'postmodern' attributes, this tendency is marked even in the genre's earliest period. C:omp,lred to 'strong' classical genres like the \Vestern or the gangster film, SF's generic boundaries arc exceptionally porous, particularly as has been widely noted and discussed at the boundary with the horror film. \s ~ing and ~rzywinsb (200I: 57) point out, SF's lack of a consistent iconograph~ means that definitional eft(lrts need to rely more on syntactic propositions than on the rebtin:ly concrete semantic dimension. This has posed notorious difficulties of generic definition, again frequently comn1l'nted on in the critical literature, but fill' our purposes it may be more useful to note that this relati\ely amorphous and heterogeneous aspect has lent the genre the f1cxibility and adaptability that has sel'\ed it so \\ell in recent decades. SF has been and continues to be a recombinant genre. This mutability means that prior to the Second World War SF film lacks ~l!l\ clear p,lradigmatic expression (this is absolutely not the case with literary SF). In fact, as already suggested, science fiction was barely a classical Ilolly\\ood genre at all. \Iost ,ll'counts agree that what \\llLlld bter crystallise as SF themes \\cre mostly incorporated into the horror film's Gothic imagin.tr\, fill' example radioacti\ity (Thc IIl,'isiMe Raj', 193(l) and miniaturisation (!he De,'1/ Doll, I<)36; Dr en/ups, I9-4-0)' The theme of technology, by which the genre will subsequently be defined (sec belm\), is typically tackled in this 11J30S 'SF Gothic' through the catastrophic C\periments of the 'mad' (usually, in Lll't, ohsessi\e, monomaniacll, ruthless and wholly unconstrained
186
FILM GE:"J RE
by moral or ethical scruples) doctor or scientist: for example, The Im:isible A1al/ (1933), Island IIrLllst 5'o/lls (1933), "Had Lm:e (1935) and of course Fmn/.:enstei/l (193 I) and its sequels. Including the Frankenstein myth, one of the foundational paradig'ms of the horror genre, in a discussion of SF simply emphasises once again the particular porosity of this generic boundary. Howeyer, at least two important differences bet\\"een the 'SF Gothic' 'mad doctors' and the nuclear and genetic scientists of post\\"ar SF might be noted: firstly, the H)30S characters are much more often desocialised, conducting their operations from isolated, distinctly Gothic locations - identifiably versions of the horror film's 'terrible place' - like medie\,Ji castles, tropical islands or isolated mansions, rather than military or ci\"ilian research centres or hospiwls that will later predominate. Secondly, in keeping \yith this ambience their techniques arc less likely to be rendered as futuristic than as surgica I or e\ en alchem ica I. 'This isn't science ... it's more likc Ma C/.: II/agic!' protests a horrified Henry Frankenstein \yhen confronted \\"ith Dr Pretorius's jarred homunculi in Bride or Fran/.:el/stein (H)35), but the distinction is an extremely fine one in this period. In contemporaneous large-scale European SF films such as ~·lc1ita, Q!leen III' .Hal'S (USSR I<)2.j.), . Hetroplilis (Germany 1<)27) and Thi/lgs Til ClillIe (GB HJ3(») this anachronistic cont1uence of adyanced technologies and pre-modern impulses and rituals, projected onto imagined future societies, propels an enquiry into the nature and social implications of industri,11 technolog'y and the 'machine age'; ho\\"e\"er - eyen though American cities like ~e\\" York and Chiclg-o 'l!H.l inrlO\ati\e ,\merican labour practices like Fordism and Taylorism \\Tre the explicit inspirations fiJI' these bntasies and allegories - 1930S Hollywood SF seems largely uninterested in such spccula ti ye q uesl ions, apart fi'om the much more lighthearted ]WI 11lIagine! (H)30 )~ (sec Telotte, 2001: 77<)0). The other principal form takcn by SF in\merican cinema betiJre the H)50S \\as the hm-budg;et 'spacc opera' serial, the best-remembered of \\hich are Flash Gllrdlln (HUh, remade in high-camp style in 19XO) and H/ltA, Rllgers (193<)). '\imed firmly at juyenile audiences, the serials dre\y their narrative form fi'om the popular pre-First World War .-\merican and Europe.m serials (The Perils IIrpa/llinc, H)I.j., or]/lde.\', France 1<)16) and arg-uably looked back e\Tn further ro cinema's inEmcy in their reliance on simple model work ,md photographic effects to \lelies's celebrated 'trick films' during cinema's first decade. Unlike HJ30S SF Gothic, the serials' tales of interplanetary \\"arEne, time trayc\ and alien ci\ilis,ltions - \\ hich dre\\" hea\ily on both contemporary comic strips 'l!H.l the hug-ely int1uential pulp SF magazines- \\ere clearly SF, and their iconography of rocket ships, robots and de.lth r,lys supplied imagery for numerous later SF films. Ho\\ e\cr, as Telotte (2001: 73) obsenes, the serials 'offer little hint of the sort of e:xplorations that the best of the pulps and the more ambitious science fiction nO\"e!s to follO\\" \\"ould stake out:
,
HIE SCIENCE FICTION FILM
187
concerns \\"ith artificial life, the ethics of scientific experimentation, the "sio'ninO' of societ\"'. Perhal)S this explains the \\"idespread feeling among l 1\... t"l t" • 'serious' SF \\Titers and consumers that despite the SF boom in the \yake of Stilr II'ilrs, the conscious and int1uential inyocation of the spirit of the serials 1)\ George Lucas ga ye a poor ret1ection of the genre's more significant c;Jncerns (see Singer and Lastinger, IqqX). SF emerged for the first time as ,1 really significant Hollywood genre at the start of the 1950S, with a dramatic increase in production of SF films by the majors as \\"ell as independents and exploitation producers, now including '\' productions as \\"ell as lo\\er-end films. It is not at all the case that, as the recei\cd image of Styrofoam bug-eyed monsters and scantily-clad greenskinned space goddesses \\ould sugg'est, science fiction was exclusi\"ely a '13' film and exploitation genre throughout the H)50S and H)60s. It is on the other hand true that the genre had a f~lirly \<)\\ profile at least in the production schedules of the major studios. The bmous 'creature feature' (typically featuring anomalous atomically mutated, or atomically resuscitated, human, or insect monstrosities) and alien-imasion cycles of this era usually read as articulating in a \ariety of \yays Cold \Var anxieties and preoccupations \\TlT in purely numerical terms indeed dominated by low- (often micro-) budget features aimed at the teen exploitation market from independent production houses such as the incongruously grandly-named American International Pictures (\1P). The titles and reputations of some of these and their m,lkers- such ,IS-\1P's Rog-er Corman (It C/II/ill/emi the Ifllr/d, 1<)56, '/~'<'l/ilg<, Cal'ClI/illl, H)5X, amid countless others) and the inimitable Edward J). \\ oml,.Ir (Pial/ l) From Oilia SpaU', 1<)5X) - ha\e become fondly remembered tokens of a more innocent film-making age, and themsel\es the occasional object of ironic but 100"ing homage/pastiche from New Hollywood fandirectors like.loe Dante (f:'.rplllrcrs. 1<)X.:;; Hatil/ce, I<)XX) and Tim Burton (h'd III1I1J, l<j<).j.; .Hal'S "Iffacf,:s!. H)(j6). Yet in their own time, a measure of SF's distance from the centre of the Il)50S Holly\\ood uni\erse was the absence of a single top-ten-ranked star - aside from the burlesque duo Abbot and (ostello - fi'om any science tiction themed film in any year of the decade until Greg;ory Peck's noble submarine commander confronted nuclear doom in Ol/ Iltc Bcadl. \!though some SF films of this era enjoyed sizeable budgets, these \\ere de\ oted primarily to re.I1ising; spectacular futuristic or alien teehnolo~ies - an enduringly central generic element - on a scale and with a cOI1\iction that their Po\erty Ro\\ peers could not approach (for example, in the space pain tings of Chesley Bonestell, featured in Dcstil/a till 1/ _HII(III, U)50, and The II ar IIrthc /I"IIr/ds, 1952, and the desolate landscapes of the planet :\letaluna in nils Islill/J 1;'arth, 1<)5.:;). \Yith some important exceptions like Tltc Day thc I:arrh Stll/ld Still (1951) and FIir/liJJcl/ Plal/ct (1<)56), the scripts, casts and
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189
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performances of cyen the more expensiye yehicles remained rooted firmly in SF's pulp and comic-book heritage, giying rise to \yhat l\lichelle Pierson (2002: 109) aptly characterises as 'that peculiarly science fictional Hollywood phenomenon, a B-picture film with a below-the-line budget of \\ell oyer a million dollars'. Good examples are the pioneering George Pal-produced Technicolor effects spectaculars of the early H)SOS (Deslillalioll .HoI!ll, When Worlds Colliilc, 195 I, and Tile War lite Worlds, the last two produced at Paramount), Vivien Sobchack (198;: 1.+3-S), however, suggests that the oftenlamented flatness and lack of directorial signature that afflicts much 19SOS SF may operate as a means of naturalising (by understating) fantastic narrative content. The stolid framing, four-square blocking, even high-key lighting and lockjaw acting in 1950S SF bespeaks a confidence in the ultimate transparency and explicability of the physical \vorld mirrored in the technocratic alliance of science and military that typically brings the films of the decade to a satisfactory, if fiery, conclusion, The launchpad for thc new directions explored by 1970S film SF was Stanley ~ubrick's landmark 2001:1 Spa(£' Od)'sse)' (I 9fJ8), which not only set a new benchmark fllr special effects under the supenision of Douglas Trumbull (later to ()\ersee the effeets fllr Closc £I1((1l1l1lers), but in its depiction of a dehumanised, banalised human culture dominated by technology reacquainted American cinema audiences with the idea of SF as a \Thicle for social commentary and satire. Many subsequent HnOS SF films focused on dystopic future societies, although ~ubrick's characteristic glacial detachmcnt- which recei yed a further airing inl Clochl'od' Ora IIge (197 I) remained uniquely his own, Rather, it lIas the successful s~nthesis of vaguely anti-Establishment political satire, fast-paced action and tub-thumping moralising in Pia 1Ie1 of IIle ,Ipes (1<)67) that set the tonc fllr numerous 1970S SF films including, as \yell as the "Ipes saga itself (fllllr sequels bel\\cen 1970 and 1<)7-+), tales of deep-space alienation such as ,')'il('l/I Rllllllillg (1<)70 and /Jar/..' Slilr (1
or
\y.lrf~llT
- transparently allegorising interracial conflict in contemporary \I1lcrica, particularly in COlli/llesl of lite Plallel of lite .ipes (1973) - cycles inesc1pably bacbyards and flll'\yards to global annihilation. (As Greene (1998) notes, the monolithic presence in the first I\YO films of Charlton Heston, a n1.1rtyred exemplar of white male pathos in other films of this period including (he post-apocalyptic Tlte Oil/ega Hall, complicates the . .fpes' films' racial politics.) The alien-il1\asion narratiyes of the 1<)50s, with their inescapable Cold \Var oyertones, were largely abandoned: the themes of state surveillance, thought control, media manipulation and the struggle to retrieye indiyidual identity, dCleioped in films such as TIL'<. 11}8, PilIlisil/lIt'f11 Park (1971), SOj'klll Crecil (1973), Rollerill/il (uns), Logan's RUII (Hn6), the remake of 11I,'as10II 1I111,c Blld)' SlIalcllers (1978) and Esmpe Frllll/ Nell' Yllrk (1979), drew much less on phobic imagining;s of the Communist enemy and more on current rCl elations about the nature of the American national security state in the \\ake of Vietnam, \Vatergate and reyelations of illicit counterintcllit';ence programmes up to and including assassinations of opponents of LS policy both domestic and fl)reign. These films shared a yision of oppressi ye pO\yer as largely depersonalised, L\ en .1l1onymous, its workings confusingly dispersed across a yariety of 'lgencies, \\ith the conspiracy-thcmed crime, political and espionage thrillers that coalesced into a distinct sub-gcnre during the same period in such films .ts PilI/II 8!all/'" (1967), Tlte Paralla,r 1 /ell' (1973), Tltc Cllm'ersalioll (197-+) and nIIC,' f)ays III IIle Clllldllr (Hn S). As Cler, patterns of generic 'e\,(llution' on closer inspection proye strongly inter- and intra-generic. (It is notable that ad\ .tnced technology - particularly related to sllncillance and intelligence processmg' plays a key role in conspiracy thrillers.) Together, SF and conspir'lcy films helped popularise a \ersion of the H)60s Ne\\ Left: critique of the corporate state - a critique strongly inf1uenced by H)SOS sociology, \1 hose critique of consumer culture and corporate confllrmity in its tllrn inf<)J"J11S some I<)SOS SF films Iikc thc original Bud)' SIIl/IdICrs (H)5S). (Scicnce fiction's emergence as .1 LI loured \ ehicle for disseminating Ncw Left ~l1titudes into the broader .\merican culture itself doubtless owed something to the popularity in 1<)60s countcrcultural circles of classic SF noyels such as \rthur C. Clarke's cosmic eyol utionary fable CI"lcIlwod ',I L'"d (1<)53) and Robert Heinlein's Simllper ill a SII'lIII,f.;C Ll/lld (1<)61)). lndoubtedly, the enhanced production yalues and greater sophistication oj' t(nOS SF payed the \yay fllr the genre's subsequent expansion, broadening its audience .rnd starting to lift the driye-in/ exploitation stigma. NeycrtheIt,s, in some key regards early [<)70S SF was Yery different hom the SF boom .11 1he decade's end. Its typically sardonic, satiric tone as \yell as a general preference for future-Earth rather than outer-space settings signalled clear intent to offer commentary on contemporary society. By olwious contrast,
190
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1<)XOS SF's actual instantiation in that decade's febrile culture \\ars \\as often veiled behind a surface preoccupation with star \oyagers and technological hardware. SF in the 1<)SOS, moreover, \vas in certain ways clearly the seedbed for the genre's modern Holly\yood hegemony: the fond recollection of pUlp serials and monster movies at Saturday matinees - follO\\ed by the assiduous recreation of favourite genre films in backyards and local parks, and ingenious approximations of special effects techniques - are E1111iliar tropes of the hiographies of key Ne\\ Hollywood players and technophiles like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. Their successful translation of adolescent generic tastes into ClT,Hive (and immensely profitable and powerful) adulthood has enabled them to revisit such ju\'enile pleasures, albeit on an incomparably more lavish and sophisticated scale. The early H)l'Ios sa\\ big-budget remakes of se\cr,11 classic Il)SOS SF films including The TlI}ng (1<)SI, 1<)1'11), hlI'l/ilers Fronl .\lllrs (Il)53, I<)X6) and Till' Blob (1958, 1 <)I'IX). However - and notwithstamling the heavy symholism of the little boy fishing' in the hea\ens in the logo for Dream\\orks (the studio Spielberg cofounded in I <)<)4-) the alchemy that has tranSf()\"\l1ed such simple if geeky pleasures into solid plutinum global brands m\cs less to f()llo\\ing one's star than to a complex ,1ml unpredictable synergy of economic, cultural and ind ustrial factors.
TIlE CULTURAL POLITICS OF SF I:'-J TIlE
IqXOS
The general narrative of the !\ie\v llolly\\ood's emerg;encc out of the collapse of the classical studio system is by no\v an oft-rold talc, as is the consolidation of a ne\\ly corporatised, \crticall~ integrated and increasingly global media husiness during' the H)l'Ios after ,1 period of re1arive instability and creative experimentation during the 1<)7os (see Biskind, H)<)I'I; I(ing, 2002; Prince, 2000). Science fiction prmcd unexpectedly cruci,l1 in this thoroughgoing industrial tL1l1sf(Jrl11
enduring ,1ml historic popularity with this demographic (paid cross-generJtional tongue-in-cheek homage in Bllc!.: 10 till' FI/turt' (ItjXS) and Glllllx)' Ollcsl (2001) among others) consolidates its strategic position. (SF f~1l1 ~Iitures are analysed in Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995; Penley, Itj<)7; Pierson, '002). SF, moreover, offers an obvious sho\\case for spectacular state-of-the~rt technologies of visual, sound and abO\'C all special-effects design, the key attr,lctions that provide a summer release \\'ith crucial market leverage. The oT11l"C is \vell-suited to the construction of simplified, action-oriented narra0\es \\ith
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policy ~)~sturing was argunbly directed primnrih at a domestic constituency, Ihe polItIcs of the 19kos ET films gestured less to the geopoliticnl realities of the renewed Cold \Var (directly engaged as they \yere in the decade's new action films: sec Chapter 10) and more to the fierce Kl/llllfk{lIl/p/\yaged On the home front. Aliens were often depicted as galactic innocents abroad, all too human in their vulnerability to the yiolence and corruption of human ciyilisation. Thus these ostensibly optimistic alien encounters \yere under_ pinned by a desire fl)r other-\\orldly redemption from the disenchanted present. In bct, the dose alliances fl)rged againsl established (adult) authority between childlike aliens and human children (or childlike adults) in Close I:'I/COlll1lcrs, E. T., ,)'lilnJliIll ([<)k.j.) and Fh:v,hl orlhe Swcigillor (H)k6) seemed to proposc the wholesale rejection of the intractable difficulties of contemporary t:lmilial and professional life in Ll\our of a numinous enchantment strongly identified with pre-adult perspccti\es. (COCOOII (I<)k:,) and *Ihilleries not il/clue/ee/ (l<)k7) used c:xtra-terrcstrials 10 \,dorisc 'innocence' at the opposite end of the agc spectrum, allying the literalh uO\\orldly attributes of the ETs with those of sentimentally imagined senior citizens.) In the era of Reagan, the pursuit of enchantment in these 'regressi\ e te,\ts' \\as anything but apolitical; on the contrary, it \\as consistent \yith the anti-rational appeal long associ,lted \\ith react ionary political tendencies (sec Benjamin, [H!3() I 1(170). Their distinct iye contribution \\ as to stake out a terrain of (/fill/rill politics for I<)kos SF· the politics of pri\ate Iill:, of bmily, gender and sc:xualit\ that marked a de;lr break \\ith Ihe public polic~ preoccupations of their· immedi;lte precursors in the late I<)6os ;l11d I<nos (sec also Ryan and 1'.e1lner, IOXS: 2SX hS; Sobch,lck, l<)k7b). \lore relTntly, the cosmic t:lmily romance of Coulll(1 (1<)<17) c:xplores some of the same thematic territory. In considering the enormous success of/hcu, \\hich in m,ll1~ \\a~ s seems to contradict Reag;an-era trends, this cultuLd-politieal dimension is crucial. .1Iim's \or,lCious and repulsi\c predator is dearl~ the di,lmetrical opposite of cuddly FT, \\hile the film's nameless but nidently mendacious ;l11d c:xploitati\e 'Company' c:xtends the anti-corpor;lte critique of earlier I<nos films like So)'leul Greell. Il00ycyer, the aspect ofllieu that has been most pO\\erfully addressed in the C\tensi\e critical discussion of Ihe film indudin
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THE SCIENCE FICT!O;\l
FILM
1<)3
onboard computer that secretly docs the bidding of the net~lrious Company). \s Bukatman (199.): z(J2) obsenes, '.·lI/el/ presents the return of the repressed . the body·· to the space of the science fiction film'. At a time \yhen the rise of Ihe :\e\\ Right put \\omen's reproductive rights back into political play, \\ hile also stigmatising autonomous female sc:xuality amI (a seemingly economic issue powerfully roped into the cultllre \\ars through the image of the unruh female body of colour) mythical 'welfare mothers', Aliel/'s repulsi\e images of the tCma1e body seemed geared to endorsc a powerful disciplin,ln response.; 1 ie/coe/roll/c (I <jX.j.) and The FI)' (I<)X6) used similarly \isccLIl 'body-horror' imagery in SF contests to explore ansieties around sexuality, identity and infection - thc latter making \cry clear allegorical refl:rence 10 ."-IDS, stigma tisI'd in the mid-I<jkos as a 'gay plague'. In Llct, \yhile Sial" 11 ilrs is historically of huge significance in cstablishing SF ;IS a nujor production category in Holly\Y()od, ~Jliel/ is in many \\ays the more generically significant film. While like olher SF films of the period it IransL!tes the public and political concerns of the I<nos into the new cultural terrain of the !<)Xos, it is nonetheless pluf!,"ged into the historical mainstream of SF film in \yays that the child-alicn films of the 1<Jkos arc not, in particular through the clear implication that the alien, \\hose body combines organic and machine-like elements, is effectiyely if unknowingly allied \\ith the equ;dh inhuman and lethal pO\\er of the Company, whose representatives in the film, significantly, ,Ire cybernetic: .\lother, the ship's computer, and the ,1Ildroid science officer .\sh. For the unfolding, but usually anxious if not outright hostile, relationship to technology has been SF's closest approximation of a consistent semantic core. It is this relationship to \\hich we "ill no\\ lurn.
SF, TECIINOLOGY At\;D (POST),\10DERNITY In so Llr as its preoccupations reflect \\idel~ shared nperiences of modernity it'dL the concerns of science fiction arc unlike, say, the high degree of cultural specificity in the \\estern - potenlially uni\ersal ones. Indeed, the ,1Lldience to \\hom SF's concerns speak directly has only hroadened as the 1()rlllS and pr,lctices of industrial and post-industri,1I society, formerly concelltLlled in the First \\orld, h,lye extended themsehes inC'\orably to the rest of the world. Thus, although this chapter has so far considered SF lilm principally in light of the unfolding institutional context of post-classical Ilolh \\oOlI, it is eqLully helpful to situate those s,lme shifts in the LS film industr~, and SF's prominent place in that process, in the context of the much larger indeed, global - experience fl)r \\hich SF has also been regarded ,IS a kcy expressive form: the Hydra-headed concept of 'postmodernism'.
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On the one hand, SF both directly depicts and thematises the economic and cultural transformations held to typifY the onset of postmodernity, in particular the ever-expanding reach and exploding economic importance of new electronic and digital information technologies and the concomitant fragmentation and decline of traditional industries and the communities organised around them. Typically these are rendered in SF in lurid comicbook and video-game images of urban entropy, for example Jlldge Dredd (1995) or RolJocop (19 H7)· (The landscapes Sobchack (IgH7a) identifies as characteristic of SF in the I950S - deserts, beaches, \\astelands - have been largely displaced by these decaying cityscapes.) On the other hand, SF's move in from the cultural margins and its appropriation of the industrial prestige traditionally resened for more 'respectable' forms (the social problem film, the biopic) itself encapsulates the collapse of long-standing oppositions between 'high' and 'low' cultural forms. The contemporary blockbuster SF film, conceived as merely the leading edge of a cross-media promotional blitz across a wide range of ancillary markets sp;mning several months from prerelease promotions to subsequent cable and terrestrial TY 'premieres' and ))VD release (with 'added features'), exemplifies the commodification that has (according to Fredric Jameson (1991) and many others) entirely colonised the cultural space hitherto presened, ho\\eHT insecurely, for the aesthetic. The growing reliance on 'pre-sold' properties - themsehcs mainly drawn from the same junk-culture universe of old TY sho\\s and comic books captures the sense of a constant cannibalistic recycling of an exhausted set of tropes and paradigms to an ever-Io\\cr common denominator. .\nd a profusion of knO\vingly reflexive gestures - a to~ Godzilla, representing that summer's rival SF blockbuster, crushed b~ an asteroid sho\\er at the start of .'lrmagedr/li/l (I99H); a pan across racks of merchandise at the Jurassic Park gift shop, identical dO\\l1 to the log;o on the coffee mugs ;md T-shirts to the promotional materials for the film in \\ hich thev feature' . ' a brief cuta\\av . of a panicked Jap;mese businessman fleeing the T-Rn terrorising' dO\\l1town Santa Cruz in Tlte I,os/ "'orld: Jllrassic Par/' II, a reference back to the fleeing hordes in numberless Toho atomic monster mO\ies of the I9(lOS - also support Jameson's C!mous contention that the critical edge of modernist parody h;ls been blunted into the blankly imitative pastiche of the postmodern text Uameson, 1990: 1()-I9). At the formallC\el, the increasing generic hybridity of SF films (;dongside most other major genres) produces the same bewildering !Jricolage of periods, places and styles C!mously experienced by Deckard, the hero of Bladc Rllnner (19H2), .1 film that a number of pO\verful readings, especially Giuliana Bruno's influential essay (I9H7), have rendered something of a touchstone for postmodernism in SF and film generally. Deckard \\alks dO\\l1 (or rather, hovers above) the mean streets of 2019 Los .\ngeles, a t\\enty-first-century
THE SCIE.'JCE FICTION FILM
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city steeped in the rain-soaked neon tones of I9..f.0S lIoir, an American conurbation vvhose streets are a cross betvveen \Veimar Berlin and contemporary Osaka or Tokyo, an Earth city whose most affectingly 'human' denizens are the android Replicants, fugitives from the off-\\orld mining colonies they have been constructed to sen'ice. Drawing on theorists such as Jean Baudrillard, Telotte (1995: 233) identifies the 'ncar fixation on the artificial, technologized body - the robot, evborg, android' in Blade RIII/IIC1' and other SF films of the I9Hos and early I;)<)OS (including the first two Temlllla/ors, Ro!Jocop and lHOA,iJlg /Hr R/j!)Jl, I<)SS) as a negotiation of the extreme anxieties induced by human-created technologies that increasingly threaten not only to exceed human understanding or control, but somehow to dilute or even supersede human identity itself. That Deckard in Blade RIIJlJlCI' may himself be, it is strongly suggested, a replicant \\hose laconic, Philip ~larlowe-esque doggedness and integrity have therefore all been pl'ligraJill//ed into him confirms the point. Flsc\\here, Telotte argues that SF since the mid-I<)Hos has decisively reoriented itself around issues of technology- specifically, machine intelligTnce, androids and their like, and virtual/ computer-g;enerated realities and relates this to the embracing chronotype of postmodernism (Tclotte, 200I: IoH-20). The ongoing exploration of these themes in .1.!.: .1r///iciol 1///clltgL'l/ce (2002) \\<wld seem to bear out his claim. .\ndroids have certainly provided contemporary SF \\ith a rich vein of thematic material, as the rather complex progressive nploration of the figure 01 the cyborg' in the/lteJl series sug·g;ests. The ruthless and treacherous android\sh in the first film is follo\\cd in the first sequcl,JI/ells, by the trust\\orthy and brave Bishop (who expresses a preference for the term 's~ nthetic person' over 'android'). \Yhile . 'Uie//} docs not feature a ne\\ android char,lcter, the nO\v-terminated Bishop's orig'inal human prog-rammer a dutiful tool of the murderous Com pany, hence ironically Llr less humane than his lookalike creation - appears to\\,lrds to the end of the film to try to C\ploit series heroine Ellen Ripley's h,lrd-\\on trust in his creation. Finally, 1I/i'1I: Rcsllrt'cr/io// (1997) features both ,I young female android \\ho taps into Ripley's po\\erful maternal instinct, established in .U/eJis -- and revives Ripley herself as a cyborg-like clone \\hose blood combines both human and ,dien lX\.\. It is actually rather questionable \\hether, as has been claimed, this ambi\ alent technocentrism is really specific to contemporary SF, let alone a manifestation of 'postmodern' f'(Jfces in Hollywood or the liSA. In f:1ct, C\amples spanning the history of SF film tend to suggest that if anything the ~'enre 's elusive semantic core - or the closest thing to it - consists in its enduring focus through serial visions of possible futures on the transform
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of genre history) as 1927, Alctrllpolis retlects the ambi\alent Elscination widespread in Weimar Germany and indeed e1se\\here in inten\ar Europe with the technologies of the 'machine age" including the assembly line, the automobile, the telescreen and most famously the robot. The film's sleekly Deco-styled female android and the destructi\e energ'ies she/it unleashes imag'e perfectly the film's anxiety that modern scien tific \\izardry - quite literally: the robot's animation is depicted as part science, part Kabbalistic ritual - has outpaced its imcntors' capacity to manage or e\en comprehend it, a note repeatedly struck in SF film eyer since. ,MoreO\'er, as a comparison of Aiclropolis with such celebrated contemporaneous documentary films about the transformation of the experience of labour in the modern industrial city like Ail1l1 Wilh II Alonc Ctlllli'ril (USSR, 1(29) or Bcrlill . .s)l/Ipl/IJII)1 rJa Grcill Gil)' (Germany, 1(27) rC\eals, preoccupations allegedly peculiar to postmodernism such as the cinema's implication in a circulatory s~'stem of 'pure' information, and e\en the notion of the cyborg, e:\tended at this time into a\ant-garde intellectual circles \\ell beyond the generic matri:\ of SF: according to Brodna:\ (200 I: 90), Bcrlill's director \\'alter Ruttmann 'proposed to merge the body \\ith the cinematic apparatus in order 10 indice the birth of an adequate, cybernetic person.' Such examples perhaps confirm that SF can fllCUS and refine in stylised alleg'orical form concerns \\idely at issue in the culture. HO\\cyer, they also indicate that SF's rele\ance to theories of postmoderni,sm may consist less in a specific post modern turn on the genre's part th,lI1 in the increasing imbrication of its abiding' thematic concerns \\ith those of the larger society whose present has started to match SF's past images of its possible future. One might claim that SF's generic boundaries arc necessarily and increasin!,dy porous: fllr of all genres, SF is the most dircctly responsi\e to the massi\e transflJrmations that ad \ anced technology has cfli:cted, and continues to cfkct, upon our world. :\5 the paraphernalia and jarg'on of SF, fi'om space tra\e1 to \'irtual realit\, li'om Sltlr TrI'A'-style 'communic.Itors' (mobile phones) to On\ellian 'telesereens' (CCT\ and \\ ebcams) gTO\\ e\er more inescapably part of our daily life, so SF's thematic preoccup,ltions come to seem less and less the outlandish ,llld ju\enile L1I1tasies they struck ])J'e\ious general ion,s: this is, as Sobchack (19SS: 237) puts it, 'the \ cry "science tietionalisation" of '\merican culture.' Just as .\IOOll hInding's, thc f'urthest lunge of quasi-scientific Lllltasy in the ell'ly decades of the t\\CI1tieth century (.1 Trip III Ihl' .Hoo//, [()03; The 1I11//{(1I/ ill Ihe .HOIIII, 1()27), ha\e become rarely recalled hisloric.l1 LlCt, other SF tropes like artificial intelligence are the rapidly ath'ancing fi'ontiers of' hoth contempoLlry computer science and, in response, of philosophy, ethics and e\en theology. Fe\\ thing's of course date so rapidly as past \'isions of a future which has no\\ become our o\\n present or indeed past (in a digital age, the rotary
THE SCIENCE FICTION FILM
[()7
counters on the shuttle tlightdeck in 2001 ine\itably jar). A fe\\ science fiction films ha\e fllregrounded this odd temporal double exposure: Marty \\cFh"s many anachronistic double-LIkes in BllrA' I(} Ihc Plliure include an ~,pos~lre to the \isions of 1950S SF - stumbling out of his time-tr~\ellin.g I )eLorean upon first arri\ing in 1955, his crash helmet and protectl\e SUIt trJnsform him in the horrified eyes of a hick t:1I11ily into the alien spaceman of Junior's cOIllic book, .Hilrs .ll/lIrA'S.1 is a Ir)\ingly assembled homage/ ),n:mh of [()50S alien-il1\asion that re\e1s in the period futurism of Bakelite ~lnd tl~e thereminh\n isolated spark of' originality in TerJ/IIII(llor 3: Rise orlhe Ilildlllli's (2003) lilllis John Connor future leader of' the human resistance 1110\ Clllent ',lg,linst the cyborg empire trapped not in the e:\pected gleaming t 1\ ent \ -lirst-centun mainframe, but in a mothballed Cold \Var-\'intage colltn'JI room compicre \\'ith state-of-the-art consoles and transistors straight Ilut of the original Sllir Tn' A' series or COlllllt/OIl'1I (19(l9), In ,I lilm series \\ hose entries recycle a single plot \\ith minimal \ariation, this \ignette mig'ht be seen as ,I confession of the cyclical and circular nature not onh of the 'f,'rJII/II(lllIr franchise but of the g'elHe as a \\hole, In Jn~ case giH'n that it is gener,rlly ~Iccepted that SF's ostensibh predicti\ e Jspect more oftcn masks soci,rl ,Illeg;ory or critiquc - these Ldlible future prognostications, \\hieh in t:ICt lend a considerable retrospecti\e charm to past SF, tend instead to highlight SF's enduring- IlJCUS throug'h such serial I isjons of possible futures on the transflJrlnati\e, sometimes in\asi\e, impact or ,Ilh ,mced technolog\, \\'hat lILwlifies as 'ad\anced' ob\ iously chang-es \\ ith thl' pJssing' of time, but the unfl)lding- rdItionship to lechnolog\' has been ,111 issuc of gro\\ing fascinat ion and concern in de\ eloped societies since at least the bte nineteenth cent un (usually reg'arded ,IS the birthdate of modern sciellce fiction in the no\cls ofJulcs \ erne and II. G. \\clls, c\en though the tl'l'l11 itself \\as not in gencral us,lge betllre the Il)20S (sec James, I()().j.)) and h~lS supplied the protean genre of SF \\ith its closest appro:\imation to a consistent semantic core. \Iien \ isiLmts or iIl\ aders, Illr C:\,lmple, b~ definition possess technologies Illore alh,lI1ced th,m earthlings (and ,Ire often characterised b~ 'machine-like' 1.1t1 of emotion: recently, fllr C:\ample, in 1I/II(/,(I/t/l'I/l( Oil)', [()()Cl). Stories 'lboUl computers (e,g. C(}lo.l.lII.l: The Fllr/Jill Pm/ed, [()II; II ({rG,"lIcs, I<)S.j.; //'1' 1"III'IIII/IIII'crll(lIl, 1<)<)2; 'flic Illl/n,r) or ,Indroids (Ilelmpoli.l; RO/JOIIi/,; I/'( 'f,'rll/illillor; L,'e "fO(slmllioll, I<)()O) centre on humanoid machines that 111imic and/or thrcaten human bch~1\iour. \'isions ofhul11anity's future reliabl~ il11,lge societies structured and shaped b~ technolog~ in fundamental \\,I~ s l'l cn if, as in post-nuclear-holocaust fantasies li'om Fi,'c (1<)5 I) on\\ards, the crfl:ct uf that technolog~ h,IS been to bomb subsequent human cultures back to the Stone\ge (literall\, in 'I"clI,I,!!." Cll'CII/IIII). Fol1<ming the lead of \ldous Hu\le~ 's 1<)32 nO\cl Bm,'(\clI' 1/ 0,./,/, future technologised societies
198
THE SCI E"lCE FICTI ()"l FILM
FII.M GENRE
are usually depicted ,IS ha\ing in some \\'ays surrendered important human freedoms, even \\hen this subject is tackled satiricall\ (as in Dell/olillOIl ,Han , 1 (93). More specifically, SF has concerned itself \\ith the increasing mediation of human nperience by technology at all len~ls, from the public and intersubjecti\'e - obvious e:xamples include atomic wart:lre and space travel _ to the psychological and emotional (thus imentions that enable the recording and projection of indi\idual dreams, memories and fantasies figure in QUillamass il/ld 111i" PII, GB 1968, Brcl/lIslorll/, 1983, and Till' Lil/I'II/flower JHall), and \\ith the thrCiIt this poses to the integrity of the human sensorium. While not e\ ery single SF film foregrounds technology, at some level most SF works through technological motifs. [weasioll or 11Ji" Bod)' SlIalclJers, for example, seems on the Elee of it not to imohe technology at all: the alien 'pods' that are taking' O\er the small Califl)rnian community of Santa Mira, \\hate\cr they are, posscss none of the fearsome \\ar-making hard\\are of other 1<)50S imasion fantasies (lIar orilic Ilil/Ns, [II,.-adi"rs Fro III Hilrs; even the 'intellectual carrot' in Thc Th illg, though he spends most of the film stomping around murderously and \\ithout great obvious forethought, has arrived by interstellar craft); and the process of pod 'possession' is subtle, seemingly organie and quite mysterious - no cumbersome brain\\ashing apparatus or drugs apparentl~ needed, E\cn so, the leeching of human emotions and imaginatin: life the pods bring about - 'IO\e, desire, ambition, Elith: without them life is so simple' resonates strongly \\ith popular notions of the emotionless, implacable machine (and this holds true \\hether one sees the film as an allegory of 'machine-like' Communism (see Biskind, H)i-\3) or of post\\ar .\merica incn:asingly subject to domination by actuarial computation and the ne\v culture of the nascent corporate :\,merican technocracy (see JancO\ich, 1<)()6),' As mam commentators ha\c noted, SF's IHe\ailing mood .- perhaps surprisingly or nen parado:xically, gi\en the historical importance in the gUlre of technical advances in \isual effects, \\ hich since the early I()i-\OS have relied in ncr gre,lter measure on computer technologies- has most often been technosceptic if not outright technophobic. Perhaps the ultimate symbol in SF film of the btal III/Ims of technological \\izardry is the literally to\\ering achie\cment of the extinct Krell in Forbidd"11 Plalli"l: circuits and generators banked miles deep, tools of an ung'uessable intelligence ..-\s usual, the Krell's story reveals the necessary limits on technical mastery, given the fi'ailty of the flesh: their dri\c to liberate themsehcs altogether from reliance on crudely physical instrumentality unleashed 'monsters from the id', an unreconciled primiti\e psychic residue that, once tapped into the boundless PO\\ ers of Krell tcchnology, acquired annihilating; po\\ers the Krell \\cre pO\verless to defeat. HO\vner parado:xically, SF frequently appeals to pre- or trans-technological means as a solution to narrati\ e crisis. ,
199
'\[ost Elmously, in Slar TVal'S Luke Sky\\alker must learn to 'trust the Force': only by turning off his sophisticated targeting mechanism and channelling the mystical animistic po\\er that in the film's mythology binds together the li\ing fabric of the universe can Luke destroy the Death Star, an artificial planet that symbolises the death-dealing nature of technology allied to pure \\ill-ro-po\\er, unconfined by morality or compassion. The entire code of the Jedi Knights is founded on this cOl1\iction of the fundamental inadequacy of 'mere technological masten (echoing similar oppositions in Arthurian legend, one of the many sources of J .ucas's syncretic mythology): the Jetli's chosen \\ Clpon, the light sabre, is itself (as an e:xcited Thermian Obs<:T\'eS of the matter trJnsporter in the delightful Slar Tri"k parody Galax)' Q/li"st) 'more art than science' (see Ryan and Kellner, 1()i-\i-\: 2.+5-5+; also in Kuhn, 1()90: 58-(5). In general, this surprising technophobia is placed in the sen ice of a larger humanistic ideology, \\here the unchecked grO\\th and/or misuse of a detiniti\ely inhuman, or nen anti-human, technology becomes the inspiration fl)!' a rerurn to 'real' human qualities - if, that is, it isn't already too late, '1 'he f:1t110US 1950S cycle of atomically mutated monstrous insects - as Jancovich (I<)<)C>: 27) points out, carefully selected b'om those parts of the animal kingdom least susceptible to the sort of anthropomorphisations that had rendered earlier monsters like ki/lg A.o/lg (I ()33) and his descendants so oddly s\ mpathetic - compels us to reflect back upon the human qualities they lack yet th,lt arc so urgently needed to combat them, Sometimes the screen function seems \ery O\crt indeed, as in the amorphous Bloli, \\hose \ery lack of any distinguishing features makes it an irresistible symbol of half-shaped fears. Technology is a conte:xtual rather th,m an explicit fl)rce in the creature features; hut the Ti"ml/llillor ,md ,Hillrix films, centred on the struggle against genocidal machine tyrannies, ha \ e similar stark messag"Cs on the need to place reliance in basic and indelibly human qualities like Imc, community, valour and self-belief. The persistence of this humanistic, and if anything premodern, ideologeme' suggests that, just as the hard\\are that in past SF ,ignified an unguessably teclmic futurity no\\ seems quaintly antiquated, ,i11lilarl~ somc at least of the more enthusiastic and uncritical prognostications of SF film's postmodern prospects in the early I <)<)os, such as the final chapter of Lmdon's Tlie/esilielies or,llllhi,'alellCi' (H)<)2), have dated as quaintly as the Futurist and Constructi\ist machinist manit<:stos of the H) I os and 1920S. It seems clear enough, in any C,lSC, that SF's recombinant aspect endO\ys the genre \\it h continuing \itality and \alidity entering the t\\enty-first century and taking on b(l<\rd ne\\ de\elopments in technology, such as genetic engineering; (e:xplored in Gilililm, l()97, and Code I.;.(J, 200+). One mark of this continuing energy may bc the \\ay in \\hich traditional SF dnices haye recently started to be incorporated as narratiye premises fill' films \\hose principal concerns arc quite distant ti'Ol11 SF: for e:xample, suneillance and
200
FILM GENRE
artificial societies (Tlie Tmlllal/ 5'1/1111', 199i\), rejU\enation (T "allliia Sk)', Z002, pre"iously addressed in Secol/ds, HjM), and memory alteration (Elcrnal SI/I/shine 0( the Spoiless JIII/d, 2003).
BEYOND I-IOLLYWOOD Science fiction has not been an equally popular genre in all national cinemas, largely it would seem for practical relsons. A.s de\oted as literary SF has frequently been to e:xploring the philosophical implications of the Lmtastic, narrati\l' cinema is better suited to realising its potentially spectacular material dimensions. \Vith some conspicuous but isolated auteurist European nceptions - Alain Tanner's .lol/as TThll Trill Be 2.) III Ihe }ca I' 2000 (S\"itzerland t<)j(l) and I,/~~hl Yi'arSlm/l ' (GB/France «ji'lt), Godard's J/phm:ille (France I<)()S) and TTeekellt! (France I<j()7), and '\icolas Roeg's The HIIII Who Fe/I 10 h'ar/Ii (GB H)j(l) SF cinema has subordinated ideas to images. Thus filmic SF tends to lay a he~1\ \ emphasis on the \"isualis,llion of futuristic technologies -- computers, spaceships, future ci"ilisations and so lilrth. This in turn ine\itahly Ll\ours llolly\\ood as hy Ln' the hest-resourced and technically prolicient global cinema, particularly after 2001: ,1 Space Odl'ssey set new st~lI1dards lilr special effects: it is surely no accident that IargT-scale SF lilms with a soci,llly specuhtti\l: dimension such ,IS Fritz Lang's \[elropolis ~111l1 nli' Hilll/all ill Ih,' ,11011/1 \\cre produced \\hen Germany's LF\studios \\cre (\\ith significant LS il1\cstmcnt) the largest and best-capitalised in the \\orld after Holly\\oOlI. (\luch more recently, the multinational Luropean production n", Fljih h'Ii'lI/elll (I<)
t
THE SCIENCE FtCTION FILM
20r
linds only a \yeak retlection' in lilm. The fascination with an eagerly anticip,lted (proletarian) technologised future that coursed through early SO\'iet society lilUnd npression in t\\"O films. Ley k..ulesho\'s The Dcatli Ray (L SSR 1<)2 S) condensed the popular alh'enture serials of the time (rather as his HI' TTesl, LSSR I<)23, had aped the style of the silent comedy), and Adila, Ql/e<'i/o(Uars (LSSR [()2+) \"as notahle as much li)r its Constructi\ist decor ,IS its propagandistic narrati\e (see Tdone, 1999: 37-+6). The state-run SO\ ict lilm industry was ob\iously sufficiently resourceu to compete with I Ioll~ \\00l1, and some epic prouuctions included Road 10 Iiii' Slill's (uSSR ]()~+), PilI/it, I or Slorll/s (CSSR 1962), \\hose manned Venus expedition coincided \\ ith the real SO\iet (unmanned) Venus landing mission,') anu Thi' Illdrol/it'da\chllia (L SSR I<)6i'l); but the Cold \Var ensured that few mainStITJI11 Russian SF lilms secured a \\cstern release. (Sneral Russian SF lilms, hO\\c\cr, purchased cheaply by Roger Corman in the mid-I Cj()OS, were 'iuhsequently cannibalised to prO\iue material fi)r ,\IP productions including I o]'ogi' III llie Prell/sllmc Plallel (HilS), and Qllei'll or Blood (I<)()()).) Two that did \\ere _\ndrei TarkO\sky\ Solans (USSR 1(172) anu Sli/iker (LSSR 1979), hut these arc in essence SF \ariations on Tarko"sky's preoccupations c1se\\ here _\s Gillespie (ZOOT 173) ohsencs of Solans, '(O)uter space is simply the b,lckdrop to a philosophical ret1cction on man's relationship with the e~lrth, his home anu his Elmily ... although ostensibly a sci-fi rumination on the impact of'icientilic discO\cn on human life, Solal'ls is, in bct, an anti,eience film, assert ing the suplTiorit ~ of art and poetry.' The troubled scientist Snout decbres in the lilm that 'we don't need other worlds, we neeu a mirror, man needs man'. Japanese cinema of course made a major contribution to the genre \\ith C'II/mil Gorl::.illa (Japan /l1~S) and his inIlLlmeLlhle monstrous ri\als, hut nen here the lilm-makers at Toho Studios \\cre in brge measure elaborating (and enlarging) a concept prniously ul1\eiled in the LS in Tlii' lJeaslji'IJ/fi 20,000 /',,11/1111I.1' (1<)':;3). The impact ofJap,mese ,lI1imJted lilms or il/l/llIi' ' from the III id-l iji'los ma ~ be more profound: in p,lrticular, the phantasmagoric enl'<)untlTS \\ith trans!ilrmati\e technologies in _1kim (J,lpan tiji'li'l) ,lI1d Gllllsi ill lilt' Sliell (Japan 199,:;), \\hile themsehcs clearly int1uenced by fJladi' RlIlll/a, ha \ e manife'ith" int1uenceu both the naIT,lti\ es and the II/i'dla 'look' of the 1/,,11'1.\ lilms, among- others (see Telone, 2001: 1\2 I(l; :'-Je\\itz, 1<j<jS).
In 1i'l7i'l Lld\\eard \luybridge (iii; Ed\\ard \luggeridge), an Englishman \\orking' in San Francisco, arranged ,I series of still clIneras along- a track to record the mo\ ement of a cll1tering horse, p,lrt Or.1 set of motion-stud ~ experiments
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FILM GENRE
funded in part by the ex-gO\ernor of California, Leland Stanford. He projected the results by slotting photographic plates into large re\ohing discs in a device called (typically of the elaborate nomenclature of the late Victorian period) the Zoopraxiscope: the result, in which images \vere projected in a rapid sequence, ga\'e an illusion of movement to the spectator for the display's brief duration. Muybridge's work is among the most famous contributions to the prehistory of cinema: his eerily evocative side-on images of horses, other animals, men and women, shot against neutral backgrounds, are widely reproduced in histories of film and have been il1\oked by film-makers as different as Peter Greena\vay, George Lucas - and :\ndy and Larry Wachowski, writer-directors of The 1\:11/Iri.r. In 199R American visual effects company \lanex organised an array of 120 still cameras in a looping pattern around l'.emu Ree\Ts and other performers for blockbuster action producer Joel Siher's latest project, The 'Wi/lrix. Developing; a technique known as 'time-slice' originated by British filmmaker Tim McMillan in the early Il)Hos, \1anex prod uced a stunning effect labelled (typically of the canny marketing of turn-of-the-millennium Hollywood) 'bullet time'. As Ricketts (zooo: I f\ 5-6) explains, each shot had been pre-visualised in a computer model to determine the precise positions, aiming and shutter intenals of the cameras in the array. J .aser positioning ensured that the computer model \\ as filllO\ved to the most minute degree. A circular green-screen around the cameras \vould enable the imag;es of the actors subsequenth to be isolated and composited into ne\v backgrounds. As Reeves per!ilrmed, e.lCh camera took its single photograph, all I zo cameras shooting in sequencc in one second or less. \\'hen the resulting IZO frames were projected at the standard cinematic speed of 2{ frames per second, the resulting sequence 'stretched' one second of action into a fi\l~-second shot with the camera app.lrently circling around a 'frozen' central image. Further computer manipulation enabled the duration of the sequence to be extended to 10 seconds by interpolating one ne\v digitally generated frame filr each 'actual' frame, and the finalised filOtage \vas then composited into ne\v, again cot11puter-g;enerated, cityscape backgrounds. The resulting sequences \vere among the most \videly-discussed and n:lebrated cffects of the decade, seeming; perfectly to illustrate the film's lTvpto-philosophical insights on the phantasmic and manipulable nat ure of \\ hat \ve (mis )take fill' 'reality'. There is an odd symmetry bet\vecn the t\\O eflillts to capture, isolate, dissect and finally to restore motion, both applying sLile-of-the-art, indeed cutting-edge (a phrase that didn't exist in I H7f\) technolog~ to the solution of problems \vithin the field of mO\cment. \\'idely enough spaced in time, they are an aeon apart in not only their levels of technical sophistication but their objectives and their moti\es. One is part of cinema's prehistory, motiLlted in the first instance by disinterested scientific curiosity (though see \\'illiams,
203
I<)<)
elaborate and technically ambitious \'entures and the imperative to deliver a commercial smash. Whereas ;\luybridge was an individual artisan funded by a scientifically-minded philanthropist, :Manex is a well-capitalised specialist business in a billion-dollar sector of'1 multi-billion-dollar industry, working for one of its most comnH.Tcially-minded and successful producers. \Iore fundamentally perhaps, \vhereas \luybridge used photographic technology to penetrate the mysteries of natural motion, 'bullet time' distorts and recreates motion in a digiLl1 el1\ironment in physically impossible ways. Finally, .\luybridge \vas limited to an inexact and time-limited reproduction of motion by the absence of adequate means filr recording and projecting; il11.lges (notably of a flexible celluloid photographic emulsion which could p.1SS rapidly enough and filr long enough through an intermittent mech'lI1ism to record more than mere snatches of mO\ement) . .\:lanex of course are able to npand, change and radically alter mO\Tments that are not recorded on a physical surLlce at all but rather digitally. The echoes of .\luybridge make The J/1i/lri.r a film \vhose reflections on reality .1I1d perception extend beyond the basic and immedi'1te questions of sensory and cogniti\l~ experience with which Neo is traumatically confronted, to take in our medialted constructions of the real. Thus The lii/lri.\ highlights, although in an unusual \vay, the reflexivity that shadows much SF film. \\'ith its ubiquitous screens, monitors and A/\' presentations (like the guides to the Death Star presented in slideshO\v bshion in Slilr 11 iiI'S and in imprO\Td holographic fiml1 in Reillm orlhe .ledi (I <)I\{), or the pioneering CGI (computer-g;enerated imagery) Genesis sequence in Slilr he/.: II: The 11mlh or A)/ill/ (I l)Hz)), SF maintains a running implicit comment'1r~ on its O\vn mC
Y.
204
FILM GENRE
and the computer world itself cannot be 'seen' except as the hallucinatory endless streaming of code. This tics in to the film's counterposing of tangible flesh-and-blood 'reality' to mediated 'unreality': \\ith the additional t\yist, of course, that the 'unreal' world of the 7
THE SCIENCE FICTION FILM
205
I)e1aney's notion of 'paraspaces' - juxtaposed aIternatiye \Hlrlds \yhich supply .In ongoing commentary on one another. The concept of 'paraspace' allows the film's t\m 'realities' - our O\yn late-t\yentieth-century location that is derealised by the narratiye, and the diegetic reality that is \\-holly manut:lCt ured - each to call into question the claims and assumptions of the other. That '\eo takcs a pill - associated through the .\Iice in Wonderland imagery \\ ith LSD, LImously hymned in The Jefferson :\.irplane's 'White Rabbit' - to <\Ccess the 'rell \yorld' identifies his journe~ both with I<)60s-style spiritual all'lkening through hallucinogens, and \yith a pharmacological flight from social reality into a hermetic interior realm. Furthermore, the powerful [mtasy construction that '\eo's reyealed messi.mic identit~ buys into- the proYcrbial ordinary man rendered superhero may act reflexiyely upon the audience's II ish-fulfilment fantasy constructions. On the one hand, we want the freedom fighters to smash the .\1atrix and triumph mer alienating technology: gilen the .\latrix's simulacrum of our O\yn \yorld, this jacks into pO\Yerful an'\ieties and desires about the degree of disempmYerment and estLmgement in the modern Iyorld ..\t the same time, in the film's own terms '\ ictory' fll!" thc ITbels means dematerialising tlut \\orld (\ isually, our O\yn) into the numinous streams of base code \\ hich '\ieo percei\ es .IS a digital epiphany II hen he \ anquishes\.gent Smith. Finally, as \Voml points out, the binary polarities of Thc I III I rl.\"s rendering of the aIternati\Ts 'real' slayery / freedom fig"hting yersus 'false' materi.JI comfllrt, \yith no third term permittl"d or possible -- themsehes bear the characteristic schematic neatness of .1 LlI1LISI construction (they also link the film back to the typical dualistic constructions of melodrama). There is a rather ob\ ious irol1\ in that thc 'real' in The Illlln.\' thc ,tv gian subterranean spaces negotiated b~ the\c!i/{(//I/I//le:::..:::'lIr, .IS \\cll as thc hiles or coils in IIhich the 'coppertop' humans arc stackcd so thcir massed hrai npoll er can prm ide the machines \\ it h thc encrgy they need to sun i\ e i, necessarily constructcd on-screen almost entireh through computergenerated imager~, \\ hile the .\ latrix .IS the '[Jlse' \\ orld the 'coppertops' (as they think) inhabit is shot on location in contempor.lry '\orth\merica. The disLlnt echoes of .\lu~ bridge may il1\ ole a time \\ hen film could .Ispire to a heroically scientific status, an objectiYc tool fll!" thc deeper penetration and undersLmding" of the natural \yorld. but ironicall~ situating that memory II ithin a contemporary cinem.ltics that is gcncricall~ and institutionally oriented not tOllards capturing the seerets of nature, but instilling .md rendering" [musics and illusions.
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FILM GE:"JRE
NOTES This docs not induoe another selcn entries in the doseh related - and in terms of its core audience '\no marketing strategies, largel\ indistinguishable - fantasl -.Id Icnture genre li'om the Indiana Jones, I larn Potter .1llO IAml 1I(llie Rillgs series. 2. Of course, this bn basL' can .i1so pose problems bl loicing dissatisbction at perceiled E1ilings or transgressions in the screen adaptation. Probabh' the best-knoll n and most organised of these bn communities arc the Sli/r 'lid,: fans, or 'Trekkers', but I\ith the massilc boost from the .llhcnt of the \\'orld \\"ide \\cb to Ems' abilitl to 1lL't\lork, e\:changT I iell s .ll1Ll organise, other such LlCtions hal e eml'lO\ cd the PIT,SUIT unics pioneered 11\ Trekkers. On SF .1udienees, sec Tulloch and Jenkins (J()t).:;). J. This audience is, hO\IL'\er, bl no me.ms homogcncous: fiJI' insunec, a, Pcter Kr;imer (200+) Lkmonstrates, thcre .1rc clear differcnces betllTen the' Sli/r II "rs, .llIraSSl( Pi/r/': and other series addresscd centralll to childrcn (often induding a child prot'lgonist as a pOInt or identitication), and R-rated properties like thc . IIi/In! and IIIi'll serics, II'hich highlight 'adult' content like gTaphic I iolence .md (mudl nl\IIT rareh) se,ualitl ano in I\hieh a degree of thematic complnitl or intclleL·tu,i1 prL'tension is Itself 'I kel part of the bLmd identitl. +- Such speculations, as (:orn ([()S6) and others sh,)\\, eert.linh formed part of the discoursL' of both .\merican modl'rni,m and literan \mcric'lll SF in this period. On 11clroplllIs, see also belO\I. I.
,'i . . J/iells relics less on I iseeral birth imagen hut if al1\ thing centre's elen morL' elearh on
Illotherhood, bifurclting the maternal into the 'good' Riplel and the 'bad' \hen queen. 6. Il1\ented bl Leon There'min in 1<)1<)20, the theremin used radio freljuenClL's Ilhleh Ilhen interrupted bl the h'lnd, of the 'pLIler' transmitted ton.t1itie' tb'lt L'Ould be moduLtted from melodic nlusiL' (ThLTemin's O\ln intention fill' hi, instrument) to unearthh Ilaiis the LlttL'!' fi:atured prominenth in the soundtracks L'Omp'N'd till' Till' !Ji/Y illt' fi/r/II Stlilid .'lilli, Iii,' l'IlIlIg and II CIIIlt' Frolll (Jilier SPi/(C ([().:;3) bl Bern'lro I krrman, Dmitri Tiomkin ,md I knn \LnL'inl, rL")1L'etilch. On the theremln .md 1().10S SF, sec \\"ier/bieki (2002). (Ilannibal LL'L'tLT incident,t1h pLl\s a theremlll In Tbomas IIaITis's nCJ\L'\ 1Ii/llllih'll (IlJ')I): +.13).) i. '\ote that the pod, arc disper,L'd natiol1\lide lia the na'LTnt frL'L'I"11 netllork, a pOll LTful Sl mhol of the 'ltomising fiJrces at Ilork in POq II ar \ merie.l to erode tr'lditional comnlunittes. S. The tLTm is (,'redl'lc.lameson's ([I)S,) .ld'lpUtion ofthL' l,L'li-StL111"iannOlion of the 'n1\ theme', C). Thl' SOl iet I i'/liTi/ programme of unmanned mi"ions to \'enus Lm bUI\L'L'n [cJlli and
IlJS+. I ,'I/{'ri/ IJ tLlnslllitted the first photogr'lphs fl'CJlll the pLmet's surEILT thirteen H'.lI'S after tbe LS spacenaft \LrinLT 2 tirst orbited the pLtnet.
III
Ili/.:;'
Part 3 post-Classical Genres
The genres discussed in this final section arc all 'post-classical' in one or nlO re senses: they emerge historically once the decline of the studio system is unden\ay (using the Pi/rtlll/OI/I/! decision as a historical marker); they come to industrial prominence in ne\\ configurations in the post-classical period; ,lilli/or they are simply uncl!lonical as genres either in terms of classic llolly\\ood (Holocaust film), in .\merican commercial cinema as a whole (documentary), or in mainstream narratin: cinema generally (pornography). The first t\\O chapters deal \\ith genres,jillll I/o;r and the action blockbuster, that ha\c in different \\ays become central to the critical enterprise of academic film studies and to contemporary Holly\\ood economics, respectiYCly. The tinal chapter addresses - in considerably less detail· genres that in different \"I~ s seem to me to pose challenges to and com plicate (producti\cly) the eJ1tnprise of genre theory and criticism itself. Because the entries in this final c1uptcr are brief, they are neccssaril~ more general and also more speculative than the lengthier discussions of imlividual genres elsewhere in this book. The\ arc very much intended as introductory comments for further study and discussion.
FILM
,\O/R
211
--------------------------------CHAPTER <)
Film noir
H
ig-h-school students in the UI( undertaking an 'Y lC\el (diploma) course in Media Studies frequently undertake a module on film genre. A typical assignment for their linal assessment is to create 'publicity' materials which, depending- on the school's resources ma~ be conlined to print media (posters, D\'I) corers, etc.) or may extend to lilmed 'trailers' - for a (nonexistent) lilm in an assig'ned g'enlT. The most commonly attempted genres are the horror film and /illll /llIir, There are ob\'ious reasons \\11' such an exercise would Ll\our genres that rely more on mood than on material resources and are rebti\ely unconstrained by time or place (hence can be shot in students' houses, local parks, garages, etc.), Clearl\ such Llctors will discourage attempts to mimic \\,11' films, science liction films or \\'esterns (though equally clearly the else might be dilferent in a high school in, say, Wyoming) Gi\cn such exigencies, student presentations predictably pay gTeater attention to iconogTaphic and st~ listic conn:ntions than narrati\e, let alone thematic, elements: thus much eflt)rt is put into m,1l1uElcturing 'moody' lig'hting- and including such g'eneric prerequisites as guns, cigarettes, rain-drcnched streets (preferably ref1ecting neon sig'mge), ceiling Lms and seducti\el~ threatening; 'ICmmes Lnales'. Such economic consideLltions contributed significantly to /lilir's memor,thle \ isual style, and students sometimes achie\c a strikingly plausible /lilir pastiche. :'\onetheless, it is striking that /illll /llItr should be presented quite so routinely as a mainstrclm film genre- g'i\en that at le,lSt until relati\ely recenth the genre had no existence ,It all liS II gmre beyond film criticism. This \ ignette indicates the ntent of /llIir's dissemination into contemporary popular culture. In fact, /lilir is arguably ,IS instantly recognised and inf1uential in contemporary media culture as \\as the \\'estern It)]' the postSecond World \\ar generation, libeLllly quoted, pastiched and parodied from television ad\crtising to graphic nO\els. Ycr this example also illustrates
I
~
the \\,lYS in \\hich /llIir has become reilied - detached from the historical ,md cultural contexts that originally inspired it into a set of formal mores and st \ listic motifs largely di \Orced of meaningful content. Enquiry of the st~tdents \\'ho are producing these teasing simulacra (textbook examples of !e,ln Baudrillard's notion of the perfect imitation \\ith no original) reveals 'th,lt \\hile sometimes they will ha\e seen part or all of DIIIIMe !/ldemnitv (I <).j.-f.), often their knO\\ledge of /lilir is con Ii ned to \'iewings of recent neo/lillI'S such as the Coen brothers' Bllllld Silllple (198-1-) or John Dahl's The Lasl Scdwi io/l (199-1-). These films are kno\\ingly allusi \'e, richly intertextual; yet inlTclsingly the ficti\e and social uni\erse of the late 19-1-0S and Il)SOS they in\oke, \\hich charges their o\\'n bbric with meaning, is constructed only throug;h and out of these ,lllusi\'e g'estures themselves. ,\ second, \'ery different example is even more suggesti\e of /llIir's potent, ramified presence in contemporary culture, Da \'id Thomson's cult H)8-1nO\ cl S/lSPC(/S is at once a meditation on the place of the mo\ies in the :\merican im'lgination and a playful genealogy ofjillll /lilir. S/ispeclS comprises a series of encyclopedia-like entries on a host of characters from key nllir films like S\\ede Larsson (fi'OIl1 The Killers, 19-1-6) and Jeff Markham/Bailey (from (Jill 111'1111' Pasl, I<)-I-7) thM extend their stories beyond- belt)re and aftn their screen appearances, allO\\ing them to mingle \\ith (frequently to Erthn, couple \\ith, or murder) their descendants in neo-/Illin such as CIIl/lI/11111'/1 (I<J7-1-),llIIerili/l1 Glj;1I11I (1<)80) and Bllt/v Helll (1<)81). It comes as a shock to lind that that at the dark he,lrt of this dense \\eb of narrati\e and te.\tual intrig'ue lies, of ,Ill films, Frank Capra's It '.I' II H '!JIIdl'rjiti I,iji: (1()-I-6), a film that repe,lted television sho\\ings han~ in the half-century since its original (coolly rccei\ed) release rendered a Christmas perennial ,Iml one of the definiti\c filmic represenLltions of mythic sm,lll-town L\merica. HO\\l'\n, thc annual celebration of family, community and the little man to \\ hich Capra's film has become consecrated ignores the distincti \eI y Iwir shadings ofambi\alence ifnot outright desp,lir that actually colour its picture of George Bailey's '\\ ()l1derful life' in BedltJrLl Falls. \s Robert Ray (I<)k.=;: 179-21'=;) points out, It's II H!Jllllerjiti !,iji:'s exemplan tale of George's ingenuously pi\()tal inten'ention in the Ii\es around him can be seen as less an al1irmation of core ~\merican \alues than a salutary reminder of hem slender and fortuitous is the thread \\ hich separates that '\orman Rock\\TII \'ision of soda parlour and friendly beat cop from its I/oir Other, the infernal Potters\ille - a quintessential Dark City - of the night1l1<1IT vision George recein's at the hands of his guardian angel Clarence, \ loreO\cr, the fil~1 's nelr-hysterical insistence OI~ the indi \i:lual citizen's Illtegrity as the pin)t of historical change and progress, and the allied depiction of George's allxltross, the Baile~ Building; and Loan (an emblem of 1l1iddle-class financial probity since ironised In the spectacular collapse of the
212
FILM
rnll
GENRE
US savings and loan industry in the late 19~os) as the crucial bukark between the depredations of unbridled capitalism personified by the nefarious banker Potter and the proletarianising urban jungle of George's vision, places 11 '.I' a WOllilalid Lt/i' firmly in the 1I0ir tradition. :\Ithough his story docs not turn, like most classic 1I0ir, on the melodramatic cliche of a criminal act and/ or illicit sexual desire, the fi'agility and desperation of George Bailey's balancing act - an ordinary, decent man trying to make sense of a nightmare from which he is struggling to awaken - is mirrored in numerous noir protagonists of the postwar era such as Professor Warmley and Chris Cross (both played by Edward G. Robinson) in Tlte WOl/lil/l i/l lite Tlil/do77' (1944) and Smr!1'1 ,)'Ireel (1<)4S), Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien) in D.o..i. (19So) or Jim Vanning (Aldo Ray) in Niglillidl (I<)S7)· Equally, the /loll' elements in George Bailey's nightmare - urban blight and alienation, anonymity and the omnipresent threat of violence - also creep into the edges of other btl' 1940S films that are clearly not themsehes 111111' but which, like Capra's film, are also preoccupied with male identity in a changing and unsLlble world, such as the Our l,i7:es (H)4 6 ). social problem film Tlte ilesl }eilrs In a transgressive and poign,lI1t postscript to .'·;/lspals, Thomson rewTites George and !\!lary Bailey's family romance as the core of 1I0ir's palsied vision of American life, and simultaneously locates /loir at the centre of the postwar American experience: 0111 o(ille PilSI'S tragic Jeff Bailey is re\caled as Harry Bailey, last seen ,IS George's Second World War fighter ace brother; the Baileys arc in bct the parents of two key avatars of post-\Vatergate, postVietnam neo-Iloir, Harry "'loseby and Travis Bickle (protagonists of Night A107:l's, 1()7S, and Taxi f)m'cr, 1<)76, respectively); in a final Borgesian Icversal, Thomson indicates th,1t the \vhole Lmtastic landscape of S/lspe(/s is bshioned by the disappointed, disorientated imagination of Georg.e Bailey himself as he travels the back roads and the bte-night motel television screens of a twilit i\merica, seeking fi'om the fragmcnts of a disappointed life ,md a brokcn mythology the missing pieccs of a jigs,lw that, likc Susan :\lexander KalH.: in another near-lilliI', eil i::ce/l ;':llIle (I ()40), he is doomcd ne\cr to finish. Thus Gcorg;c Bailey prO\cs doubly exemplary of the larger Iloir imaginary, not only enacting a tragic IlIIir sag,] in his (mn stor~ and that of his extended L1I11ily, but also an imeterate watcher of old films who constructs from those films a meaning - howcver bleak - for an atomised and disoriented life. S/lspals seems to work through an insight about lill/l l/oir shared not only by its many critical commenLltors but more recently by two generations of cineliterate film-makers: that this group of mostly low- to-medium-budget crime melodramas, the majority produced between the end of the Second \Vorld War and Eisenhow'er's inauguration as President in 1()S3, ,md comprising only a small proportion of Holly\\ood\ total output in that period, nonethe- ,
or
Ie" pw,;o" " k" to
unluckin~
the "l'l'''t"enth monolithic edilice of
l
.\ 0111
213
Hollywood's confident :\merican imaginary. Xolr is the buried scam of doubt, neurosis and transgressive desire along \vhich that monument can be split open. ~like Da\is (1991: 38) characterises IlIlir as 'a transformational !.!:r,lmn1ar' working to imert the - in any case false- categories of late ~.,1pit,dism, :\merican-style. For Paula Rabinowitz (2003), IlIIir is 'America's pulp modernism'. For such !arg'e, e\Tn grandiose elaims to be sustainable, lilli/ /loir would perhaps need to be considered in the first instance a mood or ncn an attitude rather than a genre, a paranoid and hostile sensibility that extends out from its historic core to pollute the superficially brighter visions of \1lore mainstream films, before it finallv emerg;ed as a durable and dearlv_. ddined generic presence in the disenchanted 1970s. Lnlike the \\estern or other prominent g'enres like the musical, the genre's thri\ ing existence as a contemporary genre owes much less to industrial than it docs to critical practice. Originally a term applied by French critics to a (conlested) group of wartime and post\\ar Hollywood thrillers ,lIld melodramas, 1I0ir illustrates the actiye role that academic film criticism cm sometimes play within the industry's own relay, gi\Tn the now-established p~lssag.·c into professional film-making yia uni\ersity film programmes with a thcoretical and historical component. Its central place in contemporary film studies clearly owcs Illuch to 1I0ir's particubr concerns and content: the sense oj" a gUlre (or mode, or style, or mood, or tone, or tendenc\, or e\Tn world,iew all oj" these terms and more ha\e been used to chara~terise noir , often to signal its historicl1 and institutional differences from more elassical genres) o]Jl'Llting in some sense hom the margins of Hollywood (and America), with the potential for critique and e\cn subyersion of norms such a position implics, continues to intrigue aCHJcmic critics who ,Ire themselyes both t:Iscinatl'll [)\ Jnd deeply ambiyalent about the ideological positions promulgated [1\ mainstream Hollywood cinema (on this 'bscination" sec lL1rris, 2003). ~
'--
CI.\SSIC\O! R: OR IGI1\'S, INFLUENCES, (I N - )OEFINITIONS '!'()\\ards the end of the Second \\'orld \\ar and imIllediately thereafter, LS rl'\ iewers \\ere \\ell aware oj" a tendency in current crime thrillers towards bklkness and cynicism and an ,lpp,lre~t preoccupation with psychological dhturh'1I1ee. HO\\e\cr, as is CIirly well known, the term fillli 111111' itself was nllt a category used by either :\merican film-nukers, rniewers or film-goers at ,Iny stage during the I940S or early II)SOS.' The crystallisation of the 1l1c!11orahle and durable concept of 11011' was the contribution of French lli/';,I.llc.I and was itself the result of a conf1uence of se\cral bctors. During thc Occu pation (194°-44), the French market, like e\en other in "'\xis~ dO!11inated Europe, was closed to .'\merican film export~. Following- the
214
I'll. 1/ \O/I? 215 ---------------------------------
FILM GENRE
Liberation, the rush of Holly\vood releases onto French screens clustered alongside ne\\ releases such as DOl/Me iI/JeJlJl/Ill' and Lill/ra (both 1(44) sC\cral older films including The JIilliese FalmJl (1941) and Tills GI/I/ For Hire (1942), accentuating; what struck French critics as a new 'dark' tendency in Hollywood, in striking opposition to the traditional optimism of US cinema. The nocturnal settings, Expressionistic lighting schemes and staging, complex, sometimes cynical and anti-heroic characters, and tortuous, often downbeat narratives of criminal intrigue, deception and violence featured _ though by no means consistently or uniformly in these films starkly differentiated them fi'om the standard Hollywood register of high-key optimism. First baptised/illll I/olr in H)4(l by Nino Frank - \\ho \\as applying for the first time to .'\merican films an existing critical designation in prewar French film cult ure - this 'dark cinema' commended itself to French intellectuals for ot her reasons too. As Naremore (H)9H: I 7ff) shows, these films' preoccupation with the transgressiYe p<mer of sexual desire resonated with the concerns of surrealism, still an important force in postwar in tellect ual circles (interestingl y, I/olr's somet imes dreamlike labyrinthine narratives and anti-realist yisual style appear to have been less striking), while Jlolr protagonists' lonely quest for self-realisation in a hostile and fundamentally meaningless uni\ erse \\ ere also key ingredients in existentialism, the hot philosophical trend on the Left Bank in the immediate post \\ ar years ..'\ngst and pessimism, the hallmarks of this ne\\ tendenc~', struck answering chords in a France prostrated Gaullist mythology notwithstanding; by the humiliations of defeat and occupation, and e\ en its pulp origins and distinctiyely American vernacular, hitherto deprecated by French intellectuals, now seemed a fresh and authentic ~e\\ "'orld rejoinder to an exhausted and morally and ideologically bankrupt European cult ure. Finally, French yiewers could recognise many of Jlolr's character types notably the yulnerable male and the sexually aware, morally ambig;uous city \\oman fi'om the 'Poetic Realist' films of the 1930S. Such films as iA' ]ol/r Se i,h."e (H)3H) are more meditatiYe and btalistic th,111 most .-\merican I/oln, but can be seen as important mediators for Jlolr's post\\ ar reception in French film circles. (Le ]ol/r Se Lh'e was remade as a Holly\\ ood 1/01,., The i,ol/g .\lglil (1947), while Jean Renoir's Lil ehlel/lle (1931), \\as the original fill' Smrlel ,')'lreel.) (On the film and cultural contexts of lIol,.'s French reception, sec Yincendeau, 199 2 ; Vernet, H)9j: 4-(1.) The twenty-t\\o Hollywood pictures identified as 1101,. in Borde and ChaumelOn's infl uential Pa lIora 1/1 a JII FI11/I Sol,. .1111(;riollll, published in 1955 (I ( 83) (rising fi'om just se\cn in the initial post\\ar essays) included more spy and intrigue films (lol/mel' IlIlo Feilr, 1943; The .HilS!" o( Dilllil,.ios, H)44; lVolor/OIlS, 1(46) and priyate-eye mysteries (The .Hilliese Falmll, .Hunlcr, .\{JI SI/'ccl, H)44; The Big Sleep, 1945; i,aJ)' ill the l,ilA'e, 1946; (JI/l o( the Past)
th.111 the studies of criminal desire that would later become synonymous with the filrm. (Such 'canonical' I/oirs as DOl/Me II/delllllily, IA/l1ra, The POSlll1i111 /ll1'a]'s Ril/gs T/I'i(e (1946), and Sighl illld the Gill' (1950), \vere all relegated (0 a ~atellite category of 'criminal psychology'.) This perhaps suggests that Illr French yie\\ers the association of I/oir with the tradition of the 'hardhoiled' pulp2 thriller - a bleak French yersion of \\hich the series published bY Gallimard under the brand of shie Jloire lent Jloi,. its original usage - was s;rong er than the clements of psychological distortion and libidinal energy that for many later writers would define the style. Certainly, much of lIoir's most characteristic narratiye material, as well as the distinctive style of lIoir di,dogue - brusque, cynical and aphoristic - is deriyed fi'om the 'hard-boiled' \\Titers of the 1920S and H)30S, the best kno\\n of whom arc the pioneering private-eye nO\elists Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and their ~Timmer, more carnal and sometimes hysterical contemporaries James M. C:ain and Cornell Woolrich. NO\c1s and stories by all of these writers were ,Idapted into lIoir films during the H)40S and early H)50S, \\hile Chandler adapted Cain's DOIIMe IJldCIIJlJll) , for Billy Wilder. HO\yC\ er, the priyate eye, perhaps the best-known 'hard-boiled' type, rather complicates the effort to locate /Illir firmly in either style or ideology. To many, Humphrey Bogart is the definitiYe screen gumshoe and his two roles as priYate detectiyes in adaptations of classic 'hard-boiled' thrillers are canonical, eyen definitiYe /lIIir: The B/g Sleep makes most lists of classic lIoir, \\hile The .Hililese FalroJi is sometimes cited as the prog;enitor of the entire cycle. Yet \\hile both films imohc complex (in the case of The H(~ Sleep, inLlI1lOUsly and bewilderingly so) criminal conspiracies in variously sleazy ,1I1d dcm n-at-hec1 urban settings, The Jlilliese Fa 1m II at least lacks most of the stYlistic disorientations usually associated with Jloi,.: on the contrary, bar a tendency to\yards low-angle shots that distort his characters' (notably Gutman) physiognomy, Huston's compositions arc mostly balanced and his scenes eYenly lit. The Big Sleep is by contrast replete with shadO\YY interiors ,1I1d sinister night-time settings; but a stillmore notable di\ergence fi'om the prcsumptiye Jloi,. standard is the effect communicated by Bogart's perfilrmances in both films. This effect is oyerwhelming;ly one of mlliro/: although Sam Spade and Philip \1ar1<me, respectiYcly, are frequently endangered and sometimes deceived, Bogart's classically hard-boiled, Yirile persona here rarely displays the confusion or yulnerability exhibited by the private-eye protagonists of, for example, .Hllnlcr, JI)' SI/'ccl or (J111 o(lhe Pasl (or fi))' that I1latter by Bogart's o\yn performance as the screem\l'iter Dix Steele in the strongly Jloir IJI.J LOlld)' Place (1950)). Yet such L111ibility and \\eakness particularly in relation to an insecure mascLllinit~ has ag'ain been cited as a ddining lIoi,. attribute (sec f..:.rutnik, 19(1). Gangsters feature strongly as antagonists in the priyate-eye films, ,1ml /lIIi,.
.l..
216
FILM GENRE
1"11. \1
,\ Of R
ZI7
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clearly takes over the subject of organised crime and criminal conspiracy from the gangster cycle of the early 1930s. Howe\'er, where the classic gangster was a career criminal, typified by his virile individualistic energy and ruthless ambition (see Chapter 5), I/oir prot.lgonists are usually smaller_ time, are more likelv to be drawn into crime bv. simple greed or sexual desire , external pressure or simple error than by ambition, and are typically far more passive and easily defeated than Tom Powers or Tony Camonte - more likely to go out with a whimper than a bang, Alongside these native inf1uences, noir displayed more perhaps plainly than any previous American cinema the impact of prewar European art film - albeit in a much modified and inevitably Americanised form, While the inf1uence of such trends as German Expressionism can be seen in many studio films of the 19Z0S and H)30S - for example, John Ford's Tlte In/urmer (1935) - noir seemed to put these influences to work in something like a systematic way. Both Il)ZOS Expressionist film ami, as already noted, French Poetic Realism of the H)30S bear clear aHinities \\ith the later American form. As already discussed in relation to 1930S Universal horror, .\merican directors and cameramen had a well-established native tradition to draw on in using night-time settings, shadow-play and the like to depict sinister or criminal milieus - ami these elements are in any case much less ubiquitous in classic I/oir than their adoption as a stylistic fetish appropriation by contemporary music video and advertising would suggest. (For a sceptical discussion of the thesis of Expressionist inf1uence, see Vernet, 199]: 7 IZ,) Perhaps as inf1uential as Expressionism on l/liir was its immediate successor in \Veimar cinema, the Nelle Sacblicid'eil ('New Objectivity') and its preferred genre, the street film, also bequeathed I/oir its characteristic milieu: the night-time city. A film like TlIi' Sired (Germany Il)ZZ), stylistically a transitional film between Expressionist excess and the more neutral style of the ;\;e\v Objectivity, clearly prefigures such classic I/oirs as SCi/riel SIJal in its tale of a civil servant who impulsively breaks away from stifling bourg'eois domesticity for the allure of the city by night - only to find himself ensnared in a nightmarish \\eb of vice and even murder (see Petro, Il)93). In one striking vignette early in his prO\d, the civil servant is taken aback by the apparently rebuking gaze of a giant pair of eyes (an optician's sign) at one level obviously a literalisation of his guilty conscience, but also f1agging the theme of surveillance that would become so prominent in I/oir. Ginerre \'incendeau (199Z: 53-4) meanwhile suggests that the portrayals of Paris in French PoetiC realist films of the 1930S bridge the abstract, studio-created Expressionist city with the still stylised but - especially \\ith Holly\vood's return to urban location filming; in the late 1940S (see Saunders, zoo I: zz6ff.) " increasingly concrete city of I/oir, E(hard Dimendberg (1997, Z004) has identified the increasingJy decrepit, even entropic depictions of the city as I/oir mO\es from ~'
the J()40S into the H)50S \vith the phenomenon of postwar suburban flight li'onl the teeming, densely populated traditional inner cities. This finds an objecti\e cinematic correlative in the shift from New York to Los Angeles ~lnd !i'0I11 the vertical skyscraper city - \vhose soaring structures had inspired the titanic dreams ofpre\\'ar gangsters like Tony Camonte in Scar/c/(c (193 2 ) to the dispersed extra-urban sprawl of tract homes and freeways across \\hich the drifters and chancel'S of films like Dc/ullr (I (45) and A.·iss A1c f)eadl]' (1955) lind, or lose, their \vay. L\'s association \vith the Hollywood 'dream LICtory' also allO\\'s ample scope for sardonic ref1ections on the promise and the reality of the .\merican .Dream. . . The image of the nocturnal metropolis as a labynnth with the sexually avaihlble and aggressi\e \vomen at its centre is key to many American lIoir lilms. Prototypicll femmes fatales had first appeared on-screen in Europe bcl()\T the First World War, impersonated by such '\'amps' as Asta Nielsen, but ag:gressi\Tly, e\Tn destructively sexual women were another notable ftature of \Veimar cinema, most bmously I,ulu (Louise Brooks) in Pi/I/t/ora's Box (Germany I l)2X). Lulu's voracious sexuality is instinctual rather than mnlli\ing, but in his first .\merican film, Sill/rise (H)Z7), F. \V. Murnau presented not only a phantasmagoric nocturnal city, bur in the character of 'The \Voman from the City', a high-heeled seductress who entices a simple countryman \vith lurid Lll1tasies of urban high living and almost manag'es to persuade him to murder his innocent \\'ife, a clear precursor to the celebrated 'spider \\'(lmen' played by, amid others, Barbara Stanwyck (DoIIMc Jllt/ell/I/ily, lhe Siral/ge IArce of.Harlllil has, 1(46), Claire TrC\or (Farel/lell JJl' IAn'e/l', 1()44; Deadlier Tltal/ Ihe .Hale, H)47), Rita Hayworth (Gl/da, 1946; Thc I,ad)' From Sltal/g/lili, 194X) and f ,izabeth Scott (Deat/ Red'ollil/g, H)47; Tllc Pil/ci/I, 1()4 S). 1ft his brief summary indicates some of the \\idely ranging references and sources on \\hich Iloir drew in Llbricating its distincti\e style, it still lenes the question of \\hat the factors \\ere that crystallised these di\erse elements into the 11(111' style in late-1940s Holly\\ood. A common answer is that /loir relk-cts the penasi\e anxieties besetting .\merican culture in the immediate po'>t\\ ~lr period. This interpretation typically imokes such Llctors as the \:collomic uphea\als ine\itably imol\ed in the eon\ersion fi'om a \\ar to a peacetime economy, including: labour unrest (as workers agitated for pa~ rises postponed for se\eral ye~lrS in the interests of the war effort) and job losses. One particularly \'exed issue relates to gender conf1ict in the workplace. The ne\\-found (though limited) economic fi'eedom enjoyed by \\omen l1lohilised into the industri~ll \\orkforce during the \\ar pro\oked some ~ln \iety if not outright hostility in their return\:d boyfioiends and husbands ill-feeling returned in kind \\hen \\omen \\ere laid off, as fi-cquently occurred, to make room for returning male \\orkers. It has been argued that the
ZI8
FILM GENRE
manifold negati\'e portrayals of predatory \\omen who aspire to or actually achie\'e (usually though illicit means and at the expense of men) a degree of financial and sexual independence can be seen as a phobic projection of male fear of and hostility towards female autonomy .. Hlldret! Pierre (19-1-S), the story of a wife who lea\'es her indolent husband and becomes a successful businesswoman, only for her mismanagement of her domestic life to lead to tragedy, has been read as a cautionary allegory of women in the wartime workplace (althoug'h the war is never mentioned in the film, adapted from a 19-1-1 James ,\1. Cain nowl): the final shot, in which a chastened Mildred, reunited with her husb.md, passes by a pair of chan\"Omen on their knees scrubbing the floors of the forbidding, gloomy police headquarters, may be seen as a symbolic relegation of \vomen back to their socially 'appropriate' roles (see Cook, J()78: 79-80).' Howner, Thomas (I <)<)z) has suggested that \\'hat is at centrally stake in I/lilr is less women's place than men's: in particular, the conflicting masculine identities at play in the immediate post\\ar era, \\'hen the martial male subjecthood offered hy the \\ar which promoted a \'iolent, homosocial masculinity underpinned hy the ubiquitous threat of sudden death - faced accommodation to the conflicting; demands of peacetime domesticity, docility and social confilrmity. In such a reading, not only the f:lmous femmes CHales but the 'good' \\omen with \\hom they are often doubled (Phyllis Dietrichson's daughter Lob in Dlil/Me Jllllelllll/l)', fill' example, or A.nn :Miller in Gill lir Ihe Pi/S!) are projections of deep-seated male ambi\alences and anxieties. This account can be usefully extended by reference to dcbates in postwar media ahout the 'maLldjusted' male -- desocialised and rendered incapahle of adjusting to domcsticity and producti\'e work by the traumatic \'iolence hc had both suffered and inflicted during thc \\ar. \Iurderous \'eterans fe,ltured in 7lte 811/(, Di/lt/lil (H)-I-6) and Crossfire (H)-I-7) (though softened in the fi1rl11er under prcssure from the armed sen ices and the Breen Office: see 1'\,aremore, I ()<)8: 107-q), :\s the immedi,Ite post\\',l1' period segued into the confiJrlnist I<)SOS, the flipside to the unstable, h\ pertrophically masculine \'eteran emerged in the shape of p,lrallel anxieties about emasculation generated by the rise of the corporate cult ure and the salaried office \\ orker as the pre-eminent fi)rces in the post\\ar economy, Widely-read popular sociological \\orks suggested that traditional (male) :\merican imli\'idualism and entrepreneurship were being transfi)rmed into confilrmism and passi\'ity by the ne\\' conditions of \\'hitecollar work. Impersonal crime 'syndicates' - also a feature of g,lngster films in the I<)SOS threatening the freedoms of the indi\'idlwl figure prominently in numerous I/lilrs: Flirli' lir F,'II and The Big !Jelll feature particularly \i\'id depictions of corrupt quasi-corporate criminal enterprises, in the filrmer explicitly counterposed to a more humane, 'small business'-style LlCket.
F/LH NO/R
ZI9
---------------------------------"ernet suggests that the prototypical I/lilr protagonist can be identified \\ith the petty-bourgeois small businessman, anxious at the percei\'ed threats self-sufficiency and class status in the increasingl\'• t ohl·'s (im,lo'ined) t ' . , 'orporatised world. This interpretation tallies well \\'i th not only such venal ~nd/ or desperate middleman protagonists as Walter Neff in DlillMe Indemnitv (,111 insurance salesma~1) or ,~rank Bigelo~\' in D.GA. (a cert.ified ac~ountant) but also Jl's i/ H Iil/der/111 LI/e s George Bailey. It IS also pOSSible to situate the private eye- for many \'ie\\'ers, an archetyp~llllilr protagonist -- in t.his cla:,>s wrspecti\'e, as a self-made man whose role IS to expose the corruptIOns of a ~lcc,dent ruling elite (such as the Sternwood family in The B/~f{ Sleep), to reign in thc excesses of o\'ermighty 'combines' and in so doing to reassert the "deuc of a suitahly humanised capitalism. (This self-conception and its delusions seems explicitly to inform Roman Polanski's revisionist portrayal of the pri\ate eye in CIIII/i/llirT''', H)7-1-: see below.) HO\\'e\'er, it runs somewhat coUllter to the perception of IlIIlr as a genre that pays unusual attention to \\orking-class experience, often with conscious political moti\'ations. Brian '\e\e (Il)()z: QS -70) notes the in\'olvement in IlIIlr production of numerous memhers of the H)-I-0S Hollywood Left:- including such later \'ictims of the blacklist as directors Edward Dmytryk, ,'\braham Polonsky (Flirce lir Fe'i!) and Jules Dassin (The Si/ked Cily, 1l)-l-8), writer-director Rohert Rossen (Blld)' lIIIj :';11/11, 1l)-I-7) and producer ,'\drian Scott (FlIr,.ll'ell "H)' Llln,/)', Cross/ire)and cmphasises the prominence of class, illicit power and authoritarian power structures in nHny II II irs (see ~dso .'\ndersen, 1<)8S). Thc critical emphasis on pathologies of masculinity helps illuminate IIlIlr's llluch-commented oneiric (dream-like) ,lspects, exemplified not only by its sOl1lctimes surreal \isual distortions and spatial disorientations hut its looping;, oftcn confused narrati\es, its g;rotesque apparitions of \iolence and desirc, and the pre\alence of uncanny doubling. If these arc dreams, ho\\c\er, thn ,Ire elclrly dre~lmed by men, as a piHHal scene early in SrI/ril'l Slre(/ illustrates. The nondescript h,mk clerk Chris Cross is making his way home from a dinncr \\here he has been honoured filr his years of selfless scnicc to the bank \\ith the time-honoured gold \\atch.\fter el1\ciously \v:ltching; their employer J. J. Hogarth lene \\ith his young mistress, Chris and his colleague Charlie share an umbrella to the bus stop, exchanging \\i,tt"lll banalities about youthful 'dreams' th,lt 'ne\er pan out'. Left alone, Chris \\,mders through the deserted night-time streets of Greenwich Villag'e, C\cntu,dly seeking directions from a policeman as 'these streets get all tlIrned ,1rOllnd dO\\I1 here'. The Village's established associations \\ith soci,d and Sl'\U,l! de\iance, emblematically figured in the \Ianhattan street plan's abdicatiun of the gridlines abO\e qth Street, set it apart spatially and experientially from Chris's drab \\orkaday reality (a motif rni\ed by \LJrtin Scorsese's '~uppie nightmare' neO-IIIIII' c-1lia Hllllrs, H)8S): it is a labyrinth of desire.\s
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the older part of the city, the Village may also be associated with a wishful regression on Chris's part to a time when he could still realise the 'dreams' of his youth. What happens next seems, for Chris, literally to fulfil those dreams. Happening upon \yhat he takes to be a robbery or sexual assault - a young girl in a transparent plastic mac being beaten by a young man - Chris runs heroically to her 'rescue', brandishing his umbrella - the symbol of his middle-class, middle-aged propriety transformed into a phallic w·eapon. Although Chris barely touches him, the girl's assailant miraculously falls unconscious to the ground. Chris uncoils fi'om his protecti\e crouch to find himself the 'saviour' of a beautiful young \\oman. This entire scene is strikingly staged by Fritz Lang with an eerie distanciation: throughout the 'fight', the only sound on the soundtrack is the noise of a passing subway train, \\hich crests to a deafening roar as Chris yanquishes his opponent. Framed initially against the surrounding cityscape in extreme long-shot, the girl (Kitty) and her attacker (Johnny) struggle soundlessly and as if in sl(m motion. Chris's absurdly easy yictory seems to reflect what hc /I'i/IlIS to happen more than any imaginable reality (his subsequent wilful and self-destructiye refusal to recognise either the 'beautiful young girl' Kitty's real nature - she is a prostitute- or her utter contempt for him confirms this bntasy clement). The diagnosis of CS society in the late I()-l.os as anxious and angst-ridden also cites deyelopments in foreign and national security policy: the uncertainties attendant upon :\merica's unprecedented and clearly ongoing invol\"t~ment in European and \\orld afl;lirs at the war's end, a decisi\"e shift away from traditional US exceptional ism and isolationism; the reyelation of the dreadful pO\\cr of the atomic bomb, used against the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the swift transformation of the USSR from wartime ally to Cold \Var antag:onist, armed after 1()49 with its O\\n Bomb; and in 1949 the renewal of large-scale US combat operations abroad in the Korean \Var. Domestic politics were dominated by the hysterical pursuit of (largely imaginary) Communist sul1\ersion, \\ith public paranoia skilfully exploited and intensified by demagogues such as Joseph \lcCarthy and the young Richard Nixon, leading to signific1l1t curbs on ciyil liberties, a huge expansion of the internal security apparatus and hundreds if not thousands of people dri\en from their liyelihoods, imprisoned and eyen, in the case of the alleg'ed atomic spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, executed. In the early 195os, /loirs began to engag'e \\ith the panic about infiltration ,1l1d sub\crsion, either through metaphor and allegory (Pi/lilt" III llie ,')'1r('(' IS, 1950) or directly (The WOl/li/1l Oil Pier 13,1949; PId..'lIp Oil SOIlIIi Slreel, 1(52). The apocalyptiC late Ilolr Kiss Me Dei/dl)' (1955) perhaps conjoins the \arious gender and political paranoias of the period better than any other film. These critical approaches often throw a great deal of light on the textual
Jolitics of both indiyidual nolrs and the cycle as a whole. However, industrial :',\Ctors as ahyays played a crucial role too. The reduced production schedules of the majors in the \Iake of the 1947 Paramollill decision (that declared the \errical integration of production, distribution and exhibition an illegal monopoly practice and compelled the studios' parent corporations to sell off their theatre chains), with a shift to\yards fewer, prestige productions, opened up greater opportunities for both independent producers and existing minor studios to produce cost-effectiye g'enre films to meet the gaps in the market. The generally small-scale atmospheric noll' thriller was well suited to tight budgets, \\hile some independents at least sa\\" the competitiye adyantage in "Idling riskier (more topical or yiolent) material than the majors. Although hoth \\ere short-liyed enterprises, the independent Diana Productions \\hich brought together \eteran independent producer Walter Wanger, his \\ ifc actress Joan Bennett and director Fritz Lang - and the left-liberal yenture Enterprise Productions made major contributions to the noll' cycle with Lang's Sm riel Slreel and The Serrel Be)'ond Ihe Door (I (48) for Diana, and Enterprise's Bod)' i111i1 SOIlI and Force orEl"l1 (sec Spicer, 2002: 34-5). \\hat none of this energetic critical acti\ity has deli\cred is any consensus on the definition or extent of 11011' production in postwar Hollywood. There arc certainly a number of films that yirtually e\"eryone agrees belong in any putati\c IlIlIr canon, among them (in chronological order) 1t11mler, 1t1)' Sl7'eel, f)oll/JIe 1IldeIf1l111)', The Trol/li/II III llie Irlndoll', Smrlel Slreel, Tlie Poslmall ili/'(1)'s RlIIgs TIl'Ice, Gilda, Tlie Killers, Cross/ire, Force or En!, 0111 or llie Pilsl, nelollr, S/~l!,hl i1l1d Ihe CIly, and t\H) late, highly self-conscious entries: kiSS \Ie Deildl)' and TOllrll or E,'iI (1958). -+ Set against these, howe\cr, arc a much larger number of films \\hose 11011' status is subject to debate: costume films like Re/Jerra (1940), Gasligll! (I (44) and e\en Dr ]eli),11 alld AII' H)'de ([(HI) all included by Borde and Chaumeton ([ If)5SJ 1983) but more Ilb\iously in the Gothic tradition, as is another problematic candidate, TI,e .",'plml.)'lalrcilse (194S)- or gangster and police films like IVIIl/(> Heal (1949) ,Ind The Big Heill (1952). !-Ilme\er the canon is dLl\\n up, there could be no pretence that such films comprised anything like a plurality, let alone ,1 majority of Hollywood prod uction e\"Cn in the immediate postwar years \\"hen the 11011' tendency was ~aid 10 be at its strongest (a point made at the time by Leslie Asheim in the COurse of an exchange with producer John Houseman in the Holl)'IPood Q/{arlerl)' about the merits of the post\\ar wa\c of 'tough' thrillers'). I kpl'l1ding on whose reckoning one prefers· and both the timeline of 11011' pn)duction and the criteria for inclusion \ary enormously from one critic to anolher - the total number of 11011'.1' could be .IS fey\" as twent\-t\\O or as many. ~h 300. E\en the higher figure, howe\er, as Ste\c ~eale (2000: 156) points OUt, represents under 5 per cent of total Hollywood production during this
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period. On the other hand, Andrew Spicer's (2002: 27-R) cumparative tabulatiun of Iwir figures suggests that in its peak year (1950), 1/oirs cumprised at least 8 per cent and pussibly as much as 15 per cent of Hullywuud releases. But 1/olr's perceived significance has never been estimated in crudely quantitative terms. In fact, viewed as a 'tell-tale' genre - a furm, that is, that was able to speak unpalatable truths abuut and to .'\merican suciety uf a kind typically excluded from Hullywood pruduct - or in other \\ords as a kind of return of the sucio-cultural repressed, lIolr \\uuld of necessity be a minority g·enre. After all, oppositiunism and subversion - both impulses \\ith which /loir has sometimes been credited - are virtually by definition minority, even marg;inal, concerns. (One might add that throug'hout its critical history, the Fisson of marginality and deviance has been vicariously enjoyed by 1/oir's defenders and commentators.) As lIoir has mO\cd from a (illcaslc preoccupation to wider critical acceptance and popular \isibility, the critical debates around the dimensions and even the existence of 110lr ha \e only intensified. Neale (uN
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rn,l/ VOIR
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:,EO-\O/R:
PARODY AND PASTICHE
\olr's rediscovery coincided \vith the professional emergence of a generation . f \merican directors and \\Titers \\ho came to prominence in the wake of ~1()l1~\\ood's crisis of confidence and direction in the late 1960s. These writers ~]\1d directors \vere armed with a highly developed sense both of Hollywood film history and, particularly in the light of the 1960s European New Waves' experiments \vith nan~ati~e film form, .a. sense of ~o\~' nati~nal cin.ema tr;lditions could be rentalIsed through cntIcal appropnatlOn. 1'vll/r pro\'lded an apt model for such experiments. As constrained as the formal, let alone politicil radicalism of the 'HoIlY\YOOlI Renaissance' \\as by the ca~tion and conscnatism of an emphatically commercial industry, numerous films produced at major studios bet\\een 1<)67 and 1<)77 abandoned the well-lit high road of classic Hollywood for the seductive, subversivc shadow-world of IIl1ir. \\ hile some I<J7os 'neo-lIo;rs', ,IS the cycle became known, like Tilt' kil1g III' IIi/r,1/1 Ganlms (1<)72) echoed the defeatist strain of classic l10lr represented 11\ 0111 1{I!le Pasl, /11 a Llllld)' Plact' or He Rail .--111 I!le Wa,)' (I<)5I) and ~1;'l!:lIabh the f()rm's most characteristic mode - a much Iarg;cr numbcr ad'optni the priLlte-eye variant, ,1S this seemed to allow more room fex IT\isionist manoell\Ting. The implicit intertc:xts felr such films as T!lc Long Glilid/J)'c (1
1
224
FILM ut.NKE
joke too at the expense of Gittes's carefully-modelled Holly\\ood-style 'star' persona); in the course of his imcstigations a crippled farmer heats him ~enseks~ with his crutch; and so on. ,\hO\e all, Gittes mistakes the intrigue IOta whIch he st umbles for a conyentional, if far-reaching, story of civic corruption, and his employer/lmcr belyn Cross (Faye Duna\\ay) for a classic femme fatale: \\hen in LlCt she is the \ictim of her own penerse and u,ns~r~pul.ous.f~1the~', \yhose incestuous Elthering of a daughter upon EYelyn slgmfIes tItamc deSIres that arc transgressiye far beyond CJittes's horizons _ asked what he \\ants, Cross simply replies 'the future, \ lr Gittes. The future.' \Vhile the tortuous narrati\e of Ylg!J! .\loc'es - i1l\olying .1 promiscuous tcenage run.may, the fringes of the moyie industry, sexual C'\ploitation and a complex antiques-snlllg'gling ring - is c10sn to traditional I/oi,. territory, I larry i\:Iosehy (Gem: Hackman) is equally rudderless - a metaphor dnastatingly literalised in the film's final high-ang-Ic inuge of the \\ounded Harry helplessl~ circling around in a boat ironically named Poill! or I iell'. HarrY is passiye-ag;gressi\c, e.lsily manipulated, and tile dead ends of'his il1\cstiga;ion in the film parallel the frustrations and disappointments of his pnsonallife, i\S an adapution of Raymond Ch,lI1dler's final (and most self-consciously Iitnan) non:l, Rohert\ltman's Th,. IAil1!!. (;ood/J)'e is of all the llJ70S priyateeye films thc most securel\ locltnl in I/oi,.'s traditional narrati\ c territorv, Ho\\c\cr, :\Itman's Philip .\L1r1mn: (\\hom he conu:i\(:d ,IS 'a loscr', also the judgement passed on .\ larlo\\ e h~ his treacherous fi'iend Terr~ Lenno\:) is eyen less the classical model th
-----------------------------------\\ith the strong strain of \\hite male pathos preyiously noted in some contemporaneous SF films (sec Chapter S) finding; expression in a flurry of CJstration imagery - Gittes's slashed nose, the bullet in Harry ",,1oseby's thigh (and the cane used by his \\ife's crippled loyer), Cutter's amputated Iilllhs. 'dorcoyer, in general these films steer clear of the compulsiye sexuality portrayed in the 1940S James \1. Cain adaptations. Yet they do reyisit the fi~'ure of the manipulatiye, sexually desirable \\oman, and sub\'ert this generic t\'pe to the same deconstructi\e logic as her male partners. As already noted, I~\ehn \luhway in CII/IIII!O)}'1/ all haute couture and razor-slash rubied I1louth - appears an archetypal scheming woman, and for much of the film both Gilles and \\c expect that she \\ill turn out to be implicated in the 1l1urder of her husband, The reyelation that E\e1yn is a yictim, not a \'illain, comes too bte to Sa\T either her or, probably, her teenage daughter from the log'ic of a \\ orld in \yhich corrupt pO\\Tr holds absolute sway: 'Forget it, Jake, it's ... Cll/l/a!oll'I/', as the film's famous last line has it. The adulterous and de\ ious Eileen \\'ade in Thc [Alllg Good/J)'c matches the traditional model more closely, but the film's most indelible image is of another brutalised in1locent, the teenage girlfriend of brutal mobster ,'\larty Augustine (played \1\ director \lark Rydell) \\hom he smashes in the bce \\ith a bottle simply to prme to \larlO\\T that he is ruthless enough to get what he \\ants, The tcen 11\mphet Deily in Sigh! ,\lou's again initially appears a modern \crsion of the drug-addicted nymphomaniac Carmen Stern\\ood in The B/~I!. ,)'Iap (" ho at the end of the film is destined f()r puniti\c institutionalisation: \larlo\\e muses that 'maybe they can cure her') but she too dies tragicall~ and futilely. In the same film, Paula Ucnnifcr Warren), \\ith \\hom Harry \ losehy hriefly shares a bed ,1l1d (it seems) some moments of mutual tendernl'SS in a film \\ here such thing;s are at a premium, turns out another LIke in " lilm full of fakery (she makes Imc to Harry simply to distract him \\ hile her S11ll,!:!,'gling ring' retrie\es a sunken consignment), hut her duplicity is treated h\ the film simply as another indC\: of Harry's impotence: her death at the end or the film is horrific, not remotely g;ratifying, \ strong emphasis on sC\:uality is one of the main Llctors disting'uishing the second \\a\e of neo-I/oirs inaugurated in It)SI by Bod)' Ileil! and the I'l'I11,lhe of Thc PO(!l/lll/llI)}'iI)'( Ril/gs TJl'irc, accompanied b~ a shiti a\\,ly fi'om t hl' rnisionist pri\ate-eye/ conspiracy model back tll\\ ards crime-of-p'lssion 11 alTa ti\es. ,\ number of these films usc the Lll' greater sexu.11 explicit ness of till' post-Code era to emphasise the helplessness of their male protagonists L1L'ed \\ith the sC\:ual allure of their \,lsth more intelligent fCmmes L1tales. Films such as Th,. Las! S{'{/I/(!iol/, Thr Ifo! Spot (1990), Basil' Il/s!I1/(! (IlNI) ,md Bod)' or L'idCl/lC (I C)c)3) keep their gender politics carefull\ ambiguous, \l,lLll1cing the incipient misog'yny of the 'phallic \\oman' EIntasy against l1,lrratiyes that asserted \\omen's po\\er and satirised the culpable gullibility
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J/: . Jtllick IIrlllc CIIIIICS (Z002). It is perhaps appropriate that as contested and non-identitarian a form as 1111;1' should ha\'C been adopted as one of poh 11l0rphous postmodern culture's preferred self-representations.
of the hapless and often self-regarding and unlikeable men \\'ho get in\"olved with them. (For a discussion of Tile Last Seductioll as a narrati\"e constructed around a 'female subject', see Bruzzi, 19c)7: IZ7-,P; see also Stables, 1999). BI({(k Wldoll' (1987) sidelined men almost entirely, reframing' the nair doppelganger narrati\"e as a story of desire and pursuit between two women a female murderer and a federal agent. This exploration of the allure of forbidden sexuality has been extended in the flourishing genre of the 'erotic thriller', usually made f(Jr cable or released straight-to-\'ideo, \\hose unique industrial position both relocates l/Ii/r tropes to the borders of soft pornography and prO\ides a rare context in contemporary Holly\\ood (or possibly 'off-Hollywood') film-making that most closely resembles the lo\\-budget 'prog-rammcr' production of the late classical period (on the erotic thriller , see Williams, 1993, zo05; Eberwein, 199:-\). One genuinely nO\'e1 de\'elopment in the 1990S has been the exploration of 1111/1' territory by black film-makers like Carl Franklin (Olh' Fa Is,' JJIIU, 199 2; Der/I/II a BIlle Dress, 1995) and Bill Duke Ci Rage /11 lIar/elll, 1991; Deep Cllur, 199z) - a genuinely transgressi\'e mo\'e not only inasmuch as Black Americans \\'ere as largely il1\isible in classic 1111/1' as in all other Hollywood g-enres, but because 1/11/1' itself traded both explicitly - in the descriptions in Chandler and other 111111' \\Titers of their heroes' 'dark passage' into the 'Neg-ro' quarters of L:\ and other cities - and implicitly - in the dominant associati\'e trope of III1/r/'blackness' itself - in a racialised discourse, If the 1970S neO-l/Iilrs in g'eneral, to apply Fredric Jameson's (H)<) I: 1h~19) f.lntoUs distinction, inclined to modernist parody - the pointed satirical re\ision and il1\ crsion of g'Cnre cOl1\entions such as the heroic and capable pri\ate eye - the H)80s and H)<)OS \'ersions tended to\\ards pastiche - defined by Jameson as 'blank parody', the painstaking renO\ation of tropes ',l11d styles \\ithout any critical perspeeti\c. 7 A,n extreme n:ample of this is \Vim \\enders' f(Jrmalist rehearsal of 1111/1' tropes in the h~per-rellexi\'e ilallllllell (1983) . .'\arrative structures of spir,llling complexity, recalling but significantl~ intensif~ing classic 1111/1' patterns - in the most extreme examples, such as Tllc [,wal SIISPCc!S (1995) and "\[clII<'II11I (ZOOI), to the point of radicalnarrati\e indeterminacyrepbced the allegorical conspiratorial ramitiCitions of ](!70S modernist 1111/1'. :\s Leighton Grist (19C)z: z8.:;) obsen'Cs, '\\hat is \ital is not so much the continuation of ./illll 1/11/1', as the perspecti\'C of its reworking: \\'hether its COl1\entions present and analyse social tensions, or just exists as a l'OlIection of generic signifiers', Certainly, no one can doubt that 111111' has become an essential fi'ame of stylistic and thematic reference for contemporar~ \isual (not just film) culture. The impact of Blade Rllllller (198z) ,111d 'tech 1111/1" (see Chapter 8) ha\e ensured that IIII/r's distincti\e \ision of urban entropy and ({1I1111//C has become the debult setting for depictions of the dystopic ncar future in SF films as different ,IS Tile ,\1alnx (1998) and SI,,,' 11;"',1 Ljllslltle
BEYOND HOLLYWOOD FIIIII I1I1;r's poly\'alence, 'phantom' g-eneric identity and international influences
J1l,lke it unsurprising that other nation,ll cinemas ha\e adopted 1111/1' modes ,md l1lotifs, although its LItalism and penersity may appear less radical in cinemas less geared to high-key optimism than classic Holly\\'Ood. In addition to the pre\\ar proto-l1l1;r European trends - Expressionism, New Objecti\'ity ,1Ild Poetic Realism - noted abO\e, 1111;1' traditions ha\e been especially strong' in France ,lOd in Britain, while Jordan and ~lorg-an-Tamosounas (1998: 86105) discuss the importance of Spanish C;I1C IICP,'I'O from the 19S0S to the present day, \\here its influence can be seen in such films as i,l"c Flesh (I99 S), They argue that C;IIC IICgTIl found a particular purchase during' the tr,lJ1sition to democracy after Franco's death in 1975, a period \\hose re\ebtions ,Ibout the Sp,lOish state apparatus meant that 'the corruption and C\ llicism ,l! the centre of classic American IlIIlr mo\'ies f(lUnd a resounding echo in contempcmlry Spain' (p, :-\9), Spicer (zooz: 17 5-z03) explores the tradition of British 111111', arguing strong'ly for a tradition of crime melodram,ls that, like their American counterparts (and, although in different ways, like Hammer horror) strongly clullenge the middle-class \crities ,lnd complacencies of mainstream British cinema. \\'hile Spicer's 1111/1' ClOon is some\\hat diffuse, taking' in alongside L'Ontemporary thrillers \\ith e\'ident IIl1ir attrihutes like Odd .Hall (Jill (]()·n), l!i,yl1l1dc .Hc.I Fl/g;I;,'c (Ilj.n), Til<' TIi;rdHIII1 (]()-1-9), lie/lis 11 Cill' (1960) and (;cl Carler (Icnl) - but strangely not Br;g/illllI Rllck (]()-1-:-\) - ,I large numher of period films. GlIsliglil (19-1-0), P;III" ,')'Irillg 1I11t! SCIII;lIg Wa.\' (H)+5) and e\en Ol;,'er TII';sl (]()-1-:-\) seem to belong, but Grcill f:'.rpallll;III1S (1l)+6) ,md A.'1IIt! HCllrls 11/111 COI'IJl/cIS (19-1-8) seem in both stylistic and narrati\'e terms remote from 1111;1'. :\ problem here may he the importance of the Ln~dish Gothic tradition combined \\ ith (bef(Jre Hammer's breakthrough in Ihe mid-19S0s) the LIck of a clearly eSl
'.I..
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1"11.,\1 N01R
229
Austin (1996: 109-1 I) discusses POIIsslhe d '_lllge (1987) as a contemporary French lilm 1I0lr; Buss (19l)..l.) meal1\\hile identifies 101 French lIoirs pf(:pond~rantly from the post-lVolI,''';le Vaglle period, but like Spicer some or his inclusions arc curious: alongside such ob\'ious 1I0lr candidates as Rififi, 130/1 Ie Flamli('//r (both Il)5S), Llll 10 llie S({J(liJld (I<)'=;7) and the later La Eal,IIl({' and the flashy Dim (both I<)8 I) are listed Godard's Jl'ec/.:clld (I9 6 7) and Robert Bresson's L'_ -lrgelll (1983), Another of Buss's selections, Robert Bresson's Pic/.:pod:cl (HjS9), prO\'ided the model fl)r Paul Schrader's nco-nair Amerlcall G/j;olo (there arc also strong echoes of Bresson in Taxi Dril'cr). Examples such as this and the adaptations of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley noyels produced in the US (Tilt' Tlllelllcd _VIr Rlple)', 2000; Rlple)' 's Clime, 2003), France (Pleill 5'0Iell, Il)S9) and West Germany (Tlic _-ll/lcrJcall Friend, Iln7) are strong testimony to 1I01r's international appeal ,IS a mode for exploring themes of exploitation, \'iolence and transgressi\'e desire.
CASE STUDY: Ol 'I OF '1fff:' P 1,)''1 (JACQUES TOURNEUR, 194-7) Robert Ottoson (I l)X [: 132) speaks for man y in declaring (Jill 0(1 lie Pasl (UK title: Blllld iVIy Galloll's IIlgII) 'quite simplY the Ii(' pillS IIllr,1 of forties film 1I0ir', The film's cOl1\oluted plot of criminal intrigue, murder, fatal attraction and betrayal; its dense Yisuals, periodic narrati\c confusion, flashbacks and yoiceoyer narration; its iconographically apt pri\ate-eye protag;onist Jeff Markham/Bailey (Robert \litchum) complete \\ith belted trench coat, softhrimmed hat and permanently lit cigarette (Grist, IlJl)2: 20()) - anLl quintessential femme [!talc I-.:.athie 'tofCIt (Jane Greer) - cool, sn:ually confident, manipulatiye, untrust\\orthy and murderous; its melanchol~, Cltalistic tone of doomed nostal~:da and dO\lnbeat, amhiguous ending - all comprise, as Tom Flinn (lInT 38) puts it, 'a \critable motherlode of 1I0ir themes and stylisations'. (Jill 0(1111' PoSI's institutional and production contexts arc also archetypal 11011'. The film adapts a number of the economical but clll:cti\'e stylistic elements (particularly a structured alternation of high-key and lo\ykey lighting; to reinforce character and thematic relations) pre\ iously refined by director Jacques Tourneur in the \\ell-regarded horror films he made for RI-.:.O's 'B' production unit headed by \ ,Ii Le\\10n earlier in the l()..I.0s (Cat Pcoplc, 1l).f2; Till' 5'1'('('//111 Iidi/ll, I()..I.3). Tourneur also inherited cinematogr,lpher '\icholas \lusuraca hom the LC\\tol1 features: a specialist in 'mood lighting' (Spicer, 2002: 17), \lusuracl m,ltlc a major contribution to the IlIIir cycle, his other 1I0in including 7iJc SpJral SllIinasl' ([lJ+'=;), Tlie Lockcl (1<)+6), TIll' Hi)/J/{/II011 Pier 13 (1<)5°), Clash /J)' _\1/;11/ (1<)52) ,1Ild Tlte Bille Cardmia ([ (53). The screenplay \\,IS adapted hom his 0\\11 nO\cl b~ Daniel .\ bil1\\ aring
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Fronl QIII or Ihe Pasl/ lJlIlld ,1'I1' Calloll's lfigll (1l)~7)· Reproduced courtc y of ItKO/The Kohal Cllliccrioll.
230
FILM GE"'RE
As a private-eye film, 0111 III' lite Pasl is firmly located in one of the narrative paradigms most closely identified vvith the nllir world. However 0111 (~rlhe Pasl g'oes some way to reconfigure the private-eye narrative awa; from its classically 'haru-boiled' versions (such as Tlte Big Sleep) towards I1l1ir's more typically disoriented, self-destructive vision of masculinitv, For Krutnik (H)<) I: I 12), 0111 111'1 he Pasl undertakes 'a remarkable problematising of the Spaue-type priv'ate-eye hero' anu the narrative never finally or fully resecures Jeffs masculine identity in the patriarchal oruer he destabilises through his illicit relationship with Kathie. Whereas Bogart's impersonation of Spade and !vbrlow'e enacts alpha-male dominance, ,\litchum's Jeff Markham is characterised by a wilful passivity: having tracked Kathie down to Acapulco in his assignment to retrieve Whit's purloined S+o,ooo, Jeff surrcnders both his professional responsibilities and his individual will in a mood that Grist (1992: 207) aptly characterises as 'ardent abandonment' (of scruples and of self), silencing Kathie's protestations of innocence with the memorable line 'Baby, 1 don't care'. :\fter the couple flee to San Francisco, Jeffs \oiceO\er of his debased condition obsessin:ly insists on his careless abjection: 'I opened an of1ice , .. Cheap little rathole which suited the work I did, Shabby jobs for whatever hire. It was the bottom of the barrel, and 1 scrapeu it. But 1 didn't care, I had her.' Despite the emphatic last sentence, hO\vevcr, Kathie, is an elusiye signifier who will not be 'had', or possessed (unlike Jeff, vvho will be 'had' in the other sense of the term - duped, conned); her narrative function, like so many noir women, is to illustrate the fugitive, LlI1tasy nature of desire itself. \loreover, and characteristically for male Jlllir protag'onists, Jeffs own morality, though shaky, is more resilient than he professes: \yhen he finally discO\ers that Kathie has actually stolen Whit's money, he is disenchanted and repelled. Jeff suffers the !III/I' nule's repcated double bind: affecting a cynicd, vvorldweary L1I11iliarity with the \vays of the vvorld, he nonctheless remains prey to insistent romantic LlI1tasy constructions vvhose inevitable disenchantment leaves him disempO\\ ered anu directionless. The narrational and snual disempowerment of the masculine ideal represented by the 'hard-boiled' private eye in (Jill IIrlhe Pasl confirms that the variously inept, inadequate and/or impotent 'private dicks' of [(nOS Jlllir arc less namples of ag;gressi\e genre revisionism in thc f:lshion of contemporaneous \\esterns, musicals and war films than intensifications of Jlllir's nisting tendencics to pJranoia and male pathos. As \bltby (I )()~+J H)l)2: (l7) obsenes, post\\ar JlOir is distinctive in its rcfusal of a place for 'the separate heroic figure, the embodiment of the .\mericlll individualist heroic tradition', either reintegrating its 'maladjusted' proLIgonists into normal society (Tlte Big CIII d.', I(H~) or, ,IS in (Jill IIrlhe Pasl, compelling a LIlal e.\piJtion of past guilt. Tn the later San Francisco scenes as Jeff undertakes his second assignment
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Ann responds. Ann's playful fusion of the places and the \\omen in Jeffs life not only re\'eals her to be more knowing than her homespun image would imply, but points up the ways in which fantasy relations and oppositions structure Jeffs experience of the social and the scxual alike: the O\crdeter_ mined opposition of the small-tO\\n ideal and the urban jungle mirrors that of l(athie and Ann as good and bad objects in Jeffs psychic economy. This exchange makes the end of the film all the more poig,·nant. \\'ith Jeff and Kathie dead, !\nn faces an implicit choice bet\\een staying - which means, in effect, quashing the curiosity and desire f(lr change that her attraction 10 Jeff bespoke - or lea\ing Bridgeport altogether, this time alone. Jeffs mute assistant confirms to her that Jeff \\as Ic.l\ing to\\n \\ith l(athie - a 'good lie' that frecs her from Jeff's memory and cnables hcr to return to her 1<mg'-time suitor Jim, Thus the film ends \\ith Jeffs posthumously successful recontainment of energies of female autonomy: haying \olunteered to enter Jeffs 110ir \\orld, ,\nn is restored to a stable location the daylight 'good girl' within the dichotomous masculine Cll1tasy structures her selfawareness had briefly threatened to puncture, Indeed, in a sense Jeff goes knowingly 10 his death precisc1~ to sccure this outcome. It is interesting therc!(lre to considcr \1 hether in a sense it is -\nn, rather than Kathie, \\ho is Ihe film's femme E1Iale: her 'thre,lt' consisting precisely in hcr /1111 consenting (unlike Kalhie or \leta) to be constructcd purel\ on and in the terms of lIlli, ElIllas~ unlil, that is, Jeffs 1in,11 reassert ion of patriarchal authority, far more successful in death than he had been in life (the bst imag'e of the film is Jeff Baile\'s name atop his garage),
0JOTES I, SlT thc l'''lltCl11p''LlrI rCliclI' ;md C"JIS c"llectcd ill SiilLT .md L r,illi (1(I,jI,), , S" l,;tlled hCCJu,c thc 111;I:';Jzilll" 1!1;1I 'I'cci.tli'l'll ill 11ilrd-h"i1l'l1 l11.lILTiJI 11Ot.lhil IUiI(/: \/"'/ IILTC IHlhli,hcd "Il ChCIlP IIIHlll-l'lilp pl!JllT, J, l.illlLJ \\ i1IUI11' (II)~'~), hOlIl'ILT, l'.IUtl"Il' J:';IllIht (()" 1.llilc ;m idclllilie.ltI<m "I \li1drcd Jl1d thc l'!CJI1LT', '1rl'"ill:'; thill Ilwir dilTLTCll1 l'l.l" 1',,,iti"Il,' CIlLlilcLJlI.tliI dilkrcill l"rIll, "I' piltri,trehJI 'llhjlTli"ll, -t' ,,,tc, h"IICILT, t11i1l Il"1'l1e ilild ChilUl11ct"l1\ (II).:;:;) li,t c\l'!udc' S,,/lI(1 SII'«I th"ugh Il"t, "ddil, it, e"l11l';lI1l"l1 111111 '/I", /I III!I,/Il /II III( II II/dll II , /'''1'« "I f,t! .md /)(111111'. ) Thl' C'ehilll:';l' i, LJu"lcd ;md di'l'l",cd III \l.tltlll (I J()'~-tl I,!,!~: :;11 ~) (l. \llh"ll:,;h SillLT ,md L r,illi (Iql)h) l,ilc ;1 ph"t":';L!J,h "I' J{"hert \Idrieh "Il the 'C'I "I 1\1« \1,- /)'-Ildh h"ldill~' il mI'l "I' Il"llle Jl1d ChiIUll1ct"ll\ (i Iq:;.:;I, II)~.;) PillIll/'ill/liI ,III 1'1111/ \ IIII' III/,n,,,ill, /' ,,,tc, h"lll'IlT, Ihllt J;ll11l'"m eill" ill1 c\.1ll1pk "I' p'I,tiehc,
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(ttAPTER 10
The Action Blockbuster
f all the genres discussed in this book, the action filmlaction blockbuster is at once the most contemporary, the most \isibly rele\ant to presenH.la~ Holly\\ood film-making, and also the least discussed and least \\ell-dc1ined. Lntil the publication of a recent anthology (Tasker, 200+), reL1ti\ eh little has been \Hitten about action film as a genre: the notable C\cept ions, the st ud ies by Tasker (J()03) and Jeff(lHls (I <)0+), f(lCUS specil1calh on construct ions of masculini t ~ in the hig;h-octane male act ion films of the I qXos and early H)<)OS, The contemporar~ blockbuster has become a "c1lOlarl~ f(lcUS e\en more recently, notably in \\\,Itt (1<)<)+), King (2000a), I lall (2002) and Stringer (2003). \\hereas 'LiskeI' and Jeffords focus on the ultra-I iolent, usually R-rated \ehicles f(lI' pumped-up stars such as Arnold Scll\\arzeneg'g'er, Syhester Stallone, Jean-Claude \<111 1),1I11111e and their like, the emphasis in the blockbuster studies is much more on institutional context and thc aesthetics of spectacle in special eflects-dri\en, large-scale SI.' and L1I1LIS~ films from Sial' 1101'S to T!le lAird IIrl!le RI/lgs. It ma~ seem therc1(lI'C that there is a basic incohcrence in the idea of the ',lliion blockbuster'. It is certainh the case th,1I neither of the t\\O terms i1ll {)h ed is as straightf(ll'\\
O
234
FILM
THE ACTION BLOCKBUSTER
GENRE
particular. Slarsizip Troopers (199X), for example, combines the teen film, the war/combat film, elements of the \Vestern and the SF monster moyie, while satirising all three. Nonetheless, in simple iconographic terms the action blockbuster does have some reliable constants, most of which relate to the spectacular action sequences that are an immutable feature of the genre. Sky-high orange fireballs; vehicles and bodies pitching, often in slow motion, through plate-glass windows; characters diving and rolling across "Tecked interiors, either under the impact of rapidly fired bullets or to escape from them; automatic pistols and large-calibre pOl·table weaponry like grenade launchers; death-def~'ing stunts: these arc all immediately recognisable attributes of the action blockbuster. The structure of the action blockbuster punctuates intensc linear momentum -' plot eyents driyc the picture fonYanl, usually excluding the narrative space available for nplorations of character psychology or relationships or reducing these elements to a series of terse exchanges - with spectacular passages of action, often prominently featuring special effects and/or stunt work that radically nceed the needs of the narratiye situation that giYes rise to them. Car chases - ,yhich in strict narratiye terms often deliH:r yery little - typif~ this structure. I Thus rather than the 'wcll-made' complex plot of the traditional thriller, the central narratiYe premise of an action film may come to seem lirrle more than a thin spine from "hich dangle essentially disconnected large-scale action episodes. '\ lack of interest in genuine complexity may hardly be nmel in Hollywood action and thriller cinema, but whereas, for example, Hitchcock used his famous '\1acGuffins' as a means to not only trademark 'Hitchcockian' set-piece sequences, but the exploration of emotional and psychological relationships of dependency ,ll1d manipuLition, the contemporary action blockbuster seems largely uninterested in any plot clement except as a narrative ruse through which to deliyer nplosions, chases and gunfights, the bigg'er the better. The blockbuster typically opens with a largescale action sel]uCllce of the type that mig;ht hay e climaxed ,1 cbssic Holly,yood film: thus whereas FOI"l'/~~1I Correspolld'>/Il (19+°) concludes "ith ,I pLine crash, Fate/ O!l"( I<)97) opens Ilit h a high-intensity ch,lse seq uence im 011 ing a jet, numerou" police cars and a helicopter, at the end of IIhich the jet ploughs through the usual pLite-glass curtain wall into a hang;cr. Identifying the g'eneric "ynL1x of the action blockbuster is more difficult. Geoff I-.:.ing (2000a) has argued that frontier motifs are a submerged presence in action films; 1l)l)OS action films ofien centred on confusion" of idenrity and the self, which featured in face/Oil; Tolal Retail (1991), 1;raser (H)96) and Til,> LOllg Kiss Good/llglll (H)97) among others. But the bottom line of most action blockbusters is the decisi, e (usually yiolent) action taken against oyerwhelming odds by a 'malcrick' indilidual, most often unsupported b~ 01'
J
235
cycn in connict with establishment authority, to restore order threatened by ,I \;Irge-scale threat. The action hero, who may be paired with a more law,Ibiding or comention-respecting 'buddy' - the Lelltal Weapon series (from Il)XX) is the obyious example - is thus a ycrsion of the classic 'ourlaw hero' ,IS discussed by Robert Ray (1985: 59-(6). Opposition to authority, whether ,Irising out of principle (COli, -1/1', 1(97), wTongful conyiction (AIlnorlt)l Reporl, 2002), betrayal (Ral/l!Jo: Flrsl Blood Pari 11, 1985; Gladlalor, 2000) or simply personal style (flldepelldt'l/te Day, I<)96; ,-1rll/ageddoll, 199X) ensures that the action hero is denied recourse to the (dramatically uninteresting) proced ures of the justice system and must Llll back on inner resources: II huc,ls these are often - as with John Rambo and John "lcCLine (in the Die liard series, I<)XX, H)<)O, 1(95) - simply a giyen, at other times the hero's discOlcry of these capacities for yiolent action constitutes his narrati,-e 'arc': I()r example the initially desk-bound characters played by :'\icolas Cage and John Cu"ack in Tlte Rod,. ,md COil . iiI'. Some commentators haye discerned a degree of estrangement in the hyperbolic lisual style of contemporary action cinema and particularly in action sequences' distortion of normative tempor,llity and spatiality -' through the use of "lOll motion and multiple camera angles (effects that owe a great deal 10 the pioneering; action sequences of S,lm Peckinpah in Tlte Wild BUlld/) - and the fetishistic arrention both to the kinds of hanll'are that comentionall, signify wealth and (male) status (pmyerboats, sports cars, etc.) and to their literal dem,lterialisation (being spectacularly torched or blm,n apart). The knOll ing humour and wilful excessiyeness, ,yhether in deploying' ulrraI iolcncc or in prodig;ality of consumption, that typif~' rill: work of such Lhhionable action din:ctors as Paul \'eerhoeven, Quentin Tarantino and John \\ 00, lIould tend to support such claims. Howe,er, it is equally clear that most action films seem less intercstcd in activating their spectators in l]u'lsiBrcchtian fashion than in nploiting the unparalleled technical resources of eontempor,uy Hollywood simply to overwhelm any capacity for discngagement hI thc yiolent sensory assault of kinetic ,i"uals and multitLlCkcd sound dreus ;lnd music. Thc emergencc of the contemporary ,lctiol1 blockbuster as (in financial lerms ,11 least) Holly"ood's dominant gcnre since the mid-I()Xos is account,thle in terms of the '\n\ Holly"ood's o\yn transformation into a g;lobal cel1tre of conglomerate media actiyity. In fact, one could argue that the millennial (I()()OS and 2000S) action film is g;enerically characterised by its 1)\1 n repeated enactment at n'Cry leYel, hom n;lrrative to distrihution and m;lrkcting, of the same imperati' es of relentless market domination th,1£ typif\ modern corporate HollI,yood. Contemporary action spectacuL1rs ruthless" collmise traditional genrcs such as thc historical epic (Bnll'cltcarl, 1995; C/"dlillllr; TI"II)', 200+) and most often science fiction, and c1sually subordinate
2J6
FILM GENRE
such classically crucial elements as narrative and character to literally showstopping' special-cffects- and stunt-dri\en action sequences. These action sequcnces comprise the ,1ction film's principal selling-point and feature centrally in the saturation marketing campaigns that attend these films' release, and they typically employ a 'high-g.·loss' \isual style, drawing heavily on advertising and music video, invohing a markedly accelerated cutting rate (compared to Hollywood films of the I
·lfl"l((/'. ) Yet as ultra-modern - e\cn post modern . as in so man v \\,1\S the action hlockhuster o\niously is, it also manifests abiding' continuities \\ith ,md through the history of Holly\\ood genre. In its combination of \isual spectacle, sensational episodic storylines, performati\c ,1I1d presentational excess, and starkl~ simplified, personalised narrati\ es, the action blockbuster is umhilically linked to the tiHllldationalmelodramatic tradition of Holh\\ood tilm ..\It hough this chapter \\ ill focus on the institutional contexts, textual politics and issues of spectatorship informing critical reception of the ,lCtion film and the hlockhuster, in many \\JYs the genre em best he understood as the emphatic restoration to industrial pre-eminence of the orig'ilury mode of the :\merican cinema- it is in bet most protitable to regard it as 'action melodrama', a form that synthesises hoth the blood-and-t h under Jnd the domest ic/ pathetic melodramatic traditions.
TilE ACTIO'J BLOCKBUSTER
2J7
I'J YOUR FACE: THE RISE OF A POST-CLASSICAL GENRE
\lost ,1ceoulltS of the ;\'e\\ Holly\\ood identi(\ the period 1975-77 as a ~\,Itershed in the transition from the Ne\\ \Vave-ish 'Hollywood Renaissance' period to the popcorn era of the Il)Ros an~ since (see, for instance, Sch,~tz, 1."in" 200~) But neither the actIOn hIm nor the blockhuster matenalI 1)1) ",~.l'\.t'" • ise<\ out of]!Il!'s' deep blue sea in I
\ction and action-adv<:ntuf<: In one sense, of course, C\er~ motion pictUIT is an 'action' tilm. \lor<: to th<: point, a great many cLIssic Holh \\00l1 gTl1lTS notahly the \\ar film, Ih<: !.!.·'lllg·~t<:r film and the \\estern includ<: and ar<: in some llleasure defined by SITnes of \iolent 'Ietion. Thu.s the cont<:mporan US,IgT of the term 'action film' 10 deserihe tilms such a.s SiI"1I1~ PrI,'ille Rj'(/II (1I)1!7), Fald 0l! and Slilr.,I/lp Tl"IJlipas, all of \\hich could he and ,liT equ,Ill~ \\<:11 locat<:d \\ ilhin thl"~l" mor<: traditional g'<:nnic traditions, confirms the Glt<:gor~ is an C\pansin: Olll". This <:x\xlIlsi\cness in turn might refket the increasingly mlltable natur<: of ~enre idelltities in contemporar~ I lol1~ \\oOl!. \ loosdy definl'll categ'or~ oj"action-a
238
FILM GENRE
examples of what John Eisele (2002) has recently called 'the Holhwood Eastern' (The Lost Patrol, 193-1-; Bca 1/ Ccste, H)39), ;nd Hitchcockian thrillers of espionage and international intrigue (Foreigll Corrcspondmt, 19-1-0: Sorth by Northl7'est, 1(59). The popularity of long-running characters like Edgar Ri~e Burroughs's jungle aristocrat Tarzan (impersonated by se\eral actors in at least -1-0 features and serials from I9IH to the late I960s) indicates the genre's strong appeal to a ju\enile male audience. As such examples indicate, actionadventure often imohed a significant displacement from contemporary American life, into exotic, far-flung locales like colonial :UricI or th~ 'mysterious Orient' and/or the historical past (the picturesque Re\olutionary and Napoleonic eras \\ere especially fa\oured), \\ith a strong scenic emphasis. Taves (1993) points out that this touristic quality necessarily implicates the genre in recognisably imperialist tropes, albeit in some \\ays qualified by the emphasis on freedom-fighting amI the restitution of injustices (fi)r example in the numerous \ersions of the Zorn) story). A.ction-ad\cnture films tended to flaunt high production \alues, \\cre likely candidates in due course for colour and widescreen treatment, and usually featured attracti\e, robust stars in relati\ely Iighl-hearted romantic and/ or quest narrati\-es. 2 Slar J1ars' debt to classic swashbucklers (as \\hen Luke \~lllits across the tlthomless core unit in the Death Star clasping' Princess I _eia in his arms) is ob\ious. Emphatically a Llmily genre, the action-ad\entlllT film has really neler g;one out of Llshion, although along;side other traditional large-scale genres it suffered from Hollywood's temporary shift: of attention in the early [(nOS to\\anls smallerscale, more characler-centred contempoLlry dramas. Bet\\een 1970 and 1975 only The Three .Hl/sA'I'let'l's (H)7J) could be clearly identified as an action.ld\enture in the traditional sense. Hm\e\er, the same season, Hn:;-76 perhaps sig;nificantly the year after the end of the \ittrum \\ar - that saw the emergencc of the ne\\" slyle of action blockbuster \\ith .lall's also saw something of a IC\ i\al in thl' traditional exotic/historical ad\ l'ntulT film \\ith such large-scale productions as The Hall 11/11! l1"ollld Be A.illg and 'lite l1"ind (/1/(1 Ihe I_ilill (both Hn:;).
Blockbusters The blockbustcr - massi \ely spl'CLlcular prod uctions concei \ cd and marketed on the grandest possibk scale - has fCltured importantly in _\merican, and world, film history for elen longer than thl' action-.ldn:nture film. D. \Y. Griffith's epochal Ci\il War melodrama Hirlh oj" a _\alilill (Il)I:;), \Ihose release .rccording to stand.lrd histories of film marks both the culmin.rting moment Df cinema's formatiH decades .lml the crystallisation of \1 hat \\ould become the classical HoIlY\IOOll st\ 1e, \Ias not only the lDngcst, largest and most npensi\e _-\mericlIl film to d.ltl'; it I\as alsD the dl,
THE ACTlO"i BLOCKBUSTER
239
ticket prices for its premiere engagement fixed at the unheard-of sum of $1) .IIld the most profitable, \\ith domestic box-office re\enues estimated at $3 million. Subsequently, physical scale, stars, cost and length would all mark out the blockbuster. Griffith himself \\as responding to the enormous success on t he liS market of recent antiquarian Italian epics such as Cahir/a (19 I3) .llld QIIO l-adis? (19 q) and effecti\e1y 'American ising' the mode after his own pI"C\ious film in the Italian style,]/h/ilh oj"Belhlllio (I9q) (see Bowser, H)90). \\ith his nest production, IllllileulI/u' (1917), Griffith aimed even higher, recreating Biblical Babylon on a scale of stupe(\ing Ia\ishness; however, llIlli/cralice's ambitious attempt to esplore an abstract concept in a set of intcrlinked scenarios sp.mning centuries pro\ed Ell' less popular with audiences th.ln Birlh oj" a Salllill's simple (and relctionary) family saga. A nascent Holly\\ood deri\ed t\\in lessons from Griffith's experiences: that the blockbuster's massi\e earnings potential \\"as matched by colossal risks; and that to minimise those risks as tlr as possible simplicity of conception, Llmiliarity of subject matter and emphasising action mcr reflection were a more promising rl'cipe than philosophical speculation to appeal to a di\erse mass public. Thus the Llilure of IlIllilculIlC( confirmed that the preferred mode of subsl'Ljul'nt blockbusters \\ould be, and continues to be, melodramatic. Prior to the Second \YorlLl War, in Llct, ultra-high-budg'et spectacle films J...nm\n as 'superspecials' - featured only intermittently on the major studios' production schedules, \yhich \\ere mainly geared to offset risk through massproducing a di\erse slate of releasl's to all market sectors in a steady stream ~ ear-round, rather than emphasising one production at the expense of all the othLTs; the best-kl1(mn pre\\ar 'superspecial', the hug'ely successful GUIIC 11 lilt Iltc Utlld (19.19), \\as produced independently hy Dayid O. Selznick, and \\ .IS onl' of only three pictures released by Selznick International Pictures that \ear..1 \s .'\eale (zoo,r -I-S-50) outlines, it \\as the film industry's changing; post \\ ar fortunes that propelled large-scale prod uctions back to the fi)re, as thl' majors radically reshaped their operations in the early H)50S in the [Ice or shrinking' audiences and the loss of their e:xhibition arms. In an era when occlsional, rather than routine, mO\-ing-going \\as becoming' the norm, highprofile one-of-a-kind 'specials' seemed a good \\ay to dra\\ this increasingly sl'kcti\e public into theatres. :herage budgcts increased markedly during the [l):;OS as blockbusters took on increasing importance, both in defining; a studio's public profile and in its annual .lccounts. This period according;ly Sa\\ the return of the prmerbial 'cast of thousands' in remakl's of silent-era Biblical .md Roman epics such .IS Tltc TCII COIIl/lli/lldlllcr/ts (19:;6), QIIO Vi/dis? (1l):;I) and BCI/-HI/r (19:;9) alongside ne\Y!y minted peplum behemoths like nlc Ro!Jc (H):;3) and Cleopalra (1963) and globe-trotting costume capers like Jrlil/I/d tlte 11"IIr/d ill Eigltt) , Days (19:;9), their spectacular aspects further
240
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enhanced by colour and the new widescreen f(lrmats (see below). True to Hollywood traditions, postwar blockbusters relied heavily not merely on scale - crowds of milling extras and enormous sets - but on their deployment in dynamic action sequences invohing daring stunt work: among the most celebrated were the chariot race at the Circus Maximus in Ben-Hllr and the enormous battle scenes in Spa rtaclis (1960). Blockbusters showcased the leading male action stars of the time, such as Victor Mature (Samson and Delilah, 1949; DcmetrillS ilnd tlie Gladiators, 195-t), Charlton Heston (The Ten Commandments, Bt'n-Hllr, EI Cid, 196 I) and kirk Douglas (The VI/.:ings, 1959; Spartacus). Visual and photographic effects also sometimes played a part, notably in the parting of the Red Sea in The Tell COIIl/na ndlllClits. Yet in general these films were stylistically quite unlike today's breathlessly kinetic action spectacles. On the contrary, their gTandiose physical scale tended to lend narrative and staging a ponderous quality while dialogue in search of classical gril7'itas too often came out sounding leaden and stilted - qualities that in its own time also c1e~lrly separated the epic blockbuster from the faster-moving, quicker-witted action-adventure film. Some of these difficulties were related to the problem of satisfactorily integrating' narrati\c and spectacle, discussed below. An important bridge to the contemporary action blockbuster was the disaster cycle of the early 1970s, particularly Invin Allen's big-budget productions The PoseidoJl "~ihe/ltlire (1971), Eartllljllilke (H)7-t) and The TOIPering In/i'rl1o (1975, jointly financed by Warner Bros. and Cniversal, then a highly unusual move+ that would become more common in the 1990S era of the $100+ million picture, for example Tilallii, J()97). Clearly, aspects of these films - for instance, the emphasis on costly \'isual effects, large-scale action sequences, simple narrative premises and novel technologies like Sensurround (used for Eartllljllake and Rollerroaslcr, 1976) foreshadow aspects of the contemporary blockbuster. Ho\vever, their general st~ listic conservatism, including a reliance on all-star casts studded with Old Hollywood faces (Ava Gardner, Shelley Winters, Fred .\staire, William Holden) rooted them recognisably in the old-style blockbuster culture of the J()50S and early 1960s. Thus the successful alloying of the action-adventure film and the blockbuster was by no means predictable. :\nd in Llet, neither.la II'S nor Sia r 11 itrs, the two enormously successful films usually credited with transforming "Jew Hollywood ~lesthetics and economics, in themsehes typified the action blockbuster th.u would achieve such unprecedented industrial centrality in Hollywood in the 19Ros and since. Rather, the most important elements from each - elements themselves artfullv synthesised and refined from current trends - \vould subsequently be distilled into the new action blockbuster. ]illI'S, as has often been noted, bears affinities to the dis~lster film as \vell as other mid-H)7os genres such as the conspiracy film (in its portrayal of the
1',
..LI.l
~Ittempts of .\mity's petty bourgeois elite to suppress news of the rogue shark
in their own economic interests), \vhile also foreshadowing the later stalkand-sLIsh horror pictures . .\clore character-centred than most of its successors, 7<1l1's built up a relentless momentum in its s.ec~m~ hal.f that \~·.oul.d be much 'imitated . .lillI'S' presciencc consisted above all m Its Ic011lcally eftectl\e marketin~ campaign mastlTminded by -'le\ president Le\v Wasserman - the t~l1~lOUS poster image of the gigantic phallic shark nosing its \vay towards the n,lked female swimmer; pioneering high-impact TV spot ads; the avalanche (If pre-publicity centring on the film's troubled production and the travails of its principal special effect, thc mechanical shark 'Bruce'; its 'wide' opening (i.c. simultaneously in several hundred theatres natiol1\vide rather than in selectcd prestige theatres on the East and \Vest coasts) and summer release; its runa\\ ay success - quickly becoming the highest-grossing film of all time to datc - transforming a traditionally minor season into the fulcrum of Hollywood's fiscal year (see Gomery, ZOOT 7Z-6). 7i1I1'S at least was recognisably a blockbuster production, based on a bestse!'ling nO\el, its eventual negative cost substantially exceeding its already considerable budget. Slar liars, by contrast, although it too overran its original budget (largely because of R&D costs associated with its innovative special effects techniques), \vas not an especially expensive film; it was also a considerably darker horse and initiallv regarded with confusion and little , optimism by its distributor Twentieth Century-Fox. Compared to]aII'S, Slar 11 ,Irs represents a much more decisive stylistic break with mainstream J<)7os 110llywood. "ot only did it revive a genre - the action space Lmtasy .. barely seen since the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers seri.ds of the 1930S; as Peter "Luller (zo0-t) notes, George J ,ucas targeted his film firmly at a juvenile (adolescent and younger) audience, at this stage an almost imisible market sector barely catered to by Disney's low-budget live-action Llmily comcdies and ignored by the studios, who since the success of Tlte Grad/lale, Bun/lie
'
242
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the latter), episodic, thrilling and spectacular, SII/r l~itrs in fact drilled down past the superficial realism of classic Hollywood's prnailing regimes of verisimilitude to retrieve something' like a distilled essence of Holly\\ood's foundational melodramatic mode.
,
TRADITIONS OF SPECTACLE
Where SII/r Wars could indeed he credited \\ith an innO\ati\e generic synthesis was in its inauguration of a ne\\ regime of \isual pleasure in which action Is spectacle and vice versa. The nO\-elty of this action-spectacle alliance arises from the ways it conjoins narrative and spectacle. Spectacular elements have often been understood as lending to narratiye redundancy or even interfering with narratiye inlegration, interrupting the flO\\ of the story by encouraging spectators to contemplate the technical achievement of a spectacular sequence - scenery, production design, special effects and the like - at the expense of empathetic imolyement in the characters and the unfolding plot. The clumsiness of 19)OS epics has been cited as an e.xample of the way that the need to gi\c maximum exposure to spectacular production values is at odds with the creation of a compelling narrative, as longer shot lengths resulted both from the visual density of the panoramic images amI (at least in the early years of widescreen processes) uncertainty O\er the correct handling of the horizon LIlly extended frame. !\loreO\er, whereas the best-known accounts of classicll Hollywood cinema stress the centrality of narrative, .spectacle as a stylistic dominant is associated \\ith the pre-classical cinema. The post-classicll action/spectacle cinema has been interpreted in some quarters as a return of sorts to the 'cinema of attractions" in Tom Gunning's influential conception the organising principles of what used to be called 'primitiye' (nO\\ more usually 'early') cinema. In a series of essays, Gunning (1990, 1(9)) identifies in early (pre-ll)lS) silent cinema an oq;anisational principle radically different fi-om the linear, character-centred narratiyes that came to predominate with the ad\cnt of the feature film. Early cinema relied rather, Gunning argues, on an 'aesthetic of 'lstonishment'. Films of this period did not solicit audiences' em pathetic identification \\ith psychologically motiyated and developed characters, nor their immersion in a complex plot animated by the interactions of these ch,Ir
I
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THE ACTION BLOCKBUSTER
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\audeyille 'turns" and prior to the development of purpose-huilt cinemas in fixed locations films were often yiewed as touring exhibitions in portahle ,luditoriums, sometimes eyen actually as lurt of travelling fairs; short films themselY-es might comprise merely one element, or 'turn', in a variety bill ,llternating with stage acts and musical numbers. Although the silent cinema nl0\cd to\\ards more extended and complex narratives to retain its audience once the ne\\ medium's nO\clty faded, the principle of the marvellous renuined central, and early narratives remained highly reliant on spectacle, \I hether understood as scenic effects, exciting action sequences or increasinglY elahorate special effects sequences like the eruption of Mount Etna at the opening of Cablrla. The hugely inf1uential account hy Bord\\e1I, Staiger and Thompson (J()S~) asserts that the spectacular effects of early cinema, with their tendency to o\crwhclm or stall the unfolding story, and the ensuing distanciation of the audience, \\ere suppressed in the classical style in Enour of linear n,lIT,lti\cs centred on psychologically motiyated, goal-oriented characters. As \\c ha\c seen, hO\\ever, the dominance of narrative \yas hound up with film industry structures and economics, and the postwar need to recapture shrinking audiences and - not least - to challenge the impact of tcleyision led to a hc
244
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FII.M (jENRE
1991; ]/I/'(/ssic Pilrl.:, 1(93) or Thc /vlillrix's (1999) 'bullet time', Comersely even very early cinema \vas not devoid of narrative interest; it simpi; presented very basic (by comparison \vith classical narratives) narrative material in uncomplicated \\ays, Cinerama certainly departed radically from classical practices, but the 1950S historical epics - although we h~l\e already noted their difficulties in successfully integrating narrative and spectacle _ deployed spectacle in more conventional ways, The question of spectacle is closcly related to that of visual pleasure and stylistic 'e:-.:cess' generally, and as we have seen such 'excessive' elements form an important part of the appeal of genres such as the musical ,- \vhose alternation of 'straig'ht' dramatic passages with spectacular 'numbers' offers one paradigm for the blockbuster's alternation of scenes of f:1Il1ilial or romantic intimacy \\ith large-scale action sequences - and of course melodrama, the action film's domin~l11t mode. Perhaps all the same Slilr Wars (1977) docs mark an evolutionary turning_ point for the Holly\\ood film, away from the more reflective mood of the earlier I (J7os (which in any event by the end of the decade \\as giving way to large-scale, ultra-high-budget 'auteur blockbusters' like .\'1'11' } '111'1.:, New Yllrle (H)77), ,lpllm/J'psc NIIII' (HJ79), j(J.!-/ (1979), and llcl/'i'clI'S Gilli' (1980), all with a notably spectacular Jimension) to\\ards action-driven 'popcorn movies'. However, the e:-.:tent to \\hich this shift imolved a transformation of classical narrative style, e\en a rnersion to a kind of 'cinema of attractions', is much more contentious..\ f~l\ourite retCrence point in this debate is Star J;Vars' f~lIllOUS opening shot the vast, seemingly endless bulk of the massive Imperial cruiser gTinding overhead into the starfield, its oppressive \\eight bearing on the audience, Jiminishing' us and crushing' us back into our seats. In narrative terms, this shot quite eftCcti\"Cly emblematises the brutal, authoritarian tyranny of the Galactic Empire. Yet audiences in the main appear not to have responded to the cruiser's oppressi\ e occupation of the frame with fear or horror; rather, the sheer scale of the imag:e appears to have elicited a widespread sense of exhihlrated ~l\\e the first .'\e\\ Hollywood example of the 'WO\\ f:lCtor' that would become such an important and fi'equently mobilised aspect of the dnelopmtnt of the blockbuster (more recently a central element of such meg'a-hits as Ti/il/llc (Il)(n) and Tltc Lord 0(11/1' Rillgs (2001 3)). This 'WO\\' response - often setn as a 'dumbed-down' vtrsion of the Jiminution and liminality of the self expressed in Romantic theories of the Sublime - has led to charges that the blockbuster tllcourages the sptctator to relinquish the adult capacity for critical discrimination in Ll\ our of an undiscriminating: rapture. The director most strongly associ~lted with this rapturous regression is Steven Spielberg, some of whose films - not~lbly Close J:'/lili/l/lll'rs IIrll/t' Tltirtf A'illt! (an7) v~dorise a pre-adolescent fixation on '\nmderment' at the expense of such inessenti~d and umvclcome complications
245
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I I
J
of ~Idult life as parenthood, sexual Im'e, professional work, etc. A muchdiscussed sequence early in ]urilssic Pill'/'" (1993) when the dinosaurs are for the first time rnealed in all their CGI wonder to both characters and ~luJicnct seems to offer the viewer a virtual primer on the 'correct' way to look at such man cis. The dinosaurs' initial appearance is bracketed by a montage of close-ups of the various characters gawping' in astonishment, but quite clearly not all looks are equally validated by the film: the unaffected re~lctions of .\lan Grant and Ellie Sattler, the central couple, in which initial shock is transformed into amazed delight, is contrasted to the frankly .1\ ~Iricious gaze of the shady lawyer Gennaro ('we are going to make so much money!'), The cynical yet likeable theoretical mathematician Ian Malcolm is a more complex proposition, yet the transformation of his initial hostility ('the crazy fools.,. they actually did it!') into pleasure, as a reluctant grin crceps across his bce, can be seen as a redemptive triumph of innocent awe O\er \\orld-\\eary over-sophistication: unlike the greedy lawyer, who will in short order become the dysfunctional theme park's first btality, Malcolm \\ ill sunivt the forthcoming ordeal. Finally there is John Hammond, the genially cntreprenturi~d sire of the \\hole n~nture, whose ringing delivery of the line '\\elcome .,. to ]urilssic Parle" - addressed ostensibly to the other characters, but Jehered frontally, direct to camera and thus effectively to the ~ludience segues into the film's first 'money shot', a large-scale extreme longshot scenic tableau of herds of dinosaurs teeming' across the island, held for several seconds to all(l\\ the spectator's eyes to scan the image (this shot drew spontaneous applause from ~llIdiences at the film's premiere engag·ements). .\ scene such as this \\ould seem to support the charge that the contempOLlry blockbuster privileges spectacle over narrative, Quite clearly, the selfconsciolls 'presentational' mode ('\Velcome to Jurassic Park!'), the length of the sequence in general ~md the prolongation of the climactic special-effects shot in particular, and the redunJant emphasis on the gaping amazement of all the characters, one by one, is excessive to simple narrative purpose; indeed, it effectively suspends narrative progTess, albeit only briefly, in order to emphasise the spectacular visual eftCcts (in the no\el, the \,isitors' realisation of the nature of HammonJ's project is triggered in a much more understated \vay). Clearly, too, the sequence is constructed this \vay as so to speak a textual acknowledgement that a large part of]/ll'iIssic Parle's 'dra\\" is precisely the grounJ-breaking combination of aninutronics and then-novel C(; I technology to create cOl1\incingl~ photorealistic (or, in Pierson's (2002) l1lore precise usage, photosimubti\c) Jinosaurs. Permitting or actually t:ncourag'ing' spectatorial scrutiny of these visual effects - f()r instance, by ~etting them 'on Jisplay' in a prolongeJ unbroken shot, as here -- asserts the Jill11-m~lkers' confidence in the illusionistic viability of their creations (thus nlarking a significant development in CGI's mimetic utility). Something'
246
FILM GENRE
much more complex than the usual 'suspension of disbelief is going on here: rather, a consciously disbelic('i/lg spectator is in rited to assess, dispassionately, the technical achierement and measure it against both their expectations and against criteria of 'Iifelikeness'. Jllrassi£' Pilrl: asks us, in short, if \\e can see the join and if we cannot asks us to celebrate the artistry inrohed. Ha\ing Hammond 'present' Jurassic Park/Jlll"iIssil ParI: does not elide the difference betwcen the diegetic and the computerised and pro-filmic recreation of dinosaurs (through recombinant DNA and the combined efforts of Industrial Light and Magic and Stan Winston, respectirely), it adrertises it. However, it does not 1'0110\\ from the presence of such sequences centred on spectacular display - and other examples are not hard to find - that narratire has been simply displaced by spectacle in contemporary blockbusters. On the contrary, as Geoff King (2000a, 2000b) has argued, narrative remains not merely a 'carrier' for spectacle but integral to its signification. ]lImssll Pild· has been frequently cited as a film with only a nugatory interest in narratire and characterisation; and certainly, fe\\ audience members were drawn to theatres by the compelling dramatic interest of :\lan Grant's cOlwersion to liking kids. Yet follo\ring the scene discussed abore, the remaining major effects scenes an: ~dl fully integrated into a thrilling and suspenseful narratire. Eren if the human characters are stereotypical and one-dimensional and it is the CGI dinosaurs \\'e 'really' \r~lIlt to see, the dinosaurs themselres - especially, of course, the \illainous relociraptors- are narratirised and rendered dynamic by their riolent interaction \rith the humans. Indeed, it mig'ht be argued that the inhumanity of the film's antagonists partly compensates for, C\cn if it doesn't excuse, the thinness of the characterisations gi\cn a straight choice bet\\'een humans and reptiles we hare no difliculty deciding who to root for (\rith the exception of the sleazy computer h~lCker Nedry). In a sense, this starkest possible - speciesbased - oppositional structun: mig'ht be seen as a kind ofrcdlluill ild illlsllrdum of melodrama's habitually polar narrati\e and moral schemas. There is in fact no such thing as 'pure' spectacle outside of the world of L\I:\.\. films at museums and amusement parks (and possibly not nen there: see King, 2000b). Claims that contemporary action blockbusters hare 'dispensed \rith' narratire usually re\cal themsehes as judg;ements on the I:illds and !Jllillil)! of narrati\c sophistication and satisfaction offered b~ such films - that IS, on their perceired inadequacy.
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looked to the blood-and-thunder tradition of the 'ten-twenty-thirty' cent the~ltre, the nickelodeon and the silent serials: Slilr frllrs and the Lucas/ Spielberg collaboration Rllidas III' l lic LlIsl . ·}rl: (19k I) established an alliance bd\\cen action-achenture and the fantastic that persisted into the 1990S and be\(lIld (Slllrglllc! I 99.j.; Thc .HIIIII/li)!, [9(9). Rlliders and its sequels (19k.j., I()S!)) self-consciously rC\i\cd perhaps the action-adrenture film's most paradigmatic form, the exotic quest narratire, and this traditionalist genre I1lodel \ras adopted by rarious imitators including ROII/II/Ii'illg 11((' SlllllC ([9k.j.), !Ji" hllllMc ill Lillic CII/IIII (J()kl» and Islall r ( [9k7). The reappearance of the " ~Irch-imperialist Yictorian ~Ichcnturer :\Ilan Q.uatermain in two I
]11111'.1'
illid lhc Tell/pie II(DIIIIII/).
.\ leall\\hilc, a second strain translated melodramatic traditions of orcrwrought emotion and pathos into a nord, parodically masculine action \ crn~lcular through a distinct sub-genre of 'hard' action films th,1I emergnl into prominence during the 19kos \rith the success of Tllc TCl'lllllllllllr (19k.j.) and J)I( III/rd (198k). Taking their cue fi'om [(nOS urban rigilante ,1ml 'rogue cop' films like Th( Frclldl Cllllllerl ill II and J)irl)! HilOT (J(n I), J)uilh Wish (1(17.j.), Th( 1:\l(I'III1I1I1/lIr (19ko) and their sequels, these films translated the lonc m~de ~Ichenturer of the action-adrenture film into contemporary urban and \\arzone settings, courting an R rating; \\ ith extreme amI gT~lphic rioknce. \\hereas the action-bnLlsy cycle solicited a pre-Oedipal \ronder, the 'hard' action films expanded ]illl'S' emphasis on a re,lsserted masculinity and male bonding (in the film's staging of the confront0s)
ACTION MELODRAMA In the wake OfJIIll'S and Slilr Wllrs, the 19kos ~lction film di\erg'CLI into two distinct strains, each clearly stamped in the melodramatic mode. The first
1
248
FILM liEN RE
(sec Ryan and Kellner, 1988: 217-.1-3; Britton, [()86; Traube, 1992: 28-66). The 1980s action hero mostly sun'i\ed in beleaguered isolation - perhaps aided by a sidekick, often a \\'Oman or a person of colom - intensified both by the seemingly impossible odds he faced and the endemic 11.1"S in .\merican social and political structures that critically impeded his heroic efforts. In an era when it became the established political wisdom that electoral success Was best achieved by running as an 'outsider', it is un surprising that Federal government agencies are often excoriated as incffecti\T or outright corrupt. Rambo's betrayal and abandonment by the craven C1.-\ man Crocker in Ralflho: Firsl Blood ParI I I (transparently intended as a re-enactment of the film's fantasy 'stab-in-the-back' account of the Yietnam War) is a paradigm_ atic example. Smugness and incompetence rather than treachery characterise the LAPD and the FBI in Die Hard, \\ hile political infighting and sclerotic hureaucracy imperil heroic US special forces in Clellr 1I11t! Preselll Danger (1994)· External enemies, however, remained the male action hero's principal antagonists. Reaganite action films like Ralllho: Flrsl Blood ParI I I and Rambo I II ([()89) as \\ell as the imasion Emtasies Red Da 11'11 (ll)84) and ltmlsioll USA (1985) vigorously exploited the rcne\\ed Cold War tensions and reim'ented the diabolical yet EHally unimaginative (compared with the improvisatory genius of his US adversary) SO\'iet enemy. With the transformation of the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev era and the rapid final collapse of Communism from 1989 to 1991, new villains emerged in the form of'international terrorists', usually associated \\ith the ne\\ly designated 'rogue states' that challeng:ed American heg:emony in the l\liddle East: Liby.m terrorists feature in Bile/.: 10 Ihe F/llllre (1985) and the Top G/l1I derivative IrOIl Eagle (1986); in Top G/l1I (1986) itself the na tionality of the enemy fighters is unstated bUI they arc clearly identified as Arabs. Generic Arab terrorists, first featured in Black S/llIday (1977), \\ere the antagonists in n'lIe Lies (1994) and The Siege (1998), hut Palriol Gallles (1992) and BlolI'lI .lll'a)' (1994) feature Irish Republican extremists (carefully dis.lssociated from the IRA in order not to offend sentimental Irish-American identification \\ith the Nationalist cause). The collapse of the SO\iet Lnion allowed for the imention of revanchist Stalinist diehards seeking: to restore Communism in The Package (1989),lir Force (Jlle (1997) and Tile SII/II or. ill Fears (2002). A Bosnian extremist maddened by the timorousness of CS policy during the Yug'oslay \\ar attempts to set off a portable nuclear device in l'\ew York in The Pmll'lIIaker (1997). Globetrotting hired assassins, their paymasters obscure, turned up in The Jacf.:al (1997) and Farc/O/F Extreme rightist groups also occasionally featured, either as home-grO\\n bscists (Die I larder or henchmen of the apartheid regime in South .\fricI (Lelilit! 11('apoll II). Karl Gruber, the Armani-dad master criminal of Die Hard, masquerades as
TIlE ACTION BLOCKBUSTER 249 ---------------------------------
I terrorist and demands the release of obscure political criminals whose ;l,lll1eS he has read in Tillie magazine as a cover for his straightforward heist operation. , . . The 1980s 'hard' action picture was dommated by such Immobile, Illuscubr action stars as Syh'ester Stallone and .'\rnold Sch\\'arzenegger, and the rather less prestigious Jean-Claude van Damme, Chuck Norris, Stephen SeJgJl and I)olph J.undgren, of \\hom a number began their careers as 1l1'1rtial arts practitioners (or of course bod~builders). That three of these sLlrs (Sch\\arzenegger, y.m Damme and Lundgren) were European-born and deli\ ered their lines in hea\ily accented English, tended to support the ar\.(uJ11ent that nuances of characterisation and motiyation were being largely si:lclined in fa\'()lIr of muscular action in \\hich the male bodies on disphly sccmcd as machine-tooled and gleamingly technological as the \\capomy and other hard\\are they deployed. Susan ]eff()rds (1994) argues that the 1980s S;lW the rise of a 'hard body' aesthetic as part of a conscious effort to rectify the perceived (literal, figurative and political) 'soft bodies' of the Carter \ears, a period \\hen (according' to :'\e\\ Right mythology) an emasculated '\l1lerica ElCed collapsing morale at home and eroding prestige abroad. IIer argumCl1t is apparently strikingly borne out by a no\e1ty in 1980s 'hard'
BRI.'\JGING IT ALL BACK HOl\IE Jeft()rds sees the representation of the masculine body in popular culture as ~l pi \'otal articulation of n~ltional self-identity and goes on to argue that jIJllo\\in()' the reactively. yiolent but successful reassert ion of male po\\er in the earh [980s, the later 1l)8os and [990S sa\\ a further modification of the ill1,lgc of the male action hero, undertaken from a resecured patriarchal ~
250
FILM GENRE
hegemony. During this period, 'hard bodies' like Sylwster Stallone saw their careers decline dramatic.tlly £i'om their mid-I<)80s peak, LKed \\ith the rise of less one-dimensional male stars like Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis, :\lichael Douglas, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson and :'\icolas Cage (more recent additions to this list might include John Cusack, the rejmenated John Tnn'olta, and the boyish Leonardo DiCaprio). The more f1exible personae of the new stars allowed them to dramatise the successful negotiation of male crisis rather than simple displays of military prowess. Marriage, the family and/or parenthood emerged as central preoccupations of the action theme during this period, in films as \aried as Die HI/rd, Temlli/{/lor 2: ]//dg/l/mt DI/Y, True Lies and FI/ce! Ofl"( 1<)<)7). The action stars of the I<)<)OS were also likely to alternate out-and-out action \ehicles \\ith domestically-centred melodramas like FI/II/I·Jllratiio// (1<)87), Regl/rdi//g J!mrJ' (1<)<)1) and t'j'es Tlide Shut (1<)<)9) that permitted a more extensi\ e elaboration of their stressed and embattled masculinitics. In a large number of films, 'female' melodramatic tropes of helplessness, sacrifice and emotion.d crisis transferred themselves wholesale onto their male protagonists. HowC\er, whereas in the domestic ami Llmily melodramas of the J()50S the stylistic excess through \\hich such pathologies f(Hmd symptomatic expression had of generic necessity been confined to /l/ise-m-S((://e and perf(lrmanCe, in the ne\\ action melodrama the massi\e o\'Crkill of the action se4uences themsel\es - as so often noted, often barely advancing the narrati\e but simply prO\iding opportunities for the repeated statement, on an e\er-Iarger scale, of the same antagonistic situation expresses the desire f(lr a transf()rmation and resolution of the intractable conflicts gcner.lted in the personal and bmilial contexts. (This complex, its melodramatic roots .1I1d its acting-out through the action genre, arc all subjected to excoriating satirical treatment in Fighl CIII/I, 1<)<)<).) The changcs in the action film during the I <)<)os may 'llso relate to its increasing industrial centrality. With the exception of Stallone, none of the 'hard bod\' 1<)80s male action stars - not e\en Sch\\arzeneg'ger until the \ery eml of the decade commanded the blockbuster budgets and associated marketing and release strategies associated \\ith the decade's SF-fantasy ad\entures. They did, ho\\(\cr, perform particularly strongly both in home \ideo and f(lreig'n markets. By the late J{)80s, these markets \\ere becoming increasingly important to Holly\\ood's profitability and action st.lrs accordingly became incre'lsingly central to studio production strategies. ,\t the same time, hO\\e\'Cr, the enlarged scale of productions featuring these action stars entailed some softening of the often brutal tenor of their earlier \ehicles, in pursuit of the \\ider audience enabled by a PG-13 rating. ,\s agents of this process, action \ehicles increasingly relied on humour, cartoon \iolcnce and the combat of depersonalised threats arising: from elemental natural forces rather than the macho LIce-off against criminal conspirators.
THE ACTIO:\[ BLOCKBUSTER
251
---------------------Thus, supported by the new digital technologies, the late 1990S saw a cycle of natund disaster mo\ies, including tornadoes in lIFistcr (1<)<)6), volcanoes in !JiI//IC's Pel/k and foltl///o (both H)97), asteroid or comet collisions in Jrll/l/gL'lidll/l and Deep I/l/pl/(1 (both 1(98), geophysical damage in The Core (2 00 3) and catastrophic climate c~ange in The !JI/Y .~/icr TO/l/orro11J (200{). 'rhe same technologies made possible the creation of the fantasy-ad\enture J.indscapcs of the three-part The Lord 4thI' Ri//gs (2001-3), the rein\ention of the J()50s-style SF monster picture in hulepe//d('//(e DI/Y (1996) and God:::.illl/ (1<)<)8), the reimagining of classical ci\ilisations in GII/dialor and Troy, and e\en the rC\i\al of the naval s\\ashbucklcr and the pirate film in IViaster al/d COl/I/I/lllliia and Pira I es IIrtltl' Cil nbbciI /I (both 2003). \Vhile male heroics are central to these films, sexual romance is mostly subordinated to the ongoing concern \\ith parenting. In the g,-reat majority of the SF-fantasy vehides, the \ Ianichean melodramatic model integral to Hollywood narrative from its c.lrliest period is some\\h.lt modified by either the impersonal or the inhuman nature of the threat, prou ucing in some cases a novel and almost abstract moral Lllldscape in \\hich moral qualities are not establisheu and tested relationally, as in historic melodramatic anu Hollywood practice, but simply prO\ided \\ itll a scries of blue-screen emironments in which to act themselves out.
BEYO:\'I) HOLLYWOOD
J
\s already noteu in this chapter, brge-scale productions, particularly those produced in Italy, pbyed an important part in the consolidation of the feal ure film \\orldwiue as the uominant form of narrati \'e cinema bd(lre and during the First \\orld War. In the LIte silent periou, well-capitalised European studios like LF.\ in Germany and Studios Rcunis in France periodically suppor!cd spectacuLIr productions such as ,\Idl'lipo!ls (Germany 1(27), res III.,crl/bles ([<)25-26) and La\Ien'cillc/lsc l'ie dc .JCII/IIIC d'. Irc (France I<)27). \lier the Second World \Var, hO\\C\er, the massi\ely reduced uimensions of Luropean film production as a "hole (and the virtual obliteration of the largest national film industry, Germany's) combined with soaring production costs in these henilv unionised industries to ensure that blockbuster productions \\ere a rare luxury. During the Cold \Var, only the state-run SO\ iet cinem,l consistently produced films that could be dasseu as blockhU<.,ters on the post\\ar Holly\\ood model (colour, widescreen, epic sweep 'li1d scale, etc.) \\ith enormous productions such as Trilr illlil Pel/((, (I<)6S-67) and major historical recreations of subjects from the Great Patriotic War (scc Ch,lpter 5). Recently, EL tax regimes ha\e createu a more [nourable climate lilr European co-production; ho\\ever, problems of lang'uage translation tend to mean that large-scale pan-European \entures are filmed either in English
252
THE ACTIO:-J BLOCKBUSTER 253 .---_------------------------------
FILM GENRE
(HllelllY ill Ihe Gilles, 2001) or in dual-language \ersions ('lOilll o("-1rc, 1999). The much laf[;cr domestic markets and burgeoning economies of East Asia and the Pacific Rim make supporting indigenous blockbusters more \iable , and Berry (2003) and Willis (2003) explore the economics and cultural meanings of the contemporarY. blockbuster in Korea and China and in India, respecti\e1y,
CASE STUDY: f) 10'1,' P IH PI C 1 (MIMI LEDER, I R M , I (; F f) f) OY (MICHAEL BAY, I 9 9 8 )
I
99 8 ) /
The release within two months of each other of two films \\ith all but identical narrati\e premises - the threat of global .mnihilation by collision with a comet (Deep Ill/pilei) or asteroid Clf111i1geddoll) - pro\Oked \\idespread and derisi\e comment about Holly\\ood's imaginati\T bankruptcy. In fact, the coincidence \\as not all that surprising, The subject itself \\as not new, haying been depicted in pre\'ious special-effects eras in 11l1Cl/ Worlds Collide (I<)5I) and Meleor (I<)Ho), and according to Bart (1999: qO-3) two other asteroid pictures concurrently in the planning stages had to be cancelled when news broke of Da \id Bn)\\ n's and Jerry Bruckheimer's ri\al productions. A principal moti\ation for all of these projects \\as the prmen market for cinematic de\astation on [he largTst possible scale follo\\ing the success of Volca/lo and Dallie 's Peal: (both I<)(J7) the pn.'\ious summer season and above all illdepClldl'llcc Day (I<)()(l) the year before that, These films might be seen as extending, with the aid of the nc\\ generation of CGI effects, the reach of the disaster films of the I(J7os, \\'hich bar Fill'/h1lllill..,C typically confined themseln.'s to local catastrophes in skyscrapers, mTrturned liners and so on. Literal end-of-the-\\ orld cinema (in J(im '" e\\man 's ( I<)<)9) phrase) rendered catastrophe global, not local (albeit the affecti\e dimension of \\orldwide apoGJlypse was, as \\T shall sec in both cases, to be realised C\:clusi\e1y through normati\e American subject positions), Thus asteroid collisions \\ere merely one olwious narrati\T carrier for the pro\Tn audience-getter of spectacular annihilation; I<)<)Ws other major summer release, (;od:::.illa (jokily alluded to in -1nllageddoll's opening sequence), pn)\'ided a different route to the same end. In hlCt, I<J9H sa\\ a third end-of-the-\\orld film, the Im\-budget Canadian independent film Lasl Nl:~/1! (not released in the CS until I<)<)(»), \\hose localised appruach to global e"tinction, alternating sardonic and poignant \ignettes ,lCross a small group of characters from different social and ethnic backgrounds as the clock remorselessly ticks dO\m to doomsday -- unspecified and indirectly represented but utterly unaHlidable - contrasts tellingly \\'ith the shO\\'-and-tell aesthetic, as \\'ell as the classic melodramatic tropes of selfsacrifice and last-minute rescue, that organise both HoIlY\\(JOd blockbusters.
From
/rJll'l~('ddlill (1<)<)1-\),
Rl'produl'l'd l'ounl'S\ of Touchstone/The k.obal Collel'tion,
-\s J(ing: (2000a: 16-1--70) notes, althoug'h the t\\O films arc bound tog'ether
1)\ their common promise - clearly stated in trailers and poster art- to deli\er
I
II
a\\c-inspiring spectacular \isions of disaster, they are significantly different in some important narrati\e and affccti\T respects. Produced by Dreamworks SJ((i, the studio set up in [9<)-1- by Ste\cn Spielberg', Jeffi'ey Katzenberg and Da\'id Geffen on the prospectus of making more 'thoughtful' and 'filmmaker-oriented' blockbusters than the existing majors, Deep ill/PilCI is mildly uncol1\Tntional in narrati\c slmclllrc - f(lllm\ing' an opening thirty minutes f()cusing: primarily on T\' reporter Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni) \\ith a second half-hour centred on a ne\\' group of characters, the team of astronauts tasked \\irh destroying the comet, and then shifting ag'ain to a multi-strand narrati\e dealing \\ith separate (and mutually unil1\ol\ed) gTOUpS of characters, including President Beck (.\lorgan Freeman) in the days bcf()re the comet impacts. I-IO\\e\er, its narrati\e iI[1'erl is noticeably more 'traditional' than its ri \ ai, building: suspense fi'om the asteroid's first sighting by an amateur ,Istronomer throug:h the lhl\\'ning public a\\'areness of the threat, and in the ,econd half relying strongly on \arious sources of pathos (a motif of family 'eparation, hO\\'e\'er, is common to all strands bar the President's) to personalise and intensif\ the literally global dimensions of the peril. There arc t \\ 0 main action/spectacle sequences in the film, strategically di \'ided het\\ een the half\\'ay point - \\hen the astronauts make their initial, unsuccessful ,lttempt to blm\' up the comet and the climactic sequence when a smaller POrtion of the comet strikes the East Coast of the CS_\ \\hile the larger, annihilating: impact is a\oided by the astronauts' sacrificial heroism.
From .'lmlllgeddllll (1998), Reproduced
courles~
of Touchstone/The Kobal Colkction.
254
FILM GENRE
,
Armageddo/l, by contrast, although more it has a more conyentionally·., unified narrative centring exclusiyely on 'mayerick' oilman Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), his team of 100eably asocial roughnecks and his daughter Grace (Liv Tyler) - indeed, despite the imminence of global apocalypse the 'world' is represented only by fleeting cutaways to anxious, and finally joyous, crowds of extras in various picturesque and readily placeable locations - in every other regard typifies the relentlessly assaultive, full-on mode of thc contemporary action blockbuster. The film opens with a tenminute effects sequence in which Manhattan is deyastated by multiple impacts from what we later learn are outriding fragments flung off the approaching asteroid (subsequent impacts allO\y the film to offer its other key markets the odd compliment of seeing their own urban ccntres - Paris, Shanghai - bombarded). Although a few stereotypical 'types' (street hustlers, jiving cab drivers) are sketched into the "'Ianhattan segment to lend it a minimal human dimension (the 'merseas' locations arc experienced almost wholly through architectural landmarks), nonc of them are chaL1cters in the narrative; the sequence, delivered in the high-intensity, kinetic style that typifies the entire film, clearly aims to impress or e\cn O\cnvhelm the spectator. The film then introduces its main characters, establishing the broadest of possible character notes (when first seen, l-Lury is terrorising a shipload of Greenpeace protestors - who can't spell 'polluter' - \vith golf drives off his rig; upon finding Grace in bed \vith his protege .\j (Ben Affleck), Harry stalks him around the rig \vith a loaded shotgun). Compared to Deep Impacl, which unfillds over a tot,ll of t\\O years (\vith the principal action taking place mcr eleyen months), both the pace and the time-frame of .irlf/ap,eddlill arc franticall~ compressed: the ,1pproaching asteroid is spotted just a scant fiJrtnight before it is scheduled to hit the earth. Much more than Deep [Illpacl, .imillgeddoll appears to typif~ the action blockbuster's subordination of character dnelopment and coherent plot to massive visual overkill. As h.ing (2000a: r (6) obsenes, non-stop spectacle is the rule for the entire last seventy-five minutes (the film's blockbuster dimensions include a running time of q4 minutes), \\ith incident and crisis piled upon one another, less accelerating than accumulating' in serial fashion (literally: the succession of cliffhanging ncar-disasters nokes the silent melodramatic serials discussed by Singer (200r): see Chapter 2). Eyen relatiyeJy routine narrative material aims at maximum impact: the gathering of Harry's team (who haye mysteriously managed, \\ith no ad\ance word or ,lpparent transportation, to disperse themsehcs across the continental Lnited States in the 24 hours or less since Harry's departure to '\.\SA) is staged ,lS a series of high-velocity chases and round-ups. Both films, howeyer, strikingly fi'ame the experience of g,-Iobal annihiLItion in terms of familial cont1icts and their resolution, thus confirming the action
THE ACTION BLOCKBUSTER
255
blockbuster as a mode of melourama. Deep IlIIpacl recalls Griffith in its use of children to generate both pathos and hope: jenny Lerner sacrifices her pl,ICe Oil the net.work helicopter to safety to a colleague a_nd her daug'~ter \\ hile she herself seeks out her estranged father to make a fmal peace before lhe tsunami obliterates them hoth; in a separate narrati\ e strand, parents h,Illd o\er their newborn child to their teenag-c daughter Sarah and her bo\friend Leo, who hy \irtue of Leo's ,11l-terrain motorbike can take the child to (symbolic;) higher ground and form part of the saving remnant that in the film's COd,I promises to build anew. (\lichael Tolkin, the film's coscreeIl\\Titer, l)J'e\iousl~ \\Tote ,md directed the unsettling Christian apoea\I ptic parable Tile Rapil//'(' (J()94),) Though superficially similar,lrlllageddo/l's tilCUS is different and less mcrtly moralistic: the principal conflict that is reso!\ ed in the film's climax is Harry's acceptance of Grace's relationship \\ it h .\J - but since there seems to have been no reason beyond generalised rncrse-Oulipal resentment for Harry to disapprmc their afhir in the first place, this is hardly a major issue (a subordinate plot strand detailing the reunion of a member of Harry's team \vith his estr,lng'cd \vife is simiLIrl~ i rrelc\ ant). Yet the pat hos surrounding f LIrry 's final martyrdom (he remains lin the ,IstlToid alone to detonate the nuclear charges manually) is considerably more hysterical than anything in [)ee/! IlIIpal!, with ,\j - filr \vhom H,I1Ty has s,lerifici,llly substituted himself - bello\\iIlg his Ime fill' his friend \vhile (Trace \\ eeps in \ lission Con trol. 1)iflerenn:s in the degTee and na t ure of the spectacle of disaster arc also telling. Both films emplm essentially the same n,I1T,Itive device to deliver to their audience both the promised thrill of ultra-Iarge-sede catastrophe and till' reassurance of a reLIti\ely upbeat ending: since global extinctionlthe destruction of the pLInet might be felt to he something of a d(l\Yner, each film SLltles till' impressi\e but fin,IlIy superficial obliteration of discrete portions lIrlhe pbnet's surface by meteorite fragments, \\hile successfully ,l\crting' the main threat. Deep IlIIpacl's climactic tsun,I111i is impressive yet restrained: het\\l'Cn the de,lth of Lerner p(;re 1'1 jille on "irg'inia 13each and Leo and Sarah's eseIpe up the mountainside, the destruction of the US Eastern seaboard is rendered in a sequence of eig'ht shots, nOlle less th,II1 t\\O seconds 1()1lg', depicting the destruction of "\e\\ York cit her in panoramic long-shot or in g'round-Inel mcdium shots. The tenor of the sequellce is ,IS restrained as it muld be, g'i'en the subject m,ltrer, \\hile the absencc of allY namcd or e\ en indi\ idu,llised characters lends the sequcncc a summary, slightly impersonal ILI\ our.
I
J
\s ,dready noted,'lrlllagnido/l gcts its terrestrial dcstruction in early, thus Irl'cing up the rcmaining n,HTati\e fill' thc imli\iuuJlistic heroics of Harry Stampcr's team. (.l""I{/.~<,Jllol/ is ,I significantly less 'official' narrati\ ethan /)(.,,/! III/p{/c/: ,dthough military and '\.\5.\ personnel are nominally in charg'e
FILM GENRE
of the rescue mission, the important drilling and demolition \\ork is s~lb~o~tra~ted to Harry's team - \\ho predictably chafe at the uptight military disCipline Imposed on them during the mission prep, and by contrast with "'lorgan Freeman's dignified President Beck in Deep Impllo the President is a noticeably less central and more ineffectual figure, \\ho comes under criticism for slashing the 'object collision' budget.) By placing tlie meteorite impacts earlier in the film, Harry's climactic selfsacrificc for the greater good (,I sentimental paternal sacrifice shared \\ith not only Deep IlI/plI(l but ~dso Illdi'pClldcll(e DIIY) is more central to the film's climax than the parallel (collecti\e) sacrifice of the astronaut team in Deep Impll(l indeed, Harry's death arguably supersedes the destruction of the asteroid and the sahation of the pLmet as the major affectiYe element at the climax of the film. The enormous CGl firestorm and shock\\a\c Harry sets off is accompanied by a mon tage of images of Grace, tracking both bacbyards to her childhood and f(Jr\\ards to the \\edding Harry \\ ill ne\cr sec, that renders Harry's death a cosmic epiphan~ transcending the limits of the narrati\c or eyen of human comprehension. Thus the ostensibly super-social - the sacrifice of the one f()r the many is reoriented to the supremely personal: it is as if ./m/II/!.eddoll, hay ing thro\yn e\cry effect bar the kitchen sink at the audience mcr the course of its 2 hr. 2+ min. running time, can concciYe of no more spectacular effect - no phenolllenon of more global or eyen cosmic sig'nificancc - than the death of its o\\n star.
NOTES I.
\ comparison of Ihl' cl'kbrarcd Ch'l'" ill 'Ih,'
(-'(1'111
II CIIIIII<'(//1l1I (I In I) (II hlch ulldlTlines
I'0Pl'\l' I)",k\ m.lllic obsl'ssion lIilh '~l'lIlng his n1;IIl', a compuisioll Ihlll lIill l'\l'nlualh ha\l' sl'll~dl'S1rucli\l' l'l)nSl'LJul'IlCl'S) Imd thl' c.lr chllsl' Ihrough San I:Lml'isco that fealUrl'S l'arh ill /II" Nlld (I I)I)!») .md has \ l'n lillie- lwarlllg o!' .Ill\ killd on thl' maill slol'\ linl' hut l'rO\ idl's thl' film II ilh thl' rl'LJuisill' up-frollt .Iction Sl'LJUl'ncl', helps cLlril\ Ihl' nO\c1 strlIl'lllrc or thl' Conll'mpOran blockbllstlT 2, Oil thl' historic.Ii IIl],,'IlIUrl' tilm, Sl'l' 'LI\l's (")IU).
.1, Thl' olhns IIlTl'IIII'!(' I;,( 1:'11,11 Olhl'l' and 11111'1'111<':.:11,
+,
\loli"ltl'd in Ihis casl' b\ cOlltractual rathlT
1111111
Genre: Breaking the Frame
his final chapter b.rieflY c~msiders 'no,n-canonicar genres, ques,tion:lble genres, or categorIes of fIlm not typIcally concel\cd as generIc. Lach 'genre' is discussed briefly. The intention in each case is less to argue fill' its illcorpOr,ltion into or exclusion from the 'canon' of genres, but to explore the ne\\ insig'hts or problems thnmn out by a speculatiye identification of these 1\ pes of film as genre films ,md ref1cct them hack onto more traditional classifications and approaches, These genres arc comnlOnly, though in different \\,I\S, 'scandalous' - that is, proposing them as genres to be discussed critic,III~ or in ,Icademic contexts alongside \,"esterns, gangstcr films and thc like poses difficulties arising from COll\ entional understandings or, or assumplil)!lS ,Ibout, theirlthe genre tnt's subjcct matter, style and social contnt(s). Such 'sclt1dalous' genres can hopefully hclp us to further our critical intern)~ation not only of st,mdard ~e111T categories - \\ hich ma\ prO\c to ha\c un~uspectL'(l affinities \\ith these uncoll\cntional neo- or crypto-genrcs- bu[ also of the practices and structures that underpin the system of film genre as a \\ hole. To reiterate the statement in the introduction to this section of the hook, these brief ,Ind in some \\ays specuLIti\e discussions arc intended to 'IHtr further resC
T
siricth fillllIlcilIi l'onsidl'LlIio!lS,
ll'lI11l'h thl' alm()st simult.llll'OllS pllhlic.ltiOIl or .llld Silk of lihll rights to III() 1l00cls,
lil/I'(,), and 'Ih" CI""" 1111<"1'1111, both pmlr,l\ lllg cllastrophic lirl's in st.Itl'-ol~lhl'-al't sk\ Sl'LlPlTS,
CIl\PTER I I
The
I: DOClT\lE]\;TARY The tr,lditional, literary, concept of genre clearl~ h,IS a place for documentar~ .lnt! non-fiction film - as distinct from fiction film (similar, and O\crlapping, Ltr!,!:e-scale generic L',ltegories \\(lllld includc hn'-aetioll and animated film). HUI as \\e kno\\, film genre theory has usually traded in llarrO\\er generic Cllegories and has sought to it!entif~ specific thematic and narrati\e
258
GENRE:
FILM GENRE
BREAKI~(i
TIlE FRAME
259
lliediation are most pO\\erfully ac"~mced, there can be clearly seen a conflicting dri\e towards con\entionalised narrati\'e, perfi)rnutiY<:' and e\en iconographic structures that can only be regarded as generic. This is in any c,lse to say nothing of the \isual and discursi\e styles associated with different documentary models that also constitute readily recognisable generic eltegories (direct-to-camera address by the film-maker, hand-held singleell1ler,1 set-ups, usc of ,1\'ailab1c light ,md Ii\e sound, to-camera interviews, thc inclusion of archi\c footage, etc.). In his most recent update of what has become a starting-point for much teaching of documentary history ~md theory, Nichols (199-1-: 95) posits a classical e\olutionary model of generic de\e!opment throug'h fi\e distinct and successi\c modal stages, with each stage seeking to remedy the shortcomings of its predecessor. Thc model starts with the E:xpository mode in the 1<)30S amI 1ll00CS through the ObserYational (1960s direct cinema and l/nClllil l·,T/It;); thc Interacti\e (which relics hCJ\ily on participant interviews and in which the spectator may also be compelled to interact with the tnt by acti\e1y engaging in the process of meaning construction, as in the purl' ,Irchi\e monLlge documentary Till' .i/OI/1I1 CI/P, Ilj83); the Refle:xi\e (where a selfconscious directorial style enables the act of representation itself to become althe object of documentary and spectatorial reflection, by fi)regrounding' either the film-maker's O\\n presence, and their encounters w'ith their subjects ,1S in \Iichacl .\loore's Roger IIIIdHc (1988) - or the process of meaning construction itself, fill' e:xample Errol \lorris' Till' TlIIII BII/I' LI/II', 1<)87); to the most recent, the Perfi)rmati\c (in which the subjecti\e dimension of documentar~'s 'classically objecti\e discourse' arc brought to the fi)re'). As \\ ith all such e\olutionan accounts (see Ch~lpter I), :'-Jichols's is open to the standanl criticisms of teleology, rigidity and ahistoricism: Bruzzi (2000: 2) points out that E:xpository documenLu'y's putatiye supersession accounls filr neither the ubiL)uity of 1urr~ltion-led documentary today nor, cOl1\ersely, the hi~hly reflni\e films of Dziga ,"erto\ ~111d Jean \'igo in the Il)20S. The principal concern of documentary theorists- Bruzzi points out that liI11l-1ll~1kers, e\en theoretically infilrmed ones, ha\e been much less nercised ahout it (and documentary-m~lkersare more likely to be criticall~ aware than many fiction film-makers) is the ine\iLlble gap between document,lry's .1pparent aspiLltions to capture rerlity in ~1l1 absolutely unl1lediated fim11, and the manifest mcdi,ltions introduced into the documentary arteElCt by, at ~1 hare minimum, shot selection and post-production, to say nothing of authorial \ ie\\ point ~111d the 'uncertainty principle' of the film-maker's necessar~ presence in the reality s/he proposes merely to record ..\ number of wellknown documentary theorists (for e:xamplc, Renoy, :\ichols) ,liT animated by poststrucruralist scepticism about such concepts as 'reality' and 'truth', or at least a comiction th,lt the only 'truths' to be fillll1d in the world arc plural
consistencies within indi \idual genres as part of the definitiona1 project. This book has followed this practice, while resening a larger category for 'modes', like melodrama, whose reach seems to encompass se\'eral indi\idual film genres, as historically and traditionally concei\ed. It is in this sense that documentary-as-genre becomes a scandalous concept. For inasmuch as (fiction) genres entail degTces and styles of 7:a/s//IIiI//ude _ that is, com'entionaIised, pro\isional and pragmatically partial l'as/llns of realit\, with limited (or, as with some musicals, horror and fantasY films , almost no) pretensions directly to transcribe real-world e:xperience - documentary is on the ElCe of it definiti\e1y anti-generic. .\s a discourse of the real, documentary abO\'e all relics on, and is judged by, an e:xplicit profession of encountering reality and being led by it, rather than shaping; reality into generically harmonious forms, as "lichael RenO\' summarises: ,
(T)he documentary is the cinematic idiom that most acti\ely promotes the illusion of immediacy insobr as it foreswears 'realism' in faY
J
1
1
1.. 1 ,
"I
2{)O
GE"JRE: BREAKING THE FRAME
FILM GENRE
261
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rather than singular; hy contrast, they tenu to characterise documentary_ makers as naive realists on an endless and chimerical quest for the unattain_ ahle goals of ahsolute immeuiacy anu umarnished truth. Digital technologies' expanding capacity to produce photo-simulativ'e fictions inuistinguishabl e fi'om 'the real thing' has only intensifieu such theorists' sense of the collapsing houndaries of truth and fiction and of the unsustainability of documentary's 'truth-claims'. Yet such theories often seem uneasily caught between the logical concl usion of their sceptical premises - that documentary ought simply to be considered as another form ofnarrative film, its ostensible facticity of no greater or lesser relev'aoce than the historici ty of the Western or SF film - and the recognition that documentar~' remains importantly committed - not least in the perceptions of its audience - to acting in and even upon the real in ways that fiction does not. In f~lct, very few documentarians - not just touay, but historically -- have in reality subscribed to the kinus of realist fundamentalism often ascrihed to them. (For that matter, neither diu such theorists of filmic realism as :\ndre Bazin and Sieg-fred kraelUer, sometimes charged vvith prO\iding the intellectual rationale for the 'nal\e realism' of documentary film. Their different positions relateu much more to the ethical anu political implications of the camera's encounter v\ith physical and social re~tlit~ as lrol/srribed - 1/01 simply transmitted by film.) Such accounts seem to identif\ the generic project of uocumentary as a vv hole vv ith the most unguarded claims made by the :\merican 'direct cinema' film-makers of the e.lrly I<)(ws such as Robert ))revv and Richaru Leacock (Pnll/uIT, I<)(lO; Cnsis, I<)(l3), D. A. Pennebaker (/)01/ 'I !,ool..' Hud', l<)(l.:;) anu ,\lbert and ))av id \la~ sles CHeet '\;Jarlol/ Brol/do, J()(lS; Sa lesll/a 1/, )()()(); Gill/II/e Slidla, [(no). Sometimes, certainly, inf1ameu by the nevvly available portable cameras and sound gear, direct cinema did seem to declare itself to ~ldopt Roland Barthes' phrase a 'degree zero' cinema, a medium of .Ibsolute transparency and communion v\ith the real. Yet the v\ork of the ;vlaysles Brothers, for cxample, instantly reveals direct cinema's huge debt to popular narrative forms. Sulesll/a1/, an observational documentar~ about four Bible salesmen in Florid.I, seems to imoke the pO\verful dramatic par,ldigm of the salesman as contemporar~ ,\mericao tragedy - the 'tragedy of the common man', in ,\rthur \Iiller's bmous ueseription of his celebrated pla~ /Jcalli o(a Sale.ll/lrlll (1<)+7) vvhile Gill/me Sllelia adopts horror film iconographies to render its depiction of the catastrophic I<)()() Rolling Stones concert at _\ltamont even more infernal. (Io fact, direct cinema's focus on specific kinds of subjects and personalities typically, puhlic figures like politicians (kennedy) or celebrities (Brando, the Beltles) v\hose o\v n 'performances' of realit~ structure the viev\ing cxperience - gencrically identifies .\merielI1 ,'cnlt; vvith recording;s of the public realm.)
,"or does the vv'ork of earlier film-makers VvllO quite clearly mix documentary 'Ind fictional elements - for example, Robert Flaherty in Alall o(.lnlll (1934) . necessarilv' ref1cct either lack of sophistication or a Llilure to achiev'e notional goais of pure objectivity. (It is vvorth noting that Paul Rotha's (1<)36) e~1r1v taxonomy of documentary used the terms 'naturalist' and 'romantic' illterch~lllgeably.)
I
J
It mav just he that a more gener~11 acknowledgement of documentary as a "'CllIT c;n help square the intractahly circular arguments in documentary 01eo r y around realism and representation. Film genre theory, as we have scen, acknO\vledges that representational and narrative eom'entions supply important framev\'(lrks for meaning construction. .\t the same time, the meanings to be derived from an indiv'idual text are never exhausted hy the cOl1\entions vvithin, or against, vvhich it v\orks. For documentary theory, this could point a vv'ay out of the ultimately sterile dehate that presupposes that the objective of documentar~ is hy some means to access reality - and then preoccupies itself vv ith the vv'ays in v\hich that g'oal remains forever frustratillo'lv out of reach. \;1V generic definition of documentary certainly needs to start by ac!"n()\v ledging the f(lrm's fundamental orientation towards the real and that this aspect neither cxcludes a rhetorical dimension, yet nor is it purel~ rcd ucible to rhetorieil oper~ltions. Documentary, in other vvords, certainlY II'UI/Is its spectator to believe that thc multibrious topics with which it en~'al!;es share a common purchase in historical reality; but this sometimes oV~T~eag;cr insistence on direct acccss to a reality we know to be necessarily .1I1d incscapably mediated oug;ht not obscure our recognition that there is ~lltcr all a historical realit~, mediation notvvithstanding. Given the obvious problcms in establishing a clear semantic basis for the documentary g;enre (an e"enliallv limitless v~lrietv' of subject matter and a proliferating set of modes, each vvitll its distinctive' visual style), it might be helpful to conceive of documentary as cohering generically in syntactic rather than semantic terms. \'ichols (I<)<)T <)+) speaks of documcntar~ 's 'developmcnt of strategies f(lr pcrsu,lsive argumentation about the historical world'. This search f()]' .ldeq uate vv a ~ s vv ith vvhich to eng;ag;e vvit h Ii vcd reality then cons! it utes documentary's basic s~ ntactic axis: the various st~ Ies, from cxpository to pcrl(lrmative, across v\hich this search is conducted, together supply an l'V olving and obv iously related and overlapping series of semantic registers throug;h v\hich 'the real' can be satisLlCtorily sig·nified. \ gcnre-based approach to documentar~ vvill necessarily reg'ard the reality th,1I is made available to the spectator through documentary practice -- like the 'historv' of the \\estern - as ultimately a function of g-cneric convention r.tlher tha~ th~lt vv hich stands somehO\\ outsidc the film-te,"t altogether (after aiL as Jlcqlles Uerrida ([()I(l: I .')H) once Limollsly ohsen-cd, 'there is nothing
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outside of the text'). Thus the formal signifiers of immediacy in obsenational documentary, the semantic comentions of this mode of documentary, mark not only the 'presence' of reality in the text - a 'presence' ,n.' recognise as a generic prerequisite - but also the specific \\ays in \\hich 'reality' is concei\t:d that make such semantic cOIwentions possible and appropriate (in this case, for example, the gO\crning: assumption that the object world does exist 'outside' of the text \\hose job is then Llithfully to record it). On the other hand, identifying' the syntax of documentary, as suggested abme, as the interrogation of reality ought to ensure that documentary criticism does not Llll back into hermetic formalism (because realit~ remains a structuring presence in documentary eYen if it can neYer be fully apprehended in the text). Understanding: documentary syntax in this way also offers gTounds for defending' the elaborately rel1ni\e, suhjective and often artifice-laden work of contemporary 'performative' documen tarists from Isaac Julien (Loohllgfor I,ll IIgsloll, I <jXX) to Lrrol ~lorris (7'1t1' Fo/!, or Hil r, 20°3) ag,linst '\ ichols's chargc of stdistic excess and a retreat into the charmed circles of the avantgarde. 11'11111
S,liilldla's ris/ (1l)l)3l. Rcproduccd courtcS\ of Lni\Trsal/Thc hohal <:olkction.
II: HOLOCAUST FIL!\l Ahout halfway through Steven Spielberg''s J()<j3 film of Thomas ~eneally's nmel Sri/illd/a '.I' I,isl, \\ar profiteer Oskar Schindler confronts a fi'ustrating and incipiently intolerahle cog'niti\ e and moral crisis: \\ hen reminded by ltzhak Stern, Schindler's business manager at the enamelware plant he operates in occupied Poland and the diffident \oice of his increasingly restive conscience, that the proliferating administratin.' euphemisms of his '\azi business partners - 'resettlement,' 'special tre,ltment' and so f(lrth are in reality l11erel~ the thinnest of 'eils mer the reality of industrialised mass murder, Schindler ,ents on his partner his anger and perplexity at this representational duplicity. 'Dam mit, Stern,' he shouts, 'do \\C need a \\hole ne" languag"t'?' 'Yes,' replies Stern quietly, 'I think \\e do.' I I(me\ er, Sell/lid/a's I,isl and other especially, but hy no me,\I1S exclusin.'ly, fictional - films about the Holocaust ha \ e heen "idely LlUlted for, precisely, their/i/i/llre (or refusal) to spe,lk 'a "hole ne\\ languag:e'. Sell//Ii//a's Lisl is indeed is discursively characterised by the comiction that both the key operati \ e catq!;ories of bourg:eois fiction and drama in general - individ ual moral choice, a linear g'oal-oriented narrative dyn'lmised by dramatic conflict, and so on- and in p,lrticular the simplified \ersions thereof employed by Holly"ood g:enre film, remain adequate to the task of representing e\ ents in human history reg'arded hv some as in a sense beyond representation altogether. In Llel, the fundamental project of Sri/illd/a 's 1",,1 is to bring- the
1loloClLlst "ithin this century's most normative, unin.'rsally available and ~dobally comprehended representation,tl parameters, those of the cbssic Iiolly\\ood film, and it is by the leg:itimacy or other\\ise of that project, and its success in carning: it throug:h, that the film has to be measured. Sri/illd/a '.I' Lisl is by some measure the most emphatically and kno\\ingly g,'/lel'l( of all serious treatments of the Holocaust. That is, Spielberg's film quite consciously sets out to recreate the 'Final Solution' from ,vithin the instantlY recog'nisable and comprehensible forms of popular Holly\\ood genres. For instance, the first thing: lIe notice about Sell/lIi//er's Lisl is that it is in black and \\hite. This is often t,lken as a documentary affectation: the rendering: of the story in monochrome is intended to reinf(lrce the truth eLlims of the film by imoking' the look of contemporary documentary f()()tag-e olthe Second \\orld \\ar. But for the film's anticipated audience, black-andII hite f()()tag:e quite simply prmides the correct ji/III/( reg:ister f()\' a 'Second \\ orld \rar mo\ ie': in other \\ords, a set of represent,ltional comentions and ,!ssociations is being- quite precisel~ deployed, \\herein black ,md \\hite connotes 'old mO\ies' at least ,1S much ,IS 'old times'. The opening scenes of the Ii 1m, \\hich depict, first, the ,Irrival t'II /I/ilsse of Je\\'ish deportees from the Polish countryside in ~rako\\, f(ll1<med by the introduction of Schindler himself in the setting of a German-frequented nig:htclub in the city, confirm the directive sigl1
E'rom Schindler's I,isl (1993), Reproduced courtesy of
ni"ersal/The 'obal Collection,
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slightly fetishistic accumulation of period detail, the wreaths of .film nair shadows, thc withheld 'ren~al' that keeps the Elee of r jam Neeson as Schindler concealed from thc audience until well into the second sequence) that collectiyely announces the calculated deployment of a classical Holly\\ood style and moreover of the classic Hollywood's preferred dramatic engine, the genre tilm. "'/lore specific allusions here include, most notahly, Ci/si//J!i/nca (I (43), whose postponement of the introduction of t he central character Scltilldler's I,isl consciously imitates: Ci/Si//J!i/IIUI of course being another wartime parahle of the transformation of an individual from protiteering and cynical detachment into passionate commitment to a cause. :\s the tilm progresses, the progressive darkening of tone as e;leh ne\\ stage in the Holocaust is reached (from ghettoisation, to deportation, fin~llly to mass e.\termination) is textually marked by another shift in gCllcric register. The tilm abandons the assured classical st~ Ie of the earlier scenes - \yhich retlect Schindler's own brash early confidence for the non-cbssicd modes of doculllentary (including hand-held clmeLl\york that appears to be follO\ying the action anxiously rather than framed to recei\c it) and - notoriously, in the ,-\usch\yitz 'shower scene of the post-Psl'dill slasher/stalker horror film. The critical problem poscd b~ this evident gencric ch,lracter relates to critical ;ll1d thcoretical positions that insist on the inescapable singularity of the Holocaust ,Iml accordingly if indeed it is not asserted that the Holocaust is simply 'beyond' depiction, speech a III1 understanding altogether - demand of Holocaust represellLitions that they manifest that singubrity through formal disruption of narrative, etc., cOll\entions and ,lbO\c all - through the abjuration of mainstream representational strategies such as those of genre tilm. What Holocaust historians call the 'radical incomprehensihility thesis' (the claim th,1t the ,Itlempt to understand the IIolocaust defeats the procedurcs of COll\ entional historiograpl1\ or political econom\) finds its echo in ,I 'radical unreprcscntabilit~ thesis' \\ hich similarh condemns normati\ e represenLltional practices to inC\irable Llilure. Thus thc problematic notion of 'the IIoloclUst tilm' as a genre raises ethical questions along'sidc critical ones. Since thc rclclse of Sdlllldlcr's List in 1<)<)3 if Ilot \\ell bdi)re, the Holocaust h,ls become an established if ahYays contrO\crsial subject tiH' historical drama. Indeed, the opening sequCIlL'e of S-HCII (2000) \yhich depicts the future '\lagneto' as a child deportee, using his destrueti\e telepathic PO\\ ers fiH' the tirst time as he is separated !i'om his parents at the gates of :\usch\\ itz suggests strongh that the I Iolocaust h,ls becollle increasingly a\ailable ,IS a point of reference fiH' genre tilms \\ell outside the categories of 'serious' historical drama. \\ith preexisting genres (such as the \\ar!combat tilm) offering no \i,lble parameters tiH' the representation of industri.l1ised mass murder, Holocaust films have geneLlted their O\\n recognisable representatiOl1
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templates. Yet there remains a marked critical reluct,mce to countenance the ide,1 of 'the Holocaust film' - primarily because incorporating; the Holocaust into the routinised structurcs of genre appears to diminish its unique horror l)\ normalising it at the narrati \e and textl!,11 Inel. . Thc difficulties entailed hy the proposition of a genre, '1111' Holocaust film,' pn.::sumpti\cly to be set alongside the detecti\c tilm, the Western, the i1lusical and so on, relatc to thc nature of the g'cneric text itself, which by definition entails narrMi\e, iconographic, charactcrological and concei\ably idcological 10111.'1'1111011.1'; \\hich is further to say normati\e and - simply by \ irt ue of such normati\it~ in some measure perhaps affirmative apprehensions of h(l\\ the \\orld gi\en through the genre artefact to a generic audience is organised. Genre can he seen as ,1 means of ordering the \\orld which hy Ihc \en bct of that ordering offers its audiencc thc rcassuring' if circular consolation that the \\orld is, indeed, orderable. In the context of tilm, this gl'neric orderliness, or orderly g'enericity, has of course on occasions transIalell into a more-or-less explicit opposition het\\een (parricuarly HolI~ \\ootl) genre tilm - construed as commodity, the Eltally facile pablum of Adorno's 'culture industry' and the originary apprehension of the authentic, authored ,lrtcLlct, especially in the tradition of the European art film. HO\\C\u' exhausted and discredited this opposition has become in critical theor~ g"l'nerally, the dichotomy of the g'eneric/normati\e and the autonomous/ l'\cl'ptionall'Cm,lins .1 sig'niticant presence in critical discussions of narratiYe ,lnt! in p,lrticular tilmic treatments of the IIolocaust. In f,Kt, ho\\l'\cr, since until quite recently the Holocaust remained largcl~ IIlf-limits to Holly\yood cineIl1,I, hence as subject matter contined, preciscl~, to the Furopean ,Irt tilm, the implicltions of a full~ generic approach to the IloloclUst ha\e not needed to be fully explored. 2 The fury of many of the responses to the :'\BC: mini-series IIolomllsl (I (J7X) \yas itself in large me,lsure atlributable to th,1t series' historical priority- JIolomllsl \yas, after all, the IiI'S' time that 'Holly\\()ml' had attempted to ,lccommodate this subject Ill,iller to its existing generic styles. The ofknce here ,lrguably arose abO\e all from the perception that the Holocaust \yas indeed being' illeg'itimateh al'Commmlated III I Ioll~ \\ootl norms, rather than \yhat SCUllS to haye been a kit imperati\c that it explode them. It is only in thl' latter part of the nearly I II 0 decades since JIololllIlsl \\as tirst bro,ldcast that, as one highly \isible clement in a broad cultural front of creati\e, commemorati\e, schol;lrl~ and critic" concern \"ith the Shoah in Europe and\merica, the destruction of ).urope's Je\\s has gradu,lll~ come to tCature more regularly if still inti'Cquently in major Holl~ \\oml studio productions. Films like Slllil/lller's I,isl, SliplllL''.I' C!iIIil(, (I<)X2), Tnlllllpit orllti' Spin! (I<)HX) and]akolllltL' Liar (1991'1) arc unashamedly and indeed doubly generic: they both tr,lde in existing ~enlTic templates like .lillll lilliI', the \\ar mO\ ie and soap oper,1 ti)r their initial L
L
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FILM GENRE
appeal, and in themselYl~s help trace out the parameters of a still-nugatory new genre. Against that, it em be argued that rendering the unthinkable conventional allows it to be confronted and acknowledged rather than e\:c1uded as untouchable. The Holocaust's emerging 'genericisation' may be seen as insisting, via the j(iI"IlIa! element of generic orthodo\:y and cOl1\ention, on the necessary (ollllnllily between the quotidian realities of the world \\c think of as 'ours' and that of the camps. Primo Lni (Il)KH) has insisted that the lInirefS (ol1cel1lmllolll1alre \vas not a closed universe: if it \\cre, on \\hat basis does one insist on the continuing relevance of the categories of moral responsibility, at least for the perpetrators' HO\\ could one, by the same token, even recognise the penerse il1\'ersion or c\acuation of those categories inflicted on camp inmates - a phenomenon widely remarked in survivor literature? Did the camps not possess to at least some degree, as Trevor Griffiths writes in his play COlllell/lllls, 'the logic of our \\orld - e\:tended'? (Grittiths, I()?5: (3). To the ntent that the Holocaust is increasingly seen in historical terms as a potential IIlllhlll modernity rather than (as a more reassuring prior interpretati\c orthodo\:~ \\ould h,l\c it) modernity's Other, the project of adequately reintegrating Holocaust representations within the normative te\:ture of representational cOl1\cntion becomes both more urgent and more problematic: problematic, since at its most e\:treme (for instance, in some pronouncements of the later i\dorno) the regimented assembly-line commodity cuhure that produces the IIolly\\ood genre film is seen as not only complicit but continuous \\ith the instrumental rationalised modernity that spawned/enabled the Holocaust; yet urgent, since thc possibility remains that the Holocaust may he 'refunctioned' through representation to articulate an immanent critique of modernity's 0\\ n e\:termiluti\ e tendency.] This does not mean, ho\\ner, th,1t genre forms can be applied unref1ectively and in an undiscriminating \\ay to the HoIOClllsl. On the contr,lry, even the most conn'ntionally generic (\\hich is to S,I~, in terms of Holocaust reception, scandalously IIlIcol1\cntioml) Ilolocaust filnts seem to push to\\ards a point at which the spectator is confronted \\ith the difficulty, if not outright impossibility, of portraying Ihese scenes in LlIIS (generic) \\ay, a point marked like the confusions and contortions of melodrama, or more locally the oneiric distortions that mark out masculine Cll1tas~ constructions in (Jill or Llle Past and other/i/Ills I/(ilrs (sec Chapter <) ,!w e\:treme tntual stress and narrative dislocation. For n,lmple, two late I<)<)os namples of 'I Iolocaust comedy' itselfofcourse a m,lssively transgressi\'e category, the most (in-)L1l110us being LII;' Is Bel/lIlI/iil (Italy I<)<)K) - Ttlllll or LI/;' (FLll1cclRomania, 1<)<)9) and Ja/"'o!J lhe Llr/r (199K) both confi'ont the spectator in their concluding moments \\it h radica I 11<1 IT ,It i \C reversals and reflni ve n,IlTa t i ve read j ustments. In Tnllll orL!I;', this comes about through the re\ elation th,1t the \\hole film has
267
been the memory/fantasy of a camp inmate, possibly a lunatic; in Jako/J the ],ir/r, throug'h a double ending that substitutes possible redemption for 'lnnihibtion. Both films seem to pose questions about the desire for optimistic generic resolutions in a narrati\'e conte\:t where optimism is uIlsust,linable: their eleventh-hour shift into modernist narrative uncertainty ll1ig,'ht be construed as an ethical gesture that encourages spectators to reflect on their o\vn moti\,ltions for \\atching Holocaust narratives and their opect,ltions of those narratives. ,\s an ntension of our shared culture into the realm of the unspeakable, theIl, the genericisation of the Holocaust is marked not - or not only -. by the reduction and routinisation of atrocity: it also brings the spectator to that point \\here cultural signifying practices are splitji-ollll7'llhlll, where an act of r,ldicII and absolute separation is performed upon us by a sudden ,md as it SCUllS arbitrary scission, a moment \\hich - \\ithin the confines of genre, \\ hich are \\hat enable us to encounter such ,Ippalling historical material in the first place· \\c e\:perience as an act of violence upon ourselves. Such text ual aggTession - lllr nample, in the stark tonal/ generic shift: bet\veen sun-drenched, Lliry-Lde romantic comedy to \\ artime melodrama in LI/;' Is B,.r/lll1li,! nploits the deceptive security offered by the establishment of a generic locale to communicate to the spectator a sense of radical disorientation \vhen th,1t sccuritv is sudden Iv \\ithheld, "
III:
I I I I
I
I I
I
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PORl\"OGRAPHY
That pornographic film (\\hich since the mid-I<)Kos has in Elct usually meant \ ideo) is a genre is hardly debatahle, In L\Ct, if film genre is understood in IlTl1lS of the m,lss-production o( standardised n,llTatives \\'hose wellesublished cOIl\entions supply rcli,lble and repeated pleasures fllr a regular audience, then porn film could stand almost as a template fllr genre in ~'eller'll. In ,Ill its endless variants, pornogTaphy is ,Irguably structured b~ ~tronger genre cOIl\entions tlun any mainstream genre, e\en the \\estern. '\01', unlike the \\estern, docs it ,Ippear in any dang"cr of ntinction, in f\Ct lJuite the re\erse: pornogTaphic motifs and allusions have since the early I<)<)OS been rife in I-Iolly\\ood cinema, \\ hether in films about the sn industry (SltuIl'glrls, IlJ95; Boop,le\lglt/.\, I<)(n) that challenge the grimly negative depictions in such I (nOS films as IIii rd(ore (1 <)77), + se\:-centred genre films \I hose narratives mimic pornogLlphic narrati \ e structures (such as the 'erotic thrillers' discussed in Chapter <), or simph by incorporating polymorphous ~e"\ual content phone se\: (Girl (), J()<)(J), swing'ing" (Preil(/lllIg /(1 lite !)a,'a/ed, 1<)lJ7; Tlte Rilplllre, [()9-+), under-age sn (kids, 1995), S/:\I (Bod)' IIlf,'ldell(", 1<)<)3) and so on - \\hose e\:ploration had pre\iol\sly been confined
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GE'iRE: BREAKING THE FRAME
to porn 'proper'. J\leanwhile, an increasing number of independent filmmakers haYl~ crossed the line that preyiousl~ delinitiyely separated both upscale 'eroticl' and mainstream narratiye cinema g-enerally fi'om hardcore pornog;raphy, the direct depiction of unsimulated sex acts (RolI/ill/ce, France I<)<)S; Billse-iVloi, France 2001; Inlilllil(]l, GB 2000; 9 SOI/p,S, GB 200-1-). This 'pornographising' trend in contemporary film is of course part of a larger mainstreaming' of porn imagery and porn itself through 'lad culture' men's magazines, ralk shows and so on. Yet as a socially illegitimate (and quite often extra- or para-legal) form, pornography has more often been the su bjeer of sociological than critical interest. Lntil quite recently, the idea that pornography could be an object of academic study other than in departments of psychology, sociology or jurisprudence \\ould ha\e heen fj'ankly bizarre. In particubr, the idea of paying; serious critical atlention to the formal and stylistic attrihutes of the pornographic lexi \\as all but unthinkable. This changed in I<)St) \\ith the puhlication of Linda \Villiams's ground-hrelking' study Ililrd Core: Pomer, Plellsllre ilnd Ihe FrL'll-::') orlhe l'isiMe. \Villiams argued that pornog;raphy had a distinct g'eneric history that hoth partly reclpitulated, but also in important ways departed fi'om, the trajectory of mainstream narrati\e film. \\illiams's relocation of porn \\ ithin the disciplinary contcxt of film st udies \\hich implied that, fill' nample, the structures of pornographic narratiH~s could be classified, discussed and assessed like those of \Vesterns or mu.sicals pm\crfull~ challengnl the operatiye moral, ethical and legal fj'amc\\orks in \\hich porn had hitherto bcen encountered. These included both l'
269
distrihution and crossing o\cr to mainstream exhibition, with higher production yalues, more elahorate IlrIll but something of an l'\ccption, historically hracketed In the more 'practical' pleasurahle applicatiolls and interactiH' sC\.ual/tC\.tual engagements of the stag film and yideo porn (pp. 2<)<) 300), Thc home yideo rC\olution of the I<)SOS, \\hich argllabl~ tr,l11sfi>rIned the cconomics hut, fllr the most part, not the aesthetics of mainstIT,\m Holh \\00l1, ended porn film's 'classical' phase, fl)reclosed on the ",enre's aspirations to theatrical 'leg'itim,lcy' (the ohject of flll1d parody in skinIlid. (11I1L'llr Jack Horner's ,Imhitions in Hoogle ,\I.~ltls to make 'real mm ies'), .md returned the consumption of porn to conte""ts (the pri\ate home) th,It ()nee ,Ig,lin promoted spectatorial regimes \yhne porn-\"'Iching could be inte~LlIL'l1 into ,Ieriye se""Lul pleasure-taking. 1I~ the preLlce to Hilnl Core, \Villiams descrihes the book's origins in a pmject ,lluhsing other film genres in greater or lesser part detined hy their slImatic aflcct - their direct address to and imp,lct upon the embodied spectator- a categ'ory that also included 'tearjcrking' melodramas and horror lilms. This is a suggcsti\e association inasmuch as those other genres too hay e, as \\e ha\e seen, endured criticIi diS
,IS merel~
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GENRE: BREAKINti THE FRAME
FILM GENRE
appealing; to the lowest common (social and perceptual) denominator, only to henefit from a much more Ll\'ourable reception in contemporary theOl'ie~ of the g'cndered subject. In Vil'tor Hugo's opinion, whereas tragedy stirred the heart, melodrama re\varded 'the pleasure of the eyes' (q uoted in Carlson, I qH4: 213). Porn's current rehabilitation as an object of cri tical analysis can thus be located \vithin the larger contest of critical theon's generally expanded interest in forms that through form and/or narrati\'e conte~t challenge comentional vie\ving: positions and the critical categories typically identified \\ith them (see Chapter 7). '\ot coincidentally, a number of scholar~ who have \\Titten about porn haye also contributed important studies of the horror film and/or melodrama, including \\illiams hersc1f(I<)H3, H)H4, 199 1 , 1l)<)H), Carol Clover (Hj<)2), S ue- Ellen Case (I(j>ll), I <)<) I), eh uck I\..leinhans (((J7H, 1()9(l) and Claudia Springer (I<)9(l), ,\11 that said, at first glance porn, its transgressi\c (olllmi not\\ ithsLlnding, would seem to be an\lhing but uncomentional in its intense genericity - its attachmen t to rig'id narrati\ e and iconog:raphic proced ures that vary less from indiyidual film to film than any mainstream genre. Porn must by definition (and this of course means legalh too) feature graphic, explicit and repeated representations of unsimulated sex acts; \\illiams's HI/rd Corc introduced and explained the g-cneric lexicon of 'meat shots' (close-ups of penetration) .md 'money shots' (the male ejaculation outside but usually on the body of his female partner(s)). In LIct, the multiplicity of porn's proliferating specialist sub-genres makes the identification of semantic or iconographic constants surprisingly difficult. Porn can be tender or ag'gressi\e, comic or nutter-or-hct; its protag'onists nLlY be old or young', cOl1\entionally 'Ittractive or not; production \alues ma~ be extremely high (as in 1(J70S porn classics like Hclillld Ilic Crall Door or contemporary UpSGlle \ ideo porn) or Im\-rent (in a variety ohvays, fill' different reasons and \\ith different affective modes, as in amateur, 'gonzo' and much fetish porn); and straight, g;ay, bisexual, lransgender and transyestite men .md \YO\11en of course can (and do) perf(lrrn a be\\ildering' yariety of sexu~i1 acts and scenarios from the straightfiln\ard to the recondite and bizarre, hen nudity is not an absolute gi\cn in all porn (for example, in some fetish contexts). In most cases cOl1\cntional \\isdom \\ould also assume that narratiYes in porn films are no more than inert (.md in the home \ ideo ag'e, rCldih skipped mcr) 'carriers' for the pri\'ileged sex seq uences, \\ hich in terms both of perfi)l'mance and consumption arc essentiall~ autonomous of their narratiye contexts. That is, neither the yie\\er nor t he actors maintain an y pretence of interest in ostensible characterisations or narratiye deYeiopments during performances of sex acts th.lt .lI'e to
in some 1970S porn, an attempt is made to produced a more integTated the powerful 'reality effect' of hardcore sex (whose specular, ,IS opposed to purely libidinal, charge is in itself, one might note, socially constructedh) is ah\ays likely to O\cn\hclm its narratiYe contexts, as would seem to be borne out by the experience of recent mainstream film-makers \\ ho haye experimented \\ith including hardcore sex in non-pornographic n,lIT,lti\cs (sec aboYe). \Yilliams, hO\yeyer, argues that porn narratiYes reyeal thc g;cnre's underlying syntactic coherence and as such are a good deal more than disposable packaging fi)r sex scenes. For Williams, pornography is 'a !2:cnrc that is by definition obsessed \\ith Yisiblc proof (p. 230). This accounts fill' the \\ays in \yhich the sex luI act, and specifically female pleasure, arc located ,IS objects of intense narratiYe curiosity in I<J7os porn films premised Oil 'scxual problems' like Decp TllFliltl (1lJ72), Tllc DCi.'iI III Miss ]OIl('S (IC)74) and III.illllaMc (H)]H). This in turn reLItes back to the tantalising' insight allying porn and melodrama: till' porn, like melodrama, is arguably also as much a 'mode' as a genre, hence despite appeaLII1CeS and assumptions defined more readily in s\nt,Ktic than in semantic terms'! Porn is g'Cnerically unified by its emphasis OIl \\hat \\'illiams calls 'the fi'enzy of the visible', which may be understood .1" the progLlmnutic imperative to render on-screen the experience of sexual pleasure in unmistakeable, unchalleng'Cable and e\cn \erifiable ways. The most Eimiliar generic marker of this scopophilia is the 'money shot' of straight porn, HO\\e\er, both the female orgasm and fetishistic pleasure pose a problem for the pornographic gazc in their LIck of a transparently signif~'ing' somatic manifestation. Pornography poses a particuLIr challenge to com en tional not ions of generic ,<'usllJ/illltufc in so f~lr as it is predicated on a fundamental disassociation of its ficti\e' storytelling practices \\hich arc in fi)l'mal terms usually perfectly uJl1\entional and its ultimate promise to deliver representations which arc not It/dll:c hut in Elct rcal. Porn's specific generic \'erisimilitude centres on the proposition of a \\ orld \\here libidinal energies arc not repressed or "uhlimated though they may of course be temporarily frustrated, at least in terms of their attraction to specific objects (.1 particuhll' partner, orifice or tl·tish object) - hut where, on the contr,lry, human beings arc constantly primed for sC\ual activity. In this sense, as Williams notes, the porn film's construction of a generic milieu premised on the acting-out and ready gratifiution of sC\:ual desire in 'production numbers' that define the genre p'lrallels both the structure and utopi,m world of pure expressi\'ity (sec Chapter 4) in the integrated musical. Pornography's structural aflinities \\ith not only the musical but that other episodic, specLlcuLIr genre, the contemporary action blockbuster, could be lIsed to support an argument filr narratiYe cinemas as a \d1Ole to be regarded ,IS
n~IlTati\c,
I I
I I I I
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J
271
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FILM GENRE
as 'essentially' pornographic, an argument that some psychoanalytically based theories of spectatorship and cinema's mobilisation of the 'scopic drive' would support. This book has generally ljuestioned the notion of generic 'essences' in favour of a more proeessual understanding of genres, and it would be perverse now to reintroduce such ideas at the macro-Ine!. Nonetheless, if more modestly \\c pursue the idea of pornography as a mode studying the \\ays in which the pornographic and the melodramatic mode~ interact in m,linstream, narrative dramatic cinema - including: within and upon 'canonical' genres - mig;ht well prO\'C a rewarding and instrueti\e area fl)r further study.
(IL\PTER 12
Conclusion: Transgenre?
NOTES I,
2,
I\otc that Nichols's O\\n ddlnition of thc 'perti,rmatl\c modc' difkrs si~nillcanth li'om other construclions of 'pcrtiJrmati\c' documcnt'lr! notahh' Bruzzi (20~0) , in li'ght of theorics of gTmler and subjccti\it\ ach.lIlccd In Judith Butler and others, '\ comprchensi\(' critical O\TI'\ ic\\ of lilmic trcatmcnts of thc Holocaust is prO\idcd b\' Insdorf (2002), '
3, Z\'g'munt Bauman's ()()~()) ,Hoi/oml)' IIlld IIII' lIolo(IIIISI is probahh thc hcst-knO\\n nposition of thc casc li)r Ihc Iiolocaust as running \\ith rathcr than ag'linst thc grain of modernit \ , +. Though a 111m such 8\1.\1 (1<)<)<)) indicatcs that thc phohic \ision of porn .IS Illkrno pcrsists, porn's incorporatioll inlo nuinstrcam popular culturc nO!\lithst'lIldinl';, ), Comparc thc bmous non-diegetie shot of Ihe pistol-packing eO\\ bO\ th,n coul:l eithcr (or holh) begin or end Till' (;,.<'111 Tn/ill Ro/J/Ja)' (/<)01) (sec Ch'lpter 3)' h, That is, it is thc social tahoo surrounding graphic imai,(cl'\ that lends lurdcore im'lgcry its pO\\crful \isual alfect: so \\'ell-cstahlished is thc prinCiple of thc s('\ aet's UI1\ ie\\'ahilit\, that its inclusion in ,In\ n.lrrati\ c not instituliOlulh placcd as porn is (presenth, at least) transgressi\c to ,I dl'i,(ITl' that dl,dlengcs thl' possihilit\ of its narrati\'(' intq~Tation, /, On melodrama as g'enrl' ,Ind as mode,
SlT
Ch'lptcr
O\vards the end of SCll' } 01'/...', ,\CII' Yor!.:, Francine F \ ans fends off the neurotically aggressive needling of her ex-husband Jimmy Doyle, who h<\s just rebranded her latest hit, lIapp), Elldillgs , 'Sappy Ending's', with a ha If-defensive, half-acljuiescent piece of self-deprecation about musicals: 'Seen one, seen 'em all, huh?' I fopefully, readers of this book will not find themselves agreeing with Francine, either about musicals or about genre films generally. The enormous \ariety of narrati\'Cs, visual styles, modes of performance, ideological positions, politicJl implicltions and fl)rms of spectatorial address e\'ident across the rang;e of films and genres discussed in these pages should have made it plain that both across the system of film gcnl'C as a whole, within Ilolh \yood
T
I
2,
I
I I I
I
I I I
1
274
I'lL!\! GENRE
less challenging. Yet something like - to adapt Fredric Jameson's famous phrase - a 'generic unconscious' persists \\"ithin, beneath and ,Iround genre texts and sets their horizon of signification \yhether they are fully conscious of it or not. Some genre images - a stagecoach fording a riyer, ~aY - are so specifically freighted with generic history that it is hard to imagi~e a filmmaker shooting such a scene without the conscious intention of tipping his hat to John Ford. Others are so absolutely 'generic', transcending' the need for a specific textual rd'erentiality- a priyate eye climbing into a taxi and telling the dri\er to 'follm\ that cab' - that their inclusion is equally e\ocative of the 'essential' (or ideal) genre text that Tz\etan Todorm (IC)90) sugg'ests theories of g'enre need to imoke as a heuristic fiction. A remaining question is what part this genre patrimony plays in contemporary cinema. The first chapter of this book closed with thc suggestion that while 'film genres' - understoou as the systcmatic, routinised production of genre films for a regular mass-auuicnce spcetatorship - might be a thing of the past, 'genre films' - indi\iuual films working self-consciously \\ith (if not within) establisheu generic tradition(s) - had hecome if anything' an e\en more important instrument guiding' contemporary film-makers anu audiences. A glance at current releases in any \yeek of the \car \\ill certainly confirm that Hollywoou films touay are as intensely gen'nic as eYer, perhaps eyen more so. As I write this conclusion in the autumn of 2004, the most recent Variely bo\:-office Top IO includes three horror films, three romantic comedies, two bmily-audience animateu films, an action film and a musical biopic. I This list is maue up of Elirly traditional g'enres, all with long histories dating back to the classical studio era - althoug'h closer inspection re\eals some of the characteristic \\"ays in which contemporary Holly\yood modi/ies and reno\ates these older p,lrauigms: two of these films are remakes (of a H)60s British ';\ew \Va\e' romantic comedy and a recent Japanese horror film); two arc sequels, including" predictahly one horror film but also one romantic comedy, a genre that has traditionally heen less prone to serial e\:ploitation; both of the animated features arc digital rather tlun traditional cel animations, and hoth clearly aim at the crossmcr jll\enile/adult market established by such breakthrough hits as I'll)' Sill!")' and The LIIJIl Aill" in the 1990S; the musical biopic tells the story of a 'rhythm-and-blues musici~n, Ra \" Charles, rather than a figure from Broau\yay (a biopic of Cole Porter, De-Lo('clj:, releaseu e,lrlier in 2004 performed poorly at the bo\: office). Such adapti~"e features - audience erossm"er, remakes, influence fi'om other national cinemas updating' of generic comentions (shO\y tunes to R'n'B) in line \yith chano'in~ Q Q audience preferences - arc \\holly consistent with the ways in \\hich Hollywoou genres haye historically responded to their changil~g institutional a~d social contexts. Yet this picture should not obscure the important \\a\s in \\hich the
CONCLUSION: TRANSGENRE?
"
27.1
'trenericity' of contemporary Holly\\ood films differs from that of preyious ~eriods -" notabh" from either the comfortable (yet flexible) inhabitation of ~'on\cntions in the classical period or the intense and in some cases politicised re\ isionism of the 1970s, It seems for example that the energetic contestation of classical g'enre paradigms as a tool of ideological and generational critique th,lt fuelled Holly\\ood cinema into the 19XoS is a less powerful impulse for the second and third generations of 'moyie brat' directors than it was for the first. Indeed, as noted in preceding chapters many of the genres most strongly identifieu \\ith classical Holly\\()()d ha\e giyen ground to newer and !1lore fle\:ih1c forms like horror, SF and the action film. On the basis of the critique of 'e\olutionary' theories of genre in Chapter I, I would obyiously ,Irgue that these classical genres are not 'deau'. 'Yet it is also clear that many cl.lssical genre parauigms haye a much reduced importance to the contemporary film industry and in a number of cases haye mutated into other treneric conte\:ts. For example, as has been \yidely noted, as the \Vestern has ~lcclined aspects of the frontier myth luye generically relocated themselyes to the post-Sial' Uill'S SF anu action film. The periodic 'rniY,lls' (that is, ITne\\ed production cycles) of the Western (in the late 19Xos, miu- 1990S and ,Ig,lin in 2003-4) often produce films burdened \yith a somewhat academic, almost heritage tone, carefully eYocatiye of genre traditions and their genre a11lecedents (f()r e\:ample, Keyin Costner's TV)'al! Earp, 1994, and Opell Range, 2003). The classical integrated musical, at least, seems nO\\ to be acceptable most often in animated cartoon rather than liye-action form. The popularity and relC\ance of the combat film, in line \\ith the discussion in Chapter .1, seems to fluctuate in line \\ith the general cultural yisibility of combat and the military (suggesting' its immediate future, at least, looks rosy), It may simply be the increasing temporal and cultural - distance bet\\een contemporary film culture and the heydays of these classical genres that makes their IT,lJ1imation through critical engagement ,n once more difficult and less
~
lIr~ent.
I I I
.1
\n important aspect of IlJ70S Holly\\()od's critical engag;ement with classical genres \yas the assumed industrial and cultural centrality of the ~enres in question, By imerting or radicalising the generic paradigms of the \\estern or the '\1(;\1 musical, it \\as possible to comment in a coded yet I'airly transparent \\ay both on the irreley,mce or bankruptcy of classical Iiolly\yood narrati\ es and on the y,dues sedimenteJ in those generic forms, The diyersified contemporary entertainment market militates against such a clear sense of public utterance. The disappearance of classic Hollywood's (Ill)tionally at least) relatiycly homogeneous audience, the multiplication of Ilew genres and sub-generic trends, and the \\eakening of generic boundaries, ,til make it Ell' harder to identif\, let alone contest, genre-specific hegemonic idel)logies.
"' In a more diffuse way, howeHT, a critical impulse is built into some of the genres and cyclcs that have come to rep LIce and/or supplement classical genres in the 'New Hollywood' - understood in its hroadest sense, to take in the entire period since the transformation of Holly\\ood in the mid-Ig6os and thus covering hoth the Ig60s-HnOS 'Holly\yood Renaissance' and 'Corporate Hollywood' since the Igi\OS. Many of these 'new' genres are in Llct hyhrids, at once reno\ating and comhining older generic traditions and alloying them with new concerns, and in some cases the reorientation of traditional generic coordinates e\:presses a significant ideological shift. The road moyie, for instance, which takes its ddiniti\e form in u)6q \\ith Easy Ridn (I <)69), incorporates the tradition of the Western as a quite explicit interrext, \\ith the free\\"ay network replacing the fi'cedom of the open range: one shot in Eos)' Rider pointedly frames Billy tinkering \yith his motorevcle alongside a rancher shodding his horse. Yet \yhile the road moyie updates' the fi"ontier myth to modern America·" deriying ultimately from Jack K.erouac's beat rhapsody 0" /ltl' Rllorl it also frequently sharcs in the cultural disenchantment that inflJrms contemporary 'cnd-of.. the-line' \\·esterns . ."
f
"
CONCLUSION: TRANSCiENRE?
z77
(\\enty-fin: years - above all, the irnp,lct of home video '" hare sig'nifieantly heig'htened le\'els of genre a\yareness among mainstream film audiences. Freed from reliance on the idiosyncracies of TV scheduling; and repertory cinema programmers, students of the \Vestern can nmy easily view, fl)r e\,lmp1c, a \\ide range of [()3os series \Vesterns 2 . and C\"en some silents ;lnd 11l,lke their ()\\n estimations of the recei\cd wisdom about their stereoI\picality, puerility and so on. E\cn more potentially important for both ,!'udicnces and film-makers is the expanded access through home \ideo to 'II odd cinema' beyond either the canons of international art film or the charmed circles of cult fandom - Japanese, K.orean, Italian, Mexican and Br,lzilian horror films, fllr example, or Hong K.ong action films (both contemporary and from the I 9 (lOS and [(nos). The ready a\ailability of genre (r~lditions has already transfllrmed the flmns of interte\:tllal address typical of ~enre film today, as Geoff K.ing (zooz: I IS· zH) notes in his discussion of the ~enre-bending gangstcr-\ampire-Western 1-'/111/1 Dusk Till [)iI /1'1/ (I l)(/)). Rather than the \yholesale generic interrogations of the [(nOS, established ~em'l"ic comcntions are often imoked by indi\idllal films today on a localised basis to guide the audience's understanding of a particular dramatic situation or character rather than as an overall narratiye paradigm: as noted in Chapter J [, .\dlil/riler's Lis/ (Il)()3) imokes the \Varner Bros. wartime 'conversion narr;lti\c' (such as Cilsil/J!ill/m) and PS)'CItIl (not only in the 'shower scene' but ill the ahistorictl depiction of :"azi Commandant Amon Goeth's \ilb as a g,lhled 'Bates \lotd'-style house on a rise) to establish a fr~lme of Llmiliar dramatic refCrence fllr gTossly llnLlmiliar narrali\e material. Such referencing- tends to lack the scholarly precision embodied by such 'moyie brat' dircctors as \!artin SCOl"sese (\\ho LlI1lOusly insisted that the kerbs of the \ LlIlhattan sidC\yalk in ,Yi'/I' ") "lirA', ~Yi'l1' YllrA' be constructed artificially hig'h (0 l1l,ttch the studio sets of his mO\ing'-g'oing youth), and increasing'ly, the lillll g;enres inloked and mobilised in this Iyay arc themsehcs post-c1assictl ones. Contemporary gangster films, fll!" C\:ample, arc often intensely interIn,lual, but the references they make arc much more likely to he postclassictl gangster films - notably the Gild/ii/ita series and Martin Scorsese's ",iseg;uy' films, principally GlilidFellils - than the 'classical' early H)30S cycle. ~ill Bill, J iii. I (zoo,)) relics ,r1most exelusi\ ely on serial allusions to not only I q60s and ](nOS Hong K.ong kung-fu films and Italian re\'enge Westerns of Ihe Lite H)60s, but also to such '\ e\\ Holly\\ood pastiches as Bri,111 dePalma's IJri'sscd /11 kill (H)SO), itself a fCtishistictily C\:act reworking of Hitchcockian (ropes and motifs. In this \\ay, proliferat ing ,Iml intensif~ing gencric rcJi.'I"enti,t1ity docs not necessarily lead to ,111 e\"pansion of historical awareness parallel to the historical turn in film scholarship. If anything, the frame of historical reference of genre films has become increasingly foreshortened, II hile the sheer intensity ,1I1d density of generic allusion encloses genre films
II. . .1
27K
FtLM GENRE
in an increasingly hermetic circle of reference and counter-reference that can - in extreme cases such as Tarantino - proceed largely "ithout reference or obvious releYance to the extra-generic world. This may pose a problem for traditional genre theory which, as we have seen, has tended to attach considerable importance to the "ays in \\hich film g;enres and genre films interact with their social, political and cultural contexts. From another perspective, ho,vever, the changing g'eneric field of play (and the changing rules of g'eneric production and consumption) return us to the point where this book began - the realisation that genre, and genres, are inherently processual. As we ha,e seen, a problem that theories of film genre and accounts of individual genres ha,e periodically encountered has been their attempt to make genres seem both more internally integ-rated and more consistent than they generally are. Even the most atypiedly integrated and consistent genre, the \Vestern, has under the pressure of recent critical interrog'ation revealed itself as an interestingly fissiparous and multi-stranded genre tradition. In that sense, the increasingly transgeneric tendency in twenty-first-century Holly\\ood film may represent not the breakdown of 'classical' genre traditions, but the more visible enactment, in transformed institutional contexts, of those 'post-classical' impulses that have ah,ays been present in the system of genres. :\t the ,cry least, such developments confirm that we still ha"e a number of questions to ask about "hat genres are, what they do, why and for "hom, and that genre in turn still has a great deal to teach us about hO\v movies work.
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T,nes, B. (IYl)J) TI,,' ROIIIIIII( 0(, Idc'mlllr(: T(,( Cmr( o(f1isloriml Lhml II 1"1' Hoc'i,.s. Jackson, \IS: l.°ni\ersit\ or \lississippi Press.
12 7 33· \\'lrshl)\\, R, (Ili~+) (1I)7~h) ':\lo\ie ChroniclL': The \\csterner', in 'Ilil' IlIIlIIedilll( F"/,eri1'll(. ,llo,'Ies, COllli(s, Th1'aln' 11/111 Diller . JS!'1'(IS rf PO/'lIll1r ClIllllre. ;\Ie\\' York:
C
Tclotte, J, 1'. (IY'))) R,./,!i(
I Rol'oll( Ihslor)' f)(S(iol«
rldioll Filllio Lrbana, lL:
TclOl!e, J P. (1'I'n) ,I O,shllJl 7'·(11II010g)': S(Ir"I/(t' FI(/Jf)1I FillII illld iI"'\/iI(IIIII( . Jg(, \Iiddleto\\n, CT: \\eslc\an Lni\ersin Press. Telotte, Tclolle,
J. J.
p, (2001) S(Jmi<' 1"1111011 FilII!. Cambridg:c: Cambridg:e Lni\'ersin Press. 1'. (2002) 'Tbe '.;C\\ !-lolh\\l)(,d \lllSicoll: From ,l'lIllIrdllT o\I,~/11 Ft'c''I" to Fooiloosl", in "Ieale (cd.) (2002h), +1161.
Tbolllas, D. (1<)'12) '110\\ Ilolh\\olld Deals "ith the De\iant \ble', in Llmeron, I. (cd.) ( Il)l)2), )l) 70, Thom'ls, I l, (2000) /11')'0/111 COII'I': \I(lodl'lllllll, CO/II(d)' IIlId ROIlIlIlIi<' III Iloll)'/l'flOd FillI!s. I,ondon: (:ameron &: Ilollis. '\'od"ro\, T Tohill,
c:.
(I
I)l)O) (;l'lIn's
III
Ol,"(Olln,', (:'\Il\hridg:e: (:.llllbridg:e Lni I ersil\" Press.
and Tombs, 1'. (l
J(J'~';'. :\e\\' York: Sf. \!arlin's Pre"" Tompkins, J. (llJ'p) lI(slo(r;'cr)'illIlI~: Tilt' 111111'1' 1.1/;' o(lIeSII'I'II.' :\e\\ lork (h/(lt"ll L'ni\ ersit\ Press,
(ed.) (200rhl IIl'sII'I'IIS: Fill/ls Tltrollgll Ilis/rIlT· :\Ie\\ York and London:
RoutleJge, \\.lIker, \1. (1<)112) '\lclmlrall1a and the :\meriL'.m Cincma', ,11061', 29/3 0 : 2-3~· \\ ,ml. I., \Y, (l<jX)) TI'I,IIollllIl I'i<'lllre COl'S If) Will. ,-\nn Arhor, lVII: lIMl Research
,\thenellm, PI'· 13~-)+· \\'l'iss, ,\, (llil)2) 1'alli/'ires 11/111 l'ioll'{s: I.I'SI'I
2',
in \lcRO\,
1.
(ed,) (200:; forthcoming:), \\i~rzhicki, I, (~002) '\\eird \ ibrations: HO\\ the Theremin G,nc \Iusicll \oicc to I lo!h \\,o;Jd's F,traterrestrial 'Othcrs' !'Jeetronlc \lusic from l1130s SCleneL' Fiction [,'ilms', 701l1'll1l10(1'1I/'lIlrtr FilII! ill/d 'I (-//'''is/lIII, 3°.,1: 2) 3:;· \\ illiams,\, (tl)II+)'1s .1 R.ldical GenrL' Criticism Possible)', QlIilrl"rI)' ,~'/f{d/('s, l).2.
1;1
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Traube, L. Ci, (11)lp) nl"i'llIlIIlI~ !dt'IIIII"'S: CIIIss, (;<'IId,.,. 111/,1 (;<'III'I",JlIOII III J()8os 1/(11)'1I'00d ,1[o,'ies, Boulder, CO: \\'est\ ie\\" Press,
\\'dliams, I.. (1<)11.1) '\\hen the \\oman Looks', in ])oane, :\1. '\. et al. (cds), (llJ S ,) RI'I 1.1'/111I: f:'SSil)'.' ill 1-'1'1/11/11.'1 1-'1111I Cnll(lSIII, I,os ,\ng:des: :\meric.m Film I nstitutc, PI" X3
Tlidor, ,\, (lln3) (1In(») '(ienre and Critical \Iclbodolog:\', in '.;ichols, B. (L'd.) (llJ7(»), 111126,
l)1); .llso in Janell\lch (ed.) (2002). \\ illiams, I.. (1<)11+) (tl)l)l) '''Sollll'lhini,( Fisc Besides a \lother": Slellli /)111111.1' and the
Tudor, ,\. (11)lIlJ) ,I/OIISII'I'S iI/IIl,lLld S(IOI{lsls: (ht(lt"ll: Basil BLlck\\ell,
\laternal \ldodrama', in LanLh (L'd.) (1l)1)lh), 3°7-3°. \\'II'.\ms, I .. (I<)SX) 'Feminist hln; Tlwon: 1111r11'I'rI PII'r(l' and thl' Second \\orld \\ar', in Prihram, I-:. I). (L'L1.) (I<)IIX) 1-'(1111111' S/,«Ililors: IAillhll,~ III FillII III/d 'I "I,,;'i,\'/IIII. :\e\\
/ Cllllllrllllhslor)' 0(11,,' Ilormr ,110,'11'.
TulloL'h, .I, .\Ild Jenkins, II. (cd.) (1I)lJ)) .\t'im« 1'1<'11011 , IlIdiCII(t's 1llIldlln~ I )octor \\'ho IIlId Star Trck, I ,ondon: Routled~'e Turk, E, n. (II)<)S) 1/f)11)'II'rlr!,IIJi;'II: ,I !i/llprllpli), 0(71'11111/,'11,' \/'I,f)Ollllld Bnkdc\, C\: L'lli\ nsil\ of Calit()rnia Prc", ']'lIrnn, F, J (1<)+7) (1I)S6) nil' Fmllll<'r \rizona PrL'ss. 'I\\itchdl, J (11)11)) /)rl'lId/it/ PII'IISIIII'S: L ni\ ersit\ !'I·ess. \"lH!aC, ,\, '\". (I<J+lj)
III
IIIII'I'l''
III
IlliIlolll)'
II!
IllIIll'l'II I/ormr. Oxford: (ht(ml
SlrI.~C 10 SII'I'"I/: "Illl'rtlri({f1 on~JlIS o(r,lI'/r l'illI!, /),};'id Crtrn,.A, 10 n.
II. C'n/lilh. Call1bridg:e, \1.\: Hal'\'lrd Lni\L'rsit\ Press. \'LTllcl, \1. (11)<)3) 'Ft/Ill \011' on lhe Ld~'e of Doom', in Copjec, J (L'LL) (1l)ln), I 31. \ incende;1l1, G, (1<)<)2) '\ Oil' b \Lso a Frellch \\'Ol'll: ThL' French ,\nleccdents of 1-'1111I ,\lIlr', in Cllllel'lln,
1. (L'd,) (llil)2), +<)
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\\.Ig:,slaff, (ll)I)2) ',\ Forkful of \\c,stcrns: Indllsll'\, ,\udicIlLCS and thL' ltah,1J1 \\cstL'rn', in I)\cr, R, and \OincL'nLkau, Ci, (cds) (1<)1)2) 1'0/'lI/rtr tllrll/'I'IIII Cilll'llJ,l, I,ondon: ROlltkdg:e. \\ .liker, 26,
J.
(2001,1) 'InlrodliLlioll: \\cstL'rns Throllg:h lli,tol'\', ill \\'alker,
J,
(cd,) (200[hl, I
Yor": \ l'rso, PI', 12 30 \\illiClms, I.. (1l)l)X) '\ldodr'IIll.l Relised', in Bl'()\\ne, :\. (cd,) (II)I)X), +2 II~, \\'illiams, I.. (11)l)I») IllIrd Cor,,: POII'a, PII',ISlIrl', ,"111 ill,' 'I-'rm:y (J/1111' IISI/l/I", 2nd edn. Ikrkde\, C\: Lnl\el"Slt\ tIt" Cllit'lJ"\lLl Press, \\illiams, R, (11)tH) 'Fro-tic Thriller.s and Rude \\omen', SI:~/I! ~ Soulld, 3·J: 12 1+, \\'illi'1l11s, I.. R, (200~ t"orthcomll1g:) I'!J" 1:'1'1I/1, 'limlla III COII/r'III/'Oi'l/r)' CIII<'III{/. Ed 111 huri,(h:
i"
Edinbur~b l. ni\ ersit\ PI'ess \\illi,lms, R' (It)73) (1I)~0) 'Base .1I1d Superstructure in \L\nist CliltULII Theon', in
Pr(J/l/olI.' III II,I!r'rlill,SII/ 1111'/ CI/llllr". I.ondon: \'crs", PI'· -' \ +IJ. \\ illis, ,\. (200.,) 'Locating: Boll\\\ood: "otl'S on the Hindi Blockbllster, lIn) to thc
present', in String:cr, J (cd.) (2003), 2~) !lll, \\'ilson, It (2000) 'The I ,et"t-Ibl1lkd Form tIt" lilinun Ll1lk\\or: Crinle ]-'ilms Ihlnng: the 11)l)0", in Di""n (cd) (2000), 1+3 )9, \\ ilson, R, G., Pilg:rim, ]) !-I, and T,lshjlCln, D, (ll)X6) 'Il1r'llll,llIlIt' /g" III 1111I'rl!II' JI)I.'>' IV';'I. '\L'\\ York:\bLlms, \\'inokllt', \1. (HJ,!I) 'Laing: Children Is \\-ron,,: The I:thnic Famih in C;ang;stcr Films 01
the 1I0s .1I1d l)OS', Sldll 0 SOl/lid, I: 10-I"
296
FILM GENRE
Winokur, 1'11. (1995) '\1ari,:inal ",bri,:inalia: The ,·\friean-·\meriean Yoice in the '\oulelle Gangster Film', Thc / chcl f.lj,111 'hll/' , 35: H)-'J2. Winston, B. ([q()3) 'The Docume'ntan' Film as Scientific Inscription', in Renlll, .\1. (cd.) (H)93) Tllcor/sinp f)IH/llllclllllr)'. I,undon: Routledge. Wollen, P. (HJ9Z) SllIgill' III rill' Rllill. London: BFl. \Vood, A. (zooz) ii'dolllscimec
/11
Index
CO/II<'III!'omr)' Fz!III: lJc)'olld SO'CIII( Fioioll . .\ lanchester:
?ILmchester lJnilTrsitl Press. Wood, A. (200-+) 'The Colbpse of Realitl and Illusion in 'l'!tl'lTlllrll', in Tasker, Y.
(cd.)
(200-+), [53-h5. Wood, (i. C ([qXS) 'Horror Film', in (ichring, W. D. (cd.) (rqXS), Zll 2X. Wood, R. (llJ79) '.\n Introduction to [hc .\merican Horror him', in '\ichols, B. (cd.) (I l)S:;) .lTIJZ'Ics 111111 .lTclhods, 1,,1. If. Ill'rkelcl, C\: LnilTrsit\ of (,alitilrllla Press, pp, )(),S 220.
\\ood, R, (ll)XT) IlolI'ilrd IIIIII'A's, London BFI. Wood, R, (19Hfl) lIol/rIl'Olidliliol I lellIllIll 10 RCllgillI. '\CII York: Columhia l nil ersitl Prl'ss. \Vmbnd, R, and (:ountn man, the Emergence of the
'\1'1I
E. (ll}l)X) 'Thl' '\CII \\ cstern ·\mericm IIistorioi,:Llpl1l ,md .\mericm \\'estern', in BusClJmhe ,md PClrson (eds) (H}l)X),
I Hz 1}1l.
Wright,). II. (llJ7+) (Il)l).:;) '(,enre Films ,md the Status Quo', m (hant, B. K. (cd.) ( 1(1)S), -+ It), \\right, \\, (HJ7S) Si'-~IIIIS 1111,1 SIIO,'r),:
I()O, IS2, 1<)0, 20().
J Sir/ltlllnz! SllIdJ' III lilt' lIi'(/,'I'II. Ill'rkcln, C\:
\\,alt,). (ll)tH) I!i.dl CO/lec!'l: .111I;i,'s 111111 .\llIrA'l'lill~ ill /lull)'II'IIII'/' \ustin, '1''-: lnilersitl· oj Tnas Press. Young, 's, (2000) "\\ e .\\;1\ Ill' Rats, Crooks and .\\urderers, hUI \\ e're .\meriClns': COl1trollin['; thl' llolll lIoml (iang'ster Protagonist during ":,\1'11 \\ orld \\ 'u' II', 11'1,11 ]11111'1I111 ol.IIII<'IHtllI SllIdll'S, q: \ 12 2X,
\oun[';hlood, U. , (ll)qll) '1,1111" CII/ldlllllld ,lIul CIiI/I' IIl1d ,),',' Post-SLIllmsl (1I1el11.1 ,md the \11 th of \\'orld \\.11' II', in C1wnhers Jild (:ulhert (cds) (tl)I)Il), S:; qfl. I), ).
(2001) '.\ \\,11' Rememhered: Sill iel Films of the (;reat P,miolic \\
/1I1t'IHill/ Ills/lIri'lz! R,';'il'lI"
I
'\1",
Ofl.Y X,i'! .:;Il,
l,inl1, II. (11)l)S) II'l'o!'II''s 1ll(lor)' olil,,' ( III/cd Sr ,1/1'.1' , 2nd edn. "ell \ mk: I Llrpn(:lJllins, I,i/.ek, S. (llJ(J3) "'The Thin[.'; ThaI Thillks": The l-,,'ll1ti'll1 Il'ICkgToUlld of the \"11 Subject', ill Copiec,
J.
(cd) (1l)(H), !ll(1 221>.
,]CtiOll
film
.1('('
2JJ-:,(I,
271, 21.~
tilm, )_~,
dH), 1<)2,237
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2°5 11 (I()"h), 12.'1, 1(1." 111t'1'.; (IlI'IO), Ill:;
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.\llwric;ln Indians, 2,:;, 57,
actillJ1-,Hhcnturc film
,1ctioll-alhclltUI"C
L nil ersill oj (:alifi)rnia Press.
\Ollllghlood,
\hdul, Pallia, I)l) Jill/i'(' l S flit' IIr/l'(',\ (I(»);), IIH Lt's III~/I (IlI;b), 110 ,lcti"n bl"ekbu,tl'J', i\, :;, If" 3", +1), S+, XS,
I('S. 1/("1, d'."
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author:-.hip
Blld 10 llie Fllillre (HJX~), 19[, J()7, 2.~S backstage musical, X+, XIl-7, 102 Blld Girls (J()lJ+), 2+ B,/(II'"11Is (HJ7"), 271'
Rill)' llie f..ld (1'1,,0), qh Bill)' Iiii' A.'id (19'+1), Bnds, Ti,,' (1Iil,.+), 11l<) Blrlli lira ,YoIii! 1/, TIi" (")1 )), .+2 -3, 73, 106,
"Il
Hadse,', Stephcn, 107
2 3.'1-9
B,"sc-J'loi (2001), 26.'1 Blllilld II/CIII,lc lIogllc, TI", (11J70), 71 Billilid II/ Llllic ]0, Tilt' (IlJ<)~), 70 Blilld fj"l~oll, Tile (1953), 102
Ihlli'r SII'"el (19.+0), .'15 Blild' 1...'''1, TIt" (1935), I III HI"d' 11i111'A- f)1I1I'1i (2001), 10" 1211 BIII, rlt" (1'1,;.'1), 1l)0, 1l)'1 hluckbuster, Z,1S- .+2; SCi' ,tl.w ,lctlUIl
Barthes, Roland, 20, 211o
HlIsi" IIISIIII<'! (HJ<) I), 22 ~I) Ihsinger, Je<1I1ine, 12, 'o(), 11,+, I zS BIIIII
hluL'khuster
Ba,a, :J.1.Irio, 175
Jbl.in, .\ndrC'1 ix,
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22", 225,
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Cinerama, 2.+.1 (,'I/I~,ell A.lille (llJ.+O), 212
ll11katm
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125
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Burton, Tim, IS, Ilu,comhc, Fd\\
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C/"o!,'"1'i! (Ill',,), 2"l) CierI-.> (ll)lJ'+), 5 Uodll'tl/I (Jl'illl,~e, 1 (llJ, I), I XX C/",,. h'1I'(jllllli'/'S "lilli' Tlllr'/ f.',",! (llil71. IS", ISH. 1l)1 2,24-4-
C1U'C!', Carul, IllS CIl/JrO (I<JS(,), 2,+,
1)2
(;,,11111, I 11111''/ SI,II,'s ,\I",.sl/ltll (Ilil,n, ,II C~liI1, Janll'~ \
1., 21 S. 21~, 22_~. e,il1e, \licl1
22{)
J.1I1lC~,
~l'nl'nL c.l110!1
11)0
L'(j'''''" (\l)S~), IIp
e,,'/e 1-11, (200+), Ili'i
(11)(5), ~.+
191, 220, 24-~ (:(j!dJl ~ SI"r)', Tilt' (((),;;)), C(jllill,'r,t! (200'+), 133
Collin"
'70
'i"
Jil11,
I" S.+
(:OIU111hi,l, I 1 J
Bor/.lgc, Fr,ll1h, .+.+
1,'''.'1/10 (((Il))), (.+5 1,'''1 I"'fi!, I,' (1li-t2), (h;, 22,~
((lined}. 3,
11(1)'S III CIIIII!'IIIl) C. nit' (((),S), 123 !i1l)':,:J. 111t'lllllld((()'JO), qh
(,a\\ dti, John, 23
(,'ilh!J-.l.l
llrillJls/or", (!l)S3), IllS, 203
L('I{III.~ /('1'1 1 (19.r7), .)
Ch
IJr/{f~(' Ii!! IiiI' Rl~'('r A"II),l! (I
Hi~ hllil, l'lte (HnO), ('0
fJr{{(~t'
Ih~
IJrI~IIJ."," (I li5.+), ')0
rOfJ
Far, I
(67),
(Il);i), 121
Blg,~,'r n l i i / 1.lfl' (H),;;()), ,10
/li'I~hl"'l
Bill)' H"lh~lIle (Il)l)I), IH
Brmlnn, \LIn, I,)h
Rud' (l'lof7), q" 22,
120
1l1O t1Ll ,
215
Chal1Cl, ],011, 1(" Ch
llJll! .')'1'1' ( I
Il),
()<"'+),
I
oh,
1.!-2
4-7. 53
t(IS, 2<11,
2())\ 27+
nli' (IlHII), 10"
J [ 3, Cliol'lilis of I'll',' (I liS (), 130 U,d,.I,.) I :lInd (1l)73), 1+5 Chillll 's 1~(,nJ (I \)71), .2.::;, jon
Chn
Coml'
(;(1 !fl ill'!!, f Jonl/' ( IlJlX), 12+ COlllllldll,/(j (1'1.'1.+),2'+7 (;011 Ilr (I 'i'J7), 23S COlllil,'1 (I l)lJ7), 1lJ2 c0l1\cntionalirY,7 S, 14-, IX. 53, )),
([9/0), loll, 121
IJr,1I1I SI"I','r's /ir
I I,
ColoHm: 'I'l,,' Fo r/I III I'r(j!I'(/ i 1'17 I), IlJ7
B()r~C"i Joq2;c
l,uis, + IJllm "" lit,' l'''IiUIt II/}
102, 103, 10+
Cold \\ar,h"lJ,;;, 117, 113, ,.'IS, 1.'17, ISlJ,
C,lpLI, FLlI1k, 21 I 12 L,,,'!Ilfi '" /1 ,I)' (Ill<).;), q2, I+II, I) I (I <Ji(l),
(:ohUrI1, }lI11eS, 10'i
(:ohan, Stcn.'n, 93,
(~.lll1CrOIl. Cl11011
Cdr,.,,,
77 So, [53n, 2,.'1
(j, il \\ar (CS), (,.::, h"
llurtol1,\t1Llrc\\, I 10
1.',11'I11<'11
225, 2J211,
Cil11 1110 , ,:J. lIchad, 5') negro, 227 cin~ma of attLlctions, .'1+-5, To.+n, 2'+2-," 2,+,+, 2(,X
Ilrlll10, Ciilllial1a, "H Ilru/zi, Stella, qS, 2,;1), 27 2n !in. I,
.I1'{'
+,
Cilllilrrllil ([(130), (,0
Ilruckheilncr, Jern, 236, 25 2
Burgoyne, Robert,
J(), 223
273 (1970), [21
(:,lrroIL "od, 1,1 Lil.\itl,f{/f11'(/ (1 tJ+2), S3, l()+. 2/ 1
!Ji~ :,'1,'111, l'lt" ( Ilj'+'))' 22<)
!i-III//J/e IJI 1,1111,' Clili/ll (IliSh), 2'+,
Chibnall, Stne, qS
Olin/go (2002), 99 Cliiclille, L" ([(J3[), 2q CIJ/l1alolPll (1(>7-+), 2 I I, 2
el"""1t1
/JI1i1/'1/ ,11/'
Ilelton, John, H
(J(J70), 7.'1 lIe/lllld /;'11(11)' I,illes (2001),1°7
Brooks, '\lel, .'12 Brooks, Peter, 3'-2, 37 S Broomfield, "iek, 25 S Brown, I)il\'iJ, 25 2 B\l)\\ !ling:, Tod, 1 III
77
lIehiJldli/(' (;reell OOllr (J()77), 2IH), 270
TIt"
Boil'ell ,-Irroll' ([(i50), 51l, )7, 110, 73 HroA'O/ B/(js.wl!1S (l(jll)), 3 2
Ihar" Jacki", 3'i
!ll1I" (;lIrd<'llill, fli" (((i~,1), 2ZS Hod)' IIlId ,"'11111 ((().+,), 2((i, ZZI 11,,11)' I/ml (Il)X I), 21 I, 215 11",1)' III' /;,'id""(,, ((()lH), 22~ II, 2('7 hody, the, lSi, I~~( '70, J(J3
/I<',~llIlo/,
299
II\DEX
9?l-INDTX
,3
C/I<')"'IIII" ,\0<1<11 C/III>, 'I'll' ([(i-a), 1I5
(;011;"".'<11'011,
L'o,,~ulI"
nit'
(1<J7.+1, ISl)
/JIIII! (I 'liS), (,.::
Coppola, I'L\Ilci" '::7, 'ill, I H, I So, I ~2
C"r,', fiJ, (200,;), [.'1.+, 2;; [ 70f Curman, Roger, 1l)3, I()<j, IS7, 201 Co..;tncr, r.;..C\ in, 275 COllin, Stank"
COlilil'/"II'1I (It/Hi), IlJ-
300
INDEX
INUtiX
Fl..";.'!' (197X), q+, 150
f)<,;'il's f]ild'f,oll", TII<' (2001), 171>
I':baesser. Tllomas, .10, .'!, .IS, +S (1I,'IIt)' III Ih" GIII,'s (2000), 12 I. 2S2 Fngelhardt, Tom, 62 Entcrprise Production~, 22 I
f)<,;,t!'s Dllllnl'iI)' (1l)"I), sh, 73
epics. 23S, 2+0, 2+2, 2++
FII/slr
f)lilf,1I II 'lilt'S , 1.<',1' (I
hllsa (Il)~(,), 3, 2,\+
f)c;'11 f)1I11, Tilt' (1l)31». I Xs
(iol Ill', :\lil'kld, S7 S Crils/' f)",<, ( I 'J-tJ), 10(,
f)C;'t!III" BIII<, Ih,',(" (1l)'IS). 22h
CU'illllr.- Frlllll III,' Blild' IAIponll, Til" (I '!.'-+),
f),'i't! III 111,1',1' ]011<',1', TII<' (I l)7+), 271
1(,3 Creed, Barh"LI, '70, 172, '73, I,~,n Crilll 1/111 I, rlic (ll]l,O), '+7 CnsIs (I l)(,3), 2('0 Cronenherf':, Da\id, I ('a, 20+ Cm/los (11)ln), 17h Crllss 0/11'011 (1l177), 101), 121 Cmsslire (1'J+7), 2'S, 2Il), 221, 221) Cmll!'icr (I I)'J'J), 227 Cmcl S<,II, TII<' (Il)S3), I IS Cukor, lieorg'e, 'Ill CII II ,'/' ',I' 11 'I)' (Il)SO), 22+ CI
des, 2('-7
f)1I111 HIISICrs, r/,c (I l)S+),
I
IS
I
(Il)
'erotic thriller', 226, 267
(I<'I'/I,d SlImlllll( II/Ih" S!,IIII"ss ,Ill/III (200+),
11 1i!;'t'S (Il)l)O), 7.\
Dante, Joe, I S7 f)ilrA' Sill I' (Il17+), ISS /),I/A' II iill! (2002), '7S Da"in, Jules, 21l) l)a,is, \like, 213 f)1I0'/I o/III.- f)mt! (200,), dIS f), 1/1' II 1'1111'111, Tilt' (ll130), [10 /),1)' '/fier 'Iillilorrllll', nlc (200+), 2S I f)1I)' I/,C 1"IIr11r SIIIIIt! SIIII, Tilt' (Il)S I), IS7, 20(m f)<'ilt!I,'1I11 (1113h), '3S, ,+h f)Cilt! 11,111 (ll)l)S), (q f)mt!I'rt'sItIOlls (ll)'J5), [2+, 1+1> f)OIt! Rt'd'OIIlIlP (IIH7), 2 [7 f)t'IIt!!ler 111t11l lilt' ,11111<, (IlH7), 2'7 f)mt!II'oot! (I lllO series, 200+1, 7S f)ml/' II/II (;llIlliplll''/' (I l)(Il)), hI> f)<'illli 0/11 SIIIt'SIII'1/1 (\liller), 2ho /)eilill Rill', Tilt' (1l)2S), 201 f).-illir 111,1/1 (Il17+), 2+7 f)mlllll'til.-II (2002), I IS I )a!' CO;'CI (11)1)2), 22(' I)t'c/, IIII/'ilCI ([<)l)X), 2,'[' 2S2 I> f)ec/, rlrlwll (1l172), 27' f)ar lIlli/It'!, 'I'lrc (Il177), 121, '2,\, [2+ I klanel, Samuel, 20S f)t'IAli'elr (200+), 27+ delToro, Guillermo, 17h f)ollellllil 1.1 (11)h+), I(Il) f)<'III(/rIIIS I/ot! III( t,'/,I'/liI/II( (It)S+), 2+0 f)ollo!lllllil ,1/1111 (1t)113), ('7, It)X Ilcrrid." JICLJUes, 7, 2'J, 101,2("-2 1).-,1'/''-1'11 Ie ]OIIl'lIel' (I 'H2), 3 /),'SIIIII/lioll 1/111111 (It)SI), ,X7, [Sx nt'fuur (llJ-+:;), 221, 2.1~11
F/'IIIIt
Ih" F(II'II-'!,'rr,'slrrlll (Il)X2), 1l)1
""0, I +h: SCt'
IIlso
ral'C
/:';,,, IIf f),'SII'/i(/11I1I (Il)l)O), 1lJ7 (i't'1I1 11111'1 ~IIII (I 91J7 I. 17 S l:i<,l\hll
DO'lIle. \lan ,\nn, 12, 3 [ f)r C)'.-Io/,s ( I l)+O), ISS f)1I,-lor f)olllll( (I ()()()), l)h
l)l)
(;'1111 (1I)l)h), SS. 9 l)
l'\ olutiOll.lry IlHH.ld
St'L'
~l'nn' l'\ O!utiol1
" \'1(1,'11/ (11)l)lj), 20+
f)r]t'A:J-I1 ilil'/ Illsler 11r'/( (ltl+l), 221
f)illI(S l1il/'
T
200 l'thnicit~-, 1 YJ
f)r]<'A')'11 ""'/ ,lll,wr 11]''/<, (1l131 I, I(>!,
Slrallgcr (Il)SS), 227
(I ~7l)), I XI)
Dimendberl';, hll1,ml, 211> '7 l)(', 120 f)1I'1)' if/liT]' (1l)!1), 2+7 disc"ter films, 2+0 I I )isnl'\, /)h, l)I), 2+ I f), (),-I. (Il)SO), 212, 2 It) f)irl)' f)o:.1'I1, 'Ihc (ll)h7I,
I ),111liano, Sergio, 76 II
.\',,/1' ) '/IrA'
(,",',11'"
f)III11CS (I 'J3S), Sh, SS f)1I II 0' Ifll/'
FrSllidll/Dllllars, _~ (1'16+),1.1+ Fli'C (I 9S I), 11)7
1)1t' fI"rt! (I<)S(,), S, 7S. 23S, 2+7, 2+S<J. 2S0 f)1t' !-IlIrt!.' / I illi iI / ,'1((<,,111'" (I l)l)S).
F,
/)1' Slrilllgt'loi<' (I l]l'3), I X+
:x, 20<), 257-(Ll, 2()3 -t (I 'J3')). (q j)Olwrtl, Th"n)(", I I 2, 12<) j)onen, Stanlel, XS. [aI, 10+ /)ollilic IJrils, 0 (I l)I)7), I+S, I +h f)1I1I'1 1.01lA, IJlltA (I l)hs). 2('0 f)ollrs, r/,<, (1t)1) I). SI> f)oonl'lI I' 10 11<,11, 'Iii,' ( I l)3 0 ), [,\7 f)1I IIhI, , 111'/<'11111111' (Il)++). 21 I, 2 q, 21," 21 S. dOCU111l'lltar},
f)o,/~e ell]'
21t), 2.21
1\lIIOSI, '!ht' (1l)7,;), IllS, IhS, 170, 172, 1l)2 e,ploiLltlon film, I(,S (', I(H), IX7, lSI) FI/'IIIIt'rs (Il)SS), Il)7 L \.prc""iIJni"nl, (icrIn
2 I Il, 227 c\.pn.: . . . . i\ it~ in 11111Sicd... , S.:;, S+, S:" Xh ;. {)O
I,
Sl),
27'
(\Iall/lllllillr, Tilt' (19S0). 2+7
1\ Ift'III'
h'<"
/'/"Ill'//(t' ([ 9 S 7).
2+7 11'1<1<, SIIIII (Il)l)I)), 2 So
II" 23+. 237, 2+X, 2,,0 FairbJnk"i, I )()lI!:da~, 23i
1',1,"; 0l/( 1l)l)7),
Flahertl. Robert, 2S~, 261 Gllldli/l (serial, 1(36), IS6 FI"slldal/te ([l)g,), '1'1 FlI~/l/ IIf Ilrc Y""lga[lI,. (19S6), 1<)2 FI)', Til<' (ll)XI», If16, 1l)3 Flrl/lg f)1I1I'1l 10 Rio (1'133), X9 n)'il/g FllrlrcssfS (Il)F), 106 FII nil, Errol, .\, S9, 12~. 237 Flig If Hill', Fhe (2003), 2h2 Fonda. Henn-, S6 FIIIII!lgll/ Pal'llr!c (193+), .,. Xl) FIIIIIIIIO,« (lljX+), <)~ Fi''' ,1/1' 1I1Ir! ,\1.1' Gal (19+2),10.1 For Ihe /Joys (I l)l) I). ~6 1'0rf,lddt'll PlllllcI (Il);;('), IX7, IljX Font' II/Fi'li (1l1+7). ql, qs. 21S, 2[(), 221.
2.'2tl Ford, John, I), 12,27, S7, 61, (q, 1l6, 1>7 -X, 7 1 , 73, 75, iX, 27-t IlIrt'l,~1I L'lIl'!'cs/'lIlllll'll[
(IlHo), 23+, 23X
Fori '!,,,,lre (19+ S ), S7 1'01'1)' (;IIIIS (11)S7), 1>.,
-If' SIIt'<,1 (11133), S(" X7, Xl) 1'-IIUl'llldt, \lichel, +, I S') Frallkenheimer, John, ljS IrilnA'<'lIsl<'I1/ (I l) I0), 161 IIA'l'IIslt'IIl (1113 I), 11>2, I (q, I Xh 1'1', III A't'I/>/t'IIl II<,cls Ihc 11111/,11,1/1 (11)+!I), 162
1',."
l)oUC';LIS, Kirk. 2+0
Filii II/ 13all/l, '!'Ii,. (I lJ+9), '21
Fr'CilA-- (I f),,,,), 162, II>(,
I )oLIl';la" \!.In, '7' nrl/odll ( Il),W), I(, I, [('2
F,rlllIl~ nOIl'11 (Il)l)+), 7 S
FI''-'/'/)' ;, 7asoll (200,), 11'0
f.ll11ih, I (l, I -+ I 2. 1-+3, I (IS, I ()2; s('c Illsli
On/dild's
!Jdfl,!!,IJ((T
(HJ3{J), [73
Ilre,ll11l1ork, SK(j, 12l), Il)O, 2,'" A. III (Il)So), 277 I hell. Robert, 2110 /)1'/1111,1 /I1111~ 111<' 1/IIIIiIII'A' (Il)Y)), I)uke, Ilill, 22(' I h LT, Ri,'hard, l)O I, '13
Llnlil~
F'lplt'
If",
('2
ll1clodr.l!1la, 30. J2, +7
(drllr "', IIIi' nl'lIi~ S,III«'rs (Ilj_,(j), I X+ r"rllr'IIIIIA'<, (11)7+), 2+0, 2S2 r"'1 IIf r'/,'II (1I)5SI, 30
1"'hIIlO'''!. Clint, S7, 77 Xo I,'"s)' Nid<'/' (I ()(ll)), 22, ()(" 2+ I, 271, (l), 2+0
I~O,
10,;
.In'
IIlslI Freed
-i)
!'['e(,d Lllil (\l(j\l), S3, X7, 9+, liS, 10[, [02
Filr Frillli 11,,11;','11 (2002), ", +1)
I'r,'II,11 LOIlI/,'dli'lI, Till' (Ilill), 2+7, 2Shl1
"'1"bindn. Rainer \\ ernLT, +0 1,/1111 /111'11<,111111 (Il)S7), 2S0 1'111,' IIf" ,1/1111, '!h<, (Il)S9), 121 F.-"r 1,'lIls Ih,' S/lill (Il)7+), +0, 273
1'1i',lrlllilll, TIit' (11)<)0), 1.13
FCllcr, J,Inc,
l.illI'/,',I, Tilt' (llj71». lOX
1'«(Td, \rtiHIr, XS,
l nit (\IG\I)
, ""nih' lllelllllr.lllla
f)r,',(s,,<1 III
93---+.
101, 102,20.)
II~/II Llllh
(I 9l)I)), 2S0 FI"hllll~ (,,/', Th( (I'J+O), 10(', III, "3 FI'11it nlll)' (pCrIodicd), S' 31l lilill lilliI', 3. +, '7,20,22, 2Xll, 2l), +2, -til, [+3, . '+:" Ihl, 1<)), 20-t' 20l), .210 32, 2(q, 2h" .:d)() Fililr Ut'I;It'IlI, nit' (II)lj7), 200 .,., f)iI)"
ill /'dIIl,~ (11)1>.,), 10 7
/-1/1li1Il'S Ri/IIIII(1I1' (lll'7). ljh Firs I nJOII'/ (ItjS2), 12S First \\ orld \\,,1', 10, SS, 10 7. lOX l), I [I, J 7, [3111, l-t0' I-tX, Ihl, 251, it'I' 1{1s1! 2
\\\\1 comb,1t Elm I'iseher, LucI, S~. 93
301
Freud, Sip"und, 1('7, '7 ' l'reul1d, K.n-\, [1>1 1'1'/,1") lilt' I,," ([()So), 160 I'i{,-,j (;It'<'I1 rOIlI"III"S (II)l) I). +') /'/""'..;1(1<)72), j(H) I'lil/II f)",'A' '1'111 /),{//'II ([()1)6), 27/
t'rtI11lin mlth, S+, 1>1 -7, 7[2,7+, '35, qo 1',,11 Ildill
],It-A-<'I (19S7), 106
(,'- \1<'11 (1Ii3,'I. 3 (j,lhhard, K rin, [.\ In (",1,/\) OIIt',1 (2001), [()I, II)l) (i,dl.ll';h:;', T.ll';, 2+, +7. ('a, ~011 (;'III~S
2."
lh,' ([()+f)), q" 2, 3, -t' (),
fiIIn,
12, 13, l-t, 20, 21 ) 2-t, 32, 3.;, -t.', .;3, S3, I3z~5J, IS.),
2rh, 21S, 237, 2,;7
INDEX J02
(;asll~~1I1 (Il)H), 22/
(;a//al'l/ (1l)97), ll)f) (;,/11<1/0, Tht' ((()27), 237 g:ender, 93, 113, I Ih, 160, [h3, 1r,7, I/r" [l)2, 2[7-IX, 22+ -5,270; sa also m'lsculinit\ gcneric canon, SH---()f, XS, IJS-(), 221
horror film, +,1/,31, X3' ',)7,15 8 - 81 , IS,-h,
Gillig !l".' (1(J+2), I q Gunning, "fonl, 2+2 GIlYS
(;allgsHr ,Vo, I (2000), qX
~cl1rc
30 J
INDEX
[7l),
classification, 2- 5, '59, IX:;, jNh, 257 H
g:eIlre cl'()]LItion, 23- 5,7+, [X5, IX(), 25l), 27" g:enre h\briditl, [7, 2Xn, 55, [(J+-5, 233 +
I LllherstaIll, .Iudith, '7+ 11,,11,,"'col (I (17X), 1(10
11"lls Ill', \1l1l1le::/I 11I<1, JI", (I95[), I31n f1<1I11I'llIgcr fIlii (IqS7), 123 11
1+3, 151, [XX, 223,23°,273,275 (;ellrlelllllll's Igrl't'I//<'II1 (((J+7), II/ (ieL[ght.', Christil1e, 1[7 GeFIIllllllo: _111 ,IlIIl'ri,wl I.t'gelld (I ()()J), 73 (;el (,',1/1<'1' (I (17 [)' I+X, 227 Ghosl III Iht' Shdl (I ()(is), 20' (;I/Osl SIll/' (2003), Ih, (;ilda (Ili+r,), 217, 221 Gillespie, i)'lIid, I 11>,201 Gilllllle Slidl<'/' (I (170), 2110 Girl (, (lli()I», 21>7
f laillmert, IJashiell, 2', Il.lnsen, \ liri,IIll, 50n
I(Jl'o!og::, I~L
Ileal'en's Cd/C (It)SoL 23, .:;{, .:;q, 7h. lSI, 2++
1+2, q+, '50 , (;od":lll
I kdll, !lCll, I"h
God:ill, SS (iold" 1n, S'lI1lUel, 115 (;lil<'lll, 'I 'he (Il)20), 1111 (;lilll' 11 ilh II,,' /I'II/d (((!3()), 9(>, 2,\(), 2+3 (;lili'/, Ih!' lJa'/, 1/11'/ Ille (,~/I" nle (Iqlll,), 7S (;lio,/h.l'!'. \11' 1.'111/,1' ((()lHi), qll
(;lili,/Idlas ((()S,)), '+2, I +5, 15.,11, 277
IIl'fTl'rnan, hClin, Ih) h IH'~t'I1l()I1:, 22, -+ 9+,
I, () I:
250~
(;ril'\c~()n,
I.ee, ryl, 137
(iriftirh, I) \\', 3 I, 32, +2 +, 1311, 2.,S, 255 (iriftiths, TrclOr, 2hh
Grist, I ,l'i~htOll, 2zh, 230 (;I'I/'/<;e, Fhe (2003), 175 Gllilligltlr'r, n", (1l),,0), 12, 117
7 2 , 75,
a/sf!
I
I I, '122, 12l). 21>+ h
Ilo/OClLIsl tilm, 20l), 21'2' 7 11""1/(1<11/1 (Il)h,), Ih')
f
()I
3,120, '+0, S((
hcg:cnlOIl~
1111/1111/1111 1I(I.il" (1l)5(i), 30, +0 III II 1.11111'1) PIII«' (lli50), 2 I S, 22,1 11I'1Cdl/l/C ShriIlA'lIl~ ,\Ii/II, il/<' (((i.)7), V 111<11'/,1'11<101«' /)IIY (I,)()h), Ilq, "J7, 235, 2.)1. 252, 2S(l
Indian \\',11"
.It'<'
,\Illcricln Indi,lIh
2+7 !II«-l'i/" (I (iSo), 17,' I IIlill'lli <'I , nl( (I (US),
11111",,'111', nil' (Il)1>2), I SX IIISIIII,I/I/,' (Il!7S), 27 I 1",'''"'"1111'/ ( Il)SO), 200 illll'gr'ltcd rllll~iLd, S3, X+, Ss X, X(), <)<), lOa, 101
+,
t)O, <)
I,
2i l , 27.:::;
inrl'rtl'\tLulit.\, 101, 133,211, 27i
c.~dS (1l)()1),
133
11"1',1/111 IIIII'I/f,/oll'(r. R. \, (Il)51), 2.\,
f"!IJlt'rtfl/((, (1()lj),
+J,
2000
]II/ll'i/I')' 111111 F,,"r (1(1+.\),21+ ]1I1I1'i/"Y'S (",/ (Ilj.\ I), I I I ]IIII!' S" 1.':;'(, I.,' (IlJ3~), 2 q ]/1'/<'1' (Il)l 1», I XI> ]/illg( /)r!'!I'/ (Il)')5), Ill+ ]Iilhlli 1I(II1'tlllilIiI (Iljl+), 2.1') J ulil'n, "a'le, 2h2 7/1 II IIii' /1,11111<'1' (1(171), (II>, 7 1 '7/1rdS,\!( PllrA' (1l)(U), Il) I, "l+, 201>n, 2++, 2+5-11 jmll,'''I( PllrA' II: nlC 1.111'1 1I'1ir/d ((()(JI), 3, Ili+
]lIsl IlIill~II",1 ([(HO), IXI> ""lllill'lll" (, ql) I), 27 6 h,llll', hatherine, I 10, I I +, I I I> haplan, 1'., \nll, (J+ h,lrloff, !lori" 11>2 h,lIan, EIi'I, 30, .P helll'r, ,\Il'\<1ndr,1, 70 hclh, (il'lll', S" ()I, q", (1+, (i5, Il', (17, (is, 101
2 I II
lu!/milt']' (2000), Z(lS
111I11)'II'lIlId Rc; II,' II; ";"'; ( ")2l)), S7 IIIIIII,'
fllJlh'j'JIIIJO!l /1/
2,. 7-+. S3,
1111<'1';"'11' 11 llli llit' 11/11I/,11''' (Il)q+), '73
IlitcheocJ.., ,\/frecl, I h,S 'lJ f/obsba\\ Ill, Eric, qll
I lol(lL',IUsl, rhe, 10q,
20-2,
2, III II", )'CI/!'
(I (!7Il), 200
IlIdlllllll }II"'S 1111'/ III<' F,'III/,Ic 11/ /)111111I (I qX+),
2j()
I lesion, Ch;lI'lton, ISri, 2+0
C'l'icr'iol1, Johll, 2.~~
++
110'11,'" (")75), 22+
'high concept', 2. ,() Ill~/1 \ ""11 (")S2'), "h, SIll, ") I Ill~/1 1'1<1111,' IJrlilcr (")7.1), 7S 111,~1t SIO'l'lI (")+1), I+S 111/, Jilc (, (i'S+), ,+,S
(irecnc, Lrie, IX()
.1('(
(,Iso
idt'o!og:
(ioOlI" in,\ndIT", (1+
(;1'1'<1'1' (I (17X), l)() (,'r(dl iiwII NliM<,/,)', n", (I (iO I), 511, 27211 (,'1"'(1/ 11<,/,('/" nit' (1l)I,X), 122
(Lt,
]1I1Ii/1i 11/1<1 Il'lil H,'
1St), I(li, '71, li+ .:::;, IS~, 210, 21.;;
IIdl I., rill' Ilel'llcs (")112), 120 lIell" , /),,1/)' (")70), l)h IIdlr"ISr'r ("iS7), I,S, 17+ //,,11'., llill~es (") II»), 11+ IImrl': Pllr/rdl! "1'1 SCI'I,II klll(l' (,,)SI,),
(;1'1/(,' ,,;,111' I/(dl'l (Iql)II), SI, (;ra,III
I funtlT, I. (~, 22+ I1urln, helh, 17 1
2S(), 2,0
.,S
f I.lII'J..il1s, Cl'luhia, I ho
'3'i, I +2, I+3, I H, ,+1>, '50, 277 Godlilllla, n"" /'arl l! (((17+), I .13, 131>, qI,
(2000), 21~' 2~1
\lIlrc OillllC, Tlte (Il),)h), l)9
1110
(;odlillha, nil' (((172),133,13+, '35, 13 11 , 137,
Glad/ii/or
Juneson, Fredric, Il)+, 20(m, 22h, 212n, 27+ JlIlcOI'ieh, \larJ.., 25, '3l), 1f)9 . }, IIH), 237, 23X, 2+0-1, 2+5 ]IIC": SlIlg<,r, JJIC (Ili27), X+ Jefti>rLls, Suqn, 35, 123, 12+,233, 2+l)-5 0 ]"SSI' ]IIIIICS (lli,N), 31>, 57, Il(i, qll ]1111/1 or,hl (I 99()), 25 2 ]111' ",,/,/ (1l172), 7 S
Ill'
I 11 ,IIA','d 11 lilt II /lIllIhlC (Il)+3), I h, I'll nil ,III)'i/IIII~ (1l)'I+), ')l) iC()Il()g:raph~, .1. IJ-I(J, ,1 2 , 5.1, 5.:;, sf), 2J+,
11.1I1J..s, I 1(1\\.lrd, 27, .)7, I.1() llal\lonh, Rit'l, 217 11
Gledhill, Clmstil1c: 'II, '7, IX, ,0,35, +5 Go ii'llll,,' S/,'II'I
}
Ilughes, Ho\\'ard, [Jo
I "'111111' 11/1iI1 ) 1111 Old I.
f lart, \\'illi'IIll S" ho, I, I, I,h, h7 I
]<1 dll I, Tlit' ([997), 2+X
IllIsi/a, JIll' (Iqlll), 95 III bnditl sa g:enIT III bridill
f1<1rd,lIJ'c (")77), 2h7 f1<1rda JI,,')' ('1111"', Jlle (1(172), '+S ILmh, Phil, h2, I3h, I h7
ft ('II'''IIIi'I'l'd llic Jrorld (I<)S6), IX7 ft's a 1IIIIlIIcrilli I.il<' (19+6), 21 [--[2,219 ft's ,1//1'111'" rllir I1'cllllier (1935), 95 T,~«IiSC (1919), T09
IIlIlIg<'/', nil' (I()S+), 173
f!,lIig 'Fill Ih<;1t ([l)('S): 7S
11<11<11'1,' (,,)h2), 237 1I<1l1l1ll1lg, nlc (")1'+),
2'"1
IllId (l()h2), IJIJ 111111' It/."d
I bIll Iller horror, 15'), Ih7, jlHi, 175,227
Ildllllllell (lqX.;), 221J
2(q, 2()() , 27+,
11,,1 ,\)/,111, The ([ ()()o), 225 111111/',(. Tltc (2002), +9 IIIIIIS' Ill' ['slta (1l)IJO), [hl) 11111/' FII\I
f!,ur (1()79), l)l)
genre n'\-isionisI11, L.t·, 72, 73, 97, 120--1, J27,
2SS,
200,210,2+1,
2J()
I""'I'/<'I's Frulll ,\IIIrs (lli53), 1l)0, l(iS 111"111'/1111 II/III( 1111'/)' SIIIIld,,'!'s (I()55), 1+3, I Sq, I ()S, 20lln
III;'IISI11
"'
""I, nl" ( Il)20), +3 "1'/ HIli,' (((173),7 2 ",,I, (Il)()5), 21'7 "ili/lill (200, +),27, 133,277 "Ii las, 'III,' (IlJ+II I, 2 I I, 22 I "'illc!''', 7'11<' (I ql,+), I.U klll'/aW"'lC1l I.'II/' (llj()O), 3 hillg:, Geoff, I S5, 23+, 2+1>, 25 2 , 25+, 277 ""l~ IIlId I.'IIIIII/!Y (I q(q), I 10
""1,~ 111111 I, lJlt' (Il)51», SIl klll~ kllll,~ (Il) ,13), Il)(i
kllig IIr]II~,: (1,1>2,1>5 hleillh'll1', ChucJ.., ,10
304
Klin!(er, Barbara, 27, +S-9 Koch, Gertrud, 26S Kolherg (19+5), I I h Korean \Var, lOS, III, 117, IIS-Il), 121,200 Kracauer, Siegti'ied, 260 Krilmer, Peter, 20hn, 2+1 Kristeva, julia, 170-1 Krutnik, Frank, 12, 230 Krzvwinsb, Tal1\'a, ISS Kubrick, Stanley, ISS Kulcshov, Lev, 201 Kl}!lIidll!l (1<)6+), 175 I.acan, j'lCques, 1+2-3 Llld)' Froll/ Shllllgh"i. 'lhe (19+S), 217 LIII)' IIllhe 1,lIke, 'lhe (I(HI», 21+ Lancaster, Burt, 237 LaIlllv, Marcia, 76, 105, I q, 175 L'ln~.
INDEX
INDEX
Fritz,
220, 221
1,11.1'1 ,HIIII SllIlIdillg (1l!'J1», I.H !-lIsl IHol'/e, Th" (1971),72 [11.1'1 Xlghl (II)9S), 251 I,IISI S"dllilioll, 'lhe (1l)(H), 2 q, 2Z:; I> 1,11111'1I (IlH+), zq, Zl5 I,ll 11'11/11/1 (I IJ7 I), 71' !-IIII'IIIIIIII}!I'I' .,HIIII, 'rhe (19()2), 1'J7, II)S, 203 1,lIll'rl'lll<' of.·lmhill (19h2), 130 I,,,gi'lld of Nigger L'h" ric)', The (Iln 2), 7+ I,eone, S<:rgio, .,1', I)(), 7", 75, 77, 133, 15 I, '52 !-"/,/:e (1975), IH I,es Girl.> (1957), 95 1,<'Ih,,1 nl'II/'OIl (I<)SS), 235, 2+7 I,elll'l' F/'Iilll 1111 (i ll kIlOIl'1I /1011/1111 (IIH(»), 32 I ,evi, Primo, 261' Le' i-Slr'lus" Claude, ,S, 2 I, 112 Lewton, V"I, 11>2 .1, 22S LnLb, julia, 1>1, 7+ 1,1/;' Is Helllili/id (199S), 21,h7 l,i/ij;I/I" (I ()S:;), 200 I,ighl Slce/,<'l' (I ()I) I), 222 L,~hl rellrs .411'11)' (]()SI), zoo !-ill/"J', Th" (200 I), qS I,ioll Klllg, 7'h" (1l)9+), l)(), 27+ 1,/111" Ih~ ,HIIII (H/70), 2:;, :;7, h7, 72, 711, 121 I,illll' L'1I"SlIr (1931),13:;, 1.1<), qS I,IIJ!" Gilllll, The (HJ33), 1.15, qo I,illlc .Ilemlll/d, n", (I<)S9), 99 I,illft Sho/, of 11111'1'1I1'.1' (I <jSI», ()l) LiC'(' Flt'sh (H)<jS), 22 7 I,oach, Ken, + I,od', Slo';':, IIlId TINI SllIof,'III~ Bllrrels (I<)<)S), I+S IAIc/'<'I, Tht' (J(Hh), 36, 22S, 22<) l.o,~1I1I 's RIIII (I (n6), I S<j I.ollel)' ire Iht' BI'II;',' (ll)h2), I>h I,OIl,~ Good Fridlly, the (19So), q7, qS
J,lIlIg Goodhye, Tht' (1<)73), z13, 22+, 22:; JAlllg K'lss GOOdll/~~hl, The (19lJ7), 13+ JAlIIg .\'I~~hl, The (19+7), l q [IIOhllgji,,' Lliligsloll (I<)SS), 1(,2 J.l!rd IIflhe RlIIgs (2001-'3),233, ZH, 2:;1 IAISI Pilirol, Th" (1<)3+), 23S Lm't' JI" 7illlight (1931), S:; !Am' Slor)' (1970), +<) Lucas, G<:orge, IS7, 190, 199,102 LUCJsfilm I S3 1,lIck)' Llld)' (J(J76), IH, 1:;0 Lugosi, IklJ, 11>1, ,1'1 Lumet, Sidnev, l):; Lusted, Dav'id, 60
culture, S, 21, 2S11, 3-t, L)I-3, q-+, 9 S \[(/s!t'J" and C;omouIJtdcr (2003), 2S1 lL/lillt'l' (II)SS), IS7 \1,111'1\, Tlte (IlIIIS), IS2, 1S,1, Il)7, Il)9,201-5,
l11,lSS
20hn, 22h, 2-+-+
Relll{(lled, n", (2003), 20+ \ htUIT, \ ictor, 2+0 \ \a "ic.. , \Ihert ,md ]);1\ id, 2110 11''<111 ,'ilr,'elS (11)/3), q:;-Il \lccl lil/r/IIII Brlllldli (I<)h:;), 2110 \klic" Georg".. , 1111, ISIl \Idlen, joall, :;+ nlc!odL1I11a, 3, +, :;, S, 10, 17,29-50, :;3, 12 3, ILII}i\
IJS, 1:;7, 20S, 212, 23h, 2-+-+, 2-+.:; :;1, 252, 255, 2:;S, 2()() , 271, 272
.1111((/(1 (I <):;2), 211) \ Ic.-\rthur, Colin, q \L1cCabe, Colin, ,II' lfeCllhe IIl1d .ITrs .Ildler (H!7I),)7, h7, 71 \1ac])onclld, jeanette, S:; \Iel )"nald, f..:eiko, I+S .\llIdJlIlt' (;1111 Kell)' (I<):;S), qh \Iel.aglen, :\lId]'(.'vv \'., 71' IllId I.o;e (1()3:;), lSI> ,HIIglII/icelil Se;'(')I, nl" (H)I>O), 70 ,\),lgIIO!t11 (H)<)(», 3 \Lrier, Charles, 122 1101'11I.1' . \11' Righi (H)SS), HI:; \Lrltbv, Richard, 7, 27, 2Sn, 30, +:;, +<), So, I I X, 22<), 230, 2.~2n ,III/III'SI'I-'I/I,-I/II, 'ih(' ("HI), 2q, 21:;, 223 ,III/II I 1.0;1', Tbe (HH7), <)7 .111/11 01'.11'1111 (Il)3+), 2hl .111/11 o(tltl' 111'.'1 (I<).,S), 57 11.111111/11 /-'(11 'iii FI/rtlt, Fhl' (IlJ7Il), 200 ,III/II If//II Sltol I,I/ltrl)' 1'1/11/11'-1', 'ilie (1')112), :;7, 1>+, hll, 117 S, 11<), 7() .llall rf//II 1111111d Be K'lIIg, Tit" (Il)7.')' 23'~ .\lall Il'illt a .\loi'/e Clilltra (H)2l»), H)1l ,IIIIIICII/Ioall Lllllllldlll,', The (l(jI12), 11<) .\llIlIdl/lril/li Calldldlill', FbI' (200+), 1211 1!l{Ulgil,
IX2
J: sec
also allll!lt'
.\11/111/11/11/11 .IL,llIdmllll/ ("13+), I .IS .\LUlll, .-\ntho!l\', 57, 7S .\LlIln, \lichJel, 133 lIllI'S .IIII/d's-' (I<)<)h), IS7, HJ7 .\ll/rt)' (1<)5:;), l):; .\Lln'in, T.ce, 133 \ Lrrxism, 1+11 \l1/}J' PO!'!'IIIS (11)11+), l)1l ll1Jsculinitv, 3+11, +:;, +7, :;3, 7+, Sl, ')3, 123:;, I-tJ, 17),212, 2lS, 2IH-rq, 223,
22-t-j, 2-'0, 2-+7 -:;0 .11*.4~S*f{ (HJ70),
1011, 121
ILI.
llml,'l1l11 (2001), 2211 Iloli/'/lis Belle (1<)<)0),121 111'1111 II ill' (Il»)7), I IS \10"1'-1' /I ,"()(Iel]' (IlI'j.\), q:; Ilenldli (2001), 122 111'0)' Ilidoll" Fhe (1<)2:;), S+ Ilo,'ellloj(e III' de ]e(lIlIl(' d'.lre, 1.11 (1Ij 27), 2:; I
,\11'11111101/,//0.\1.1 (l-.,If]..a), 11111 11(/,'01' (I<)SO), 2.,2 \lelrll/,II/ts (11)27), ,SIl, "II, 1(111, I(n, 100, 2:;1 \1(;\1, S+, S+, S:;, Sq, lJ.\, 1)+, 1).,,101, 10.\, 1111 \lid"T BI"e rl'eS (I ()<)(»), 133 .IIldlllghl (;fedi', ,I (1()()2), 127 II"!.\II/III/II'r ,\'Ighl's 01'1'11111, ,·1 (Ilj.\')' 3 ,IIidll'l/l' (1Inl'), I I I ,\Iddn'd 1'11'1''-1' (1<)+:;), +1', 21S .\ I ilc-.tone, I,cwis, 1.11 n .\lilltr'( I:I'II'\'(III,~ (11)'iO), q+ IIIIIII( (I ')()7), 17 11 .\Iinnelli, l.in, ')7 \linnc!li, \ inccnll', 3 I, .\2, s", (ll, IJ7 ,\11//(101)' R"/,lIrt (2002), 13:; II,shaM,'(, 1,1'.1 (192,11),2.,1 \lIs/its, nil' (,,)112), 1111 .\lISSllIg, lite (200+), 13,7) IIISSIi}~ 111,111/1111 (Il)S+), .,on, 12:;,2+7 ,\1,.\.(/1111: III//,oSSIM,' (ll)llI), 3 ,\li,.'OIiO Hr,',d's, nil' (1')7.')' 72 \Iitchcll, Edwcml. qo \Iitchcll, l.lT CLir\.., .1' \Ii\, Tom, 110, III .\Iodbki, TCll1i,1, 173 + \101HJG;L1Ill, .:;X. 2/Sn IJ,l/Ilc I1'alsh (]()70), Ill) \loolllighl .IId,' (2002), +') .\Ioore, Julianne, ,1 .\101Ti~, Errol, 2:;S, 2h2 .II "sl/ullo St/uadroll (I [)iO), '2 I .\llIlha, The (Il)2Il), I,ll .lllIulili R"lIge (200'), 21, <)')
305
\1'1'\, lj<) .\ ludicr, john, Sh .ILlilil/ll', Thc (19.1.\),1111 \l1/llil/l)', n,c (l<)l)I», IflS, 1+7 .\Iullln', jonathan, l.\q, q7 \lurdtr, ,\IT Sllyel (I()H), lq, 21:;, 211 \lurdas ll/ Ibe Rill' .IIlJIgue, 'lhl' (Il).\2), 1111 .\Iusic .11,11I, nil' (1<)111), <).' music11 .. , i\, 3, +, 5, lj, q, Ill, 17,20,21-2, 2,1, 53, 82-1°4, '+3, 1 (,0, IS3, ISS, 10 3, 213, 2~K, 2hH, 273; sec also backsrap: l11usictl; integrated musical; nOI1iIltL~ratcd mllsic:;, 7()
II)' Ft/lr l.lldJ' ('<)1>+), <)S, 'II) T11nh, IS-ll, (,2-.\, (17-S, 7+, 117 IS, 12+, 13 1,1.\+, q(, "achhclr, jack, 72 "aLita, Hideo, 17!> \id,t'd S/'lIr, l'ht' (1l).'.\),)7, SIn "arcmore, .\
"eeso]], Liam, 21>+ "",e, Ilri;ln, 21() '\c\\ l-follywood, 20, 23, 2.:; h, 27 H, :iq, 7 2 , I)!>, q7, IHI, IS7, ,SS, I(JO 1,222,13:;, 237, 2-t-+, 273, 27(); st'c a/so post-
cl.h,ical I lollv wI)(ld \CII']lIcA' LII)' (H)()I), q7 ,\<'1/' .1111011 (I(Ho), Ss \ <'II' } 'od', \ t'1I' } 'od, (I (J77), 20, '17 S, 10+11, 2H, 273, 177 ,\ clI',ics (11)'12), <)<) "ichols, Bill, 2:;<), 2III , 21)2, 272n Y,-~lil lilld llie Cit)' (Il):;o), 2 I:;, 22 I \/:!.!.h! .\[O"L't'S (J()7.~), \i- \ii, 212, 223, 22-+, 22) .\i,~lil oflhl' f)Cililill (1l»)7), 17 S ,\Ighl IIfllie I,mllg 01'(1) (I(I(,S), I(,S, 11''1-7 0 \I~lil/iifl
(I<)S7), 212
\'i~lilllliire oil LIlli SIn'<'1 (I ()S+), 1(,0
2hX '!-II (IIJ1<)), lH non-intcg:r~lted 1l1usical, S:;-X Yllo,e, 7'he (HHS), 1+7 '\/lrlh 1>.1' .\/lrii/ll'<'si (19:;Q), II)(), 23 S ,\osliTIIIII (1<)22), I:;S-q
() ,)'uIIgS (200-+), I
306
INDEX
INDEX
NlllllrillllS ([q-til), 2I-t /V()lP, '·"yilgt'r (19-+2), 2t) :'-lowell-Smith, Gco['ti-C\, 30, -t7 01'/<'1/11"1', Bllrl/I
Place, Janey,
'Fhe ([q~q), 2-t~ Pal, (leorf!.e, I ~~ I'll Ie Rider ( Il)~il), (H) Pan, IlerIllL's, Xl) 1',1/1<111/'(/ '.I' B",r (1l)2X), 217 I'lIlIil 1/1 Ih,. Slr""ls ([q50), 220 1'111111111\ , '/l'II', The (I q73), I ~q 1',IL1Illount, X-t, I ~~ Par(/!J1o/iJI! dcci."jOll, 20(), 221 /'11 rtf 11/0/1111 Ol! fl(f r{{Je
(I <) 30), H7
PastrollC, (Jio\"anni, 1o.~
1'111 (;111'1,'11 11/111 Blli)' Ihe A.iJ (lln3), 57, 71, Ko, l-t(l, 273, l7() 1'1111'1111 (;1111/(.\ (lqq2), 12il, 2-t~ 1',.11 (1'II1iI ker, Iii" (lql!7), 2-t~ Peat'! I Ltrbor, [12, 1[3, III> Peckinpah, SaIll, .;7, ('-t, ('(', 71- 2, ~o, 235 I'eeblcs, .\Llrio \<1Il, 73 I'eepill,~ 'III/II (Ill,o), Iilo Peirce, Ch,lrlcs, 25X Pennebaker, ]), :\., 21>O I'('I)/!I'IIIII/I(e (, 'nO), I-t~ I'erlls II/Pllllhlle, The (seri,Jl, Iq I-t), -t-t, I ~il I'esei, Joe, In I'hmlr CII)' SI"r)'. Til<' (lq5.;), '-+3, 22q PII~'IIP 1111 SlIlIlh Slrn'l (1l)52), 220
2 I
1'11111 l) Froll/ 0111<'1' Spa(e ([q5~), I ~7 PIIIII"t II/SllIrll/S ([qil2), 201 1'111111'1 "llh,' 11'''-' (191)7), IX-t' [~~-q 1'1111111111 (I<)X(,), I oil, 107, 123, [2-t, 12S Pia]' f)lrly ([qil7), 120 1'111)'<'1', 7'lie ([q~S), 23il Po,lf(ue, L<:Iand, Iq, Son 1'11<'11(.1 (.\ristotlc), I> 1'111/11 H!ollk(lqh7), q5, 15[, ISq Poi tier, Sidney, 73 Polan, I )ana, I 13 Pod Ch"p iilll ([l)"q), Ill) pOr!logLlph\, '\, [73, 20q, 2il7 72 Porter, Edwin S, .,h Posodoll .ld"I'lIll1n', Tlil' ([lnl), 2-t0 P"SSl' (1l)7.;), 25 POSSI' (1l)'l.1), 7.\, 7-t po,sl-cL!ssical 1101" \\ood, I', 2h, 'l5 l), I s-t, I (n, 20<). 237, L.J.2 J, liS 1',,'11111111 .IIII'II)'S RIIIgs 1''''1(1', FIi" ("i-th), 2 [:;, 221
Pos/m({N l'III~'II~e,
QII1
Picrson, .\lichcllc, [~~, 2-t5 I'III~')' (Iq-tq), [17 Pml/llli1 ([ 977), 109 Plrllle, The (l<)-tX), l)3, 'l-+ 1'111111'.1' II/Ih" Carif,f,""11 (20°3),251 I'll IIlId Ih" 1'1'11,11111111/. Tile ([ql>[), [ilq Pill/III, The (19-t~), 217
l!1J'ays
Rmgs
'1'/1'/((',
Tlte
pO"ltnlOl\crnislll, LJ., 101, 1.~7, IS-t
(I<)SJ), 22.)
5,
)ljJ-j,
203, 222, 22(), 227, 2Jh
,It I' P(r,'t'l"lct! (I ()<)7), 2('j P,.,.,{lIlor (I'lSS), 2-t7 prl'stif!.e [ilm, "S, ho 1'1'1111' o/tli( IIII,.,IIC-' (")-t'i), II-t 1'1'111/11/.1' (I'lho), 2ho 1'1'111(1' 0/ 'I I,ll's, nil' (I'l'l I), -tt) 'I'ro-lndi,ll1' \\ e,tl'l'lh, 5h, 57, ho, 7; I'r"J,,«'rs, nil' ( l'lhX), sl) Production (:ode ,\dmini,tration (PC \), .;0, Pr{'adlin,1.!, If)
-+7, -t'l, 13-t- ." 1)<), '-+.1, 21X PI'II!<'SSlOlIlIi" Fhl' (I t)hh), SIn Prohibition, 137, qS Pr"plil"y (Il!7'l), [IH) PSl'dlO (Iqho), .1h, Ih2, I('s 70, '72, 17S' 21>-t, 277 Pllf,{/I /;'110111'. n"'(ll!30), 1.1(', l)S' '.)<) 1',,11' FI(I/Ii/l (I'l')-t), '32 PIIIIISII/IIOI/ Pllrk (I [)7')' IS'l I'lIrpl( R"s,' ,,(e'I/I'II, rli, (I'lS-t), I0-tn I'll rSII(d ( "H7), 22q
Rabino\\itz, PauL!, 21.1 LIce, ho, 79,91,95, Iq-I5, 117, Ill), q(>-7, Iho, [h7, 17-t, ISq, 227; see also ethnici(\'; .\fi-ican-.\mericlIls RlIgl' 11I1JIlrlelll,-1 (I<)9[), 22h Rlliliers o(llie 1"'.'1 _Irk (['lSI), 2-t7 R"I11!>""" Tlie([<)-t-t), Ilh RIIIIII,,,: Flrsl Blood Pllrt II (19~5), 32, 12:;,
235, 2-+7- H Ralll!>o iii (lqS~), 13In, 2-tS Rapillre, Tlie (19tH), 255, 2h7 RIIII' f)Ci/1 (Ilj~5), 2-t7 Ra\, "\icholas, 27, 30, V R,ly, Rooert, 25. 2 I I, 235 Rea g,ll1 , Ronald, [2-t, ['l[-2, 2-t7 rcalisnl, 33 -t' 3h q, -+), H3, <)0. 100, '57 R"tlr (;111111<'1' (IlH3), I q RI'!>e«a (IlHO), 22 I Re!>ci II il IUJII I II Call5e (111.;.,),27,3° RNA-!ess 11"'111'111, nil' (I l)-t'l), .1h Red /)1111'11 (['lS-t), 2-tS R"d R"'er (")-t~), 2,1, .,7 rdlnilit\, 23--t, -t~, 7'l-SO, 'H, 101, l0-t, 1.'.1, 173,203
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'reLn',5 h, 17,3° I, H, -t7, 211 Renol, \Iichad, 2,S, 2'i'l Rl'publie, .'S ReplllslO11 (I I)h;), Iho RCSefi.'OIl" J)ogs (1<)<)\), [.12
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R"ilJ 'I'll Pertiilillll, The (200 I), I-t-t R,,"ti '1'" Ihe Slill'S, The (IlJ5-t), 20 I R"ilJ TnI' (2000), 270 R"ilril/g 1'11'''1/11(5, Th" (1939),2,1,,5, Q5, qh R,,/Je, 'Iile (IlJ53), 2.19 Robinson, Edward G., I J", 212 R"I}(J(lIp ([<)S7), I<)-t, 1l)5, [q7 rock musietls, Xh R"d, Tile (19<)0), 2.1h, 25hn R"d:r ifl ([9~2), 2-t9 R"d]' /I' (19~5), 2-t9 R,,(k.1' H"rr"r P/(Illre Sh"l/" Th" (11175), l)I) Rodo\\iek, Da lid, 37 Roeg, :s.iicobs, 200 R"ger illlti .\11' ([9XS), 259 R()~L'rs, (yinger, HS. H6. H7, Hc) RogL'r~, Roy, 61 R"ller!>illl (1l)75), [S9 Roilermilsi/'/' ( IlJ7h), 2-t0 R"IIiI/~ nl/l//ller (I lJ7h), ~o, I2-t ROll/illlie (I1)9S), 2hS ROII/'/lli/ll~ Ihe SlolI( (lqS-t), 2-t7 Rose, The ([(j71)), Sh Ro.'e .lfilli" (IlH('), ~5 R"sel/liIl)"S Hilh)' (Iljh~), Ih') Roso\\, Eugene, I Jh, 1'-'1 Rossen, Rohl'rt, 2 19 Rotha, P'HIl, 2(" Rubenstein, Lel1nl, loh Ruth, ])al iLl\, 1,17 Rutlman, \\'altl'l', Il)(' RI,dl, Tom, II Silhle ]el (, l)S3), I IS SII IOll/illl ([ 9(ll)), 21,0 S,III/\(Ill illlti f)ellI,lh (I l)-t')), 2-t0 SillltiS of Ill'" }lIlIil, 'Iile ("1-+5), 1°7 SlIlIlil Fe FUll! (Il)-t0 ), 73 S,lrris, .\n<1rl'\\, 9 S,lun<1l'l", John,s." 57, Ih9 Sil;1I1g Pri,'ille R)'III/ (IlJ,)~), loh, 121, 12(,-3 I, 2.;7
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S(il'Y 11",'ie (1l)97), 11,0 Sdlrlt.: 1111 Silhersl'l', f)er (1<)(12),75 Scl1.lt/, Thomas, 20, 2.1, 25, (;9-7°, 112, 113,
135 h. 1.,7. 15CJ ScillllJI<'I"s 1""1 (Il)l)';), 32, I2l), 1';0, 2IJ2--t, 277 Schoenherg, .\rnold, ')1, <)2 SchLldlT, P,Hd, 27, 7X, 222 Sch\\arzcoegger, .-\rnold, 3, 2,-U, 2-t{), 25 0 Sl'iel1l'C fiction tilm, 5, h, I5- lh , 17,5-+,57, 119, 157, Iho, [h,--t, IS2-200, 235, 2ho
308
INDEX
INDEX
Scorsese, :\Iartin, 27, 7X, q:;-(" 2") SCOll, .\drian, 2") Snltt, Lizabclb 217 SO'COIII ("Il)f», If>o, 10:; S<'II lJol)'A', TlIc (Il).p), 3 S<'IIrdlcrs, Till' (Il):;:;), 23, ·n, Sf>, .17, h" 7X,Xo Sccond \Vorld \\ar, ('a, 72, X..' 107, 10l), III, LU, 1()3, IX,,,, 210, 213, 217--IX, 2.1 1, 2f>3; sec olso \V\\' II nJlllbat film S('(ollds ("ldl), 200 S('(rCI BCI'IJ/I,I IIII' /)0"1', nil' (I lHX), 221 SclzniL'h, 1)", id, 23l), 2..3 semantic-slnucric anall'sis (-\Itman), If>, 17, V' 53, .15, 12 3, 157, 17 X, ISS, "13,
I<)S, 23+, zh I, 271 Sgl, Rllllcd~c (1l)f>0), 73 Sl'I'g,'11I11 } 'od' (Il)" I), Iof>, "I, I3 III SCUIIIII 1'1(11111, 'I'llI' ("HS), Ih" 22X sC\:ualitl, l)3, 1(10, I(q, 1()7, '7 2 .1, ")2 3, 217,22),23' 2, zh<) 72 Si'.\:J' Bcosl (2000), I"S Shadoian, jack, 13f>, 1.12 SIIIl 110 11' (;I'IlU (I l)l)5), 227 Silo II<' (illS I), Sf>, (ll) 70, XIII Sill' J),:/i'llds II/{, ,\Iollll'l'lolld (Il)".')' liS 1(, SlIc 11'01'1' 0 )1'11011' RiMoII (1l)50), .17 SlIillillg, Til" (lljXO), If>S Slil7'l'I's ("17.1), '7 0 Shohat, ElL!, 2..7 Slioolisl, TI/(, ("17f», 7(, 7 SlIoII',~Irls (1l)l)5), 2f>7 Sicgc, Til<' (")l)S), 2"X Siq(l'i, I )on, 7f> :';/gn (~r IJisasfcr ( I <J~(l)\
122
SdcII"c orllIc /'01111'5, 'Ihc (ll)l)I), Ih" IXO Si/cIII Rllllllillg ("17 I), I XX SilA, SIO"A-/IIgs (I l)S7), l)S Siller, jocl, 202 Sinll110n, Scott, ...., f>o Simpson, I )on, 23() Sin~LT, Ben, 3S-l), ..2, H, "l), 2.1 .. Slligill'ilI II/{, R'illI (,,),,2), 23, X7, l)1, liS, Ill[-" Sill,~/c IUilc 1'1'1110;'- ("ll)2), IXln Sirk, J)ou~L!s, 30, 31, V, .. 0, +7, .. S'l) Sl,uII SCIlSC, Till' (Il)l)l)), I SX, I hi, '7X, I Xo Sklar, Robert, 2 Slotkin, Rich,ml, 12, .17, f>1, (,2, (,7, 7.. , I q, 12.. SlIol(lI (2000), qS Sobchack, Vilien, 12, I(q, IS." lXX, Il)", Ill(, S"Uier BllIc (Il)70), 2.1, 7 2 , 7f> Sol,lUs (1l)72), 201 .\'Olllt' Camc Rlfl/Ill",!!, (I (59), 32 SOil OrFUIlIA'(//sIOIl (Il),)!)), 1f>7 SOllg 01'.\ Ol'll'il) , (I (170), l)(' Sol' IIII' '5 ClIoi",' (Il)X2), 2f>S
Sof>r,lIiliS, Til<' (HBO serie" 'l)l)X ), I.n .. ' I.N SOil lid "I' \ IlISi", Til,' (Ill1 .1), l)(, SOIlIIi PaoliI' (Il)SX), l)S "'''.1'/('/11 (;1'1'01 ("1/3), I Xl), 1l)2 'space opera', IX(I-7, 2.. 1 spa~helti \\ esterl", S.i, .17, (ll), 7.1' (" 133 Sf>orroms (1l)(,0), 2..0 spectacle, .lX, .. I, X7, XX, Xlj, 10.., I X7, 200, 23(" 237, 23'), 2..26 Spicer. _"\ndrl'\\", 222, 22-.J.- 5, 227 SIIIJI'I'IIIO" (2002), IX2 Spiclbcq(, StelTn, '2(" 12l)--30, IljO, 2H :;, 262 Sf>lIol Slom"s", Til" (1l)"S), 221, 22X SI"gc /)001' CeIlII""11 (Il).. 3), X.., 10(, SI"gc(o"dl (")3l)), 12 '13, Il), 3(), .17, (q, Son Stai~'er, janet, 2Xn SlollIlgmd (ll)l)2), 122 SI,,/A't'!' (llj7l)), 20 I Stallone, SI'l,Tster, 233, 2"l), 2.10 Stam, Robert, 2.. 7 Stanfield, Peter, 60 1,70,72-3 Stell111 Ick, Barbar'l, 217 SI"r.' (1l)6S), ll) SI"r Is B"m, I (Il)S"), X7, lj7 SI"r Is nOJli, I ("177), X7 SI"r Sf>"II,~/,'J RII,I'IIIIII (1l)"2), X.. SI 0 I' '!"rcA, C1'\ series), Ill', "17, Il)l), 20(,n SI'II TrcA' 1/: 'Ill<' II rolii of' k//(III (Il)S2), 203 SI"r 11 i,rs (1l177), 7.i, I (IS, IS2, I X3, ISS, I X7, I XX, ")O, III I, ")2, ")l), 203, 20(,n, 233, 237, 23X, 2.. 1-2, 2H, 2..(" 27.i Slorp"II' (I ')1).. ), 2 .. 7 SllImllill (I huuf><'r.< (lI)ljS), 23 .., 237 Slorlill~ (h'a (Il)7l)), ..I) Slol,' ur (;1'11(<' (lI)l)O), q,) Stein, (iertrude, Ii SI(II" (lI)ljO), "l) SI,-//II /)1I11"S (11137), 2l), 32, ..(, Stewart, Jll11l'S, .,7 Stone, Oli,LT, 27, 12.. Storr, Ilcnj,lmin, 131 n Slur)' uf G. I. ]11<', TiI<, (Il!-t.i), '30 SIWIlP" 1.1Ii'" III' \/',rlil" ha(, "I'll" (1l) ..6), 217 Street, S'ILlh, II.i Slr<'l'l, n,<, (11)22), 21h Strode, \\'oOlh, 73 ,tudio Sl stel11 «( cLhsical I !olh \I oOlI SIII>III"rill" RIIIJa (IIH2), 113 SIII>III"I"III" I~I) (1') ..3), II() SIIIII 111'111 1'(01'(, 'Il,,' (2002). 2"S SU)fnst' ((()2/), .2
'7
S"-'f>,',-IS (Thomson), 217 SlIsf>m" (I ')7i1), I7.i SlIllIr" (1I)l)3), lila
SII','<,I SIIIt'11 IIr,"II«(S... (I<jSX), <jS SII'<,<,llwllrl( (I<jJS), S., T,Ili~1I "lid C'lIsh (I<jXl)), 2..7 'Llllner, -\Iain, 200
Tarantino, Quentin, 27, 132'3, J ..(), 235, 27X T,lsker, ),onnL', 233 1;,,\1 /)1I;'a (1l)7h), 7X, Xo, 2[2, 222, 22 .., 22X ted1l1ologl, IX3-", IXS-(), lXX, ")3-200, 20.. ,/I'O/i/.!!,C C(!7.'C"WIl (H).;X), ,X7, 1<)7 t,,11 fllglllild (lI)31), 1,0 1;,11 TiI"1I1 1Ii/11<, BII)' /.1' fia<' (1l)6l)), 73 Tclolte, J. 1'., l)X, IX(,-7, I<jS, 200-1 1;'11 Cllllliliolldlllmls, The (Il)S6), 2.'ll, 1 ..0 I;'l'lilllllllllr, nit' (II)X")' 3, I X2, ").1, Il)l), 20.. , 2 .. 7
Iimllllllllll" .2: ]lId~lIIelll /)a)' (1IIljl), 2..3, 2.iO limlillillor ,;: R,s<, III' Iii" ,111I"hll"'( (2003), Il17 hl'l"-' III' flld"arlllml (Il)X3), "l) /;'lslw: Til" /rllllllall (ll)l)O), 175 "1,'1(1111 1/: Blld)' 1/011111"'1' (lI)l)I), 175 1;'1'11.1' (;h,IIIISIIII' .\Iossa,re, The (Il17 .. ), '7 .. I;"I'II( elill Ill..." II' ,1111«"(1'1' 2 (lI)X(,), 17.. "1'11,,111111 "lid !A'IIIS,' (Il)XX), 27(, rh",I' /)ied IIIIII Thor Bllllls Oil (Ill"'), 3, .il) IiI".I' .\/0,1<, .\/1' a FlIglliC'l' (1l)"X), q7, 227 ril,,:/ ( II)X I), 133 nll";'« I_lA'" l's (lI17 ..), qil "1'11111 /JIll" /.111", Th( (IljX7), 2Sl) nlill .\11111 series, 20 "1'11111 Red 1_111<', "I'I,( (Il)')X), 10(" 121 nlillg, TII<, (lI)S I). I ('-t, 17", lI)O, Il)X, lOiln "l'llIlIg, The (lI)XI), 173, 1l)0, Il)1 "1'11111,1'.( 'I;, CIIIII<' (1l)3i1), IXh IiIillgs "lu /)11 III !Jm;'a 111"'11 ) ull '1',' I ),-,lil ( lI)l).i), I,n "l'lIiS (;1111 Fill' llir<, (Il)"2). 2' .. Tlli... Islalld f"rlll (111.1.'). I X7 Tbonus, Deborah, 32, 2 I X n",roll~;';)' \llIdel'li. IIi/II<' (l,ji'7), l)iI nll"<' /J1I,l'S IIrllIe Clilldlir (Il17S), IXl) Thr(e klllgs (1I)1)ruA' (lIjiI7), 120 TodorOl, TSITtan, 27 .. 'Iillil JJ,,1'li (Il)XO), ()h '1'111111> "rl,lgt'I" (I!)('S), 16!) 'Iiw /,al<' Ihe //all (11)ilq), 121 IiiI' (;1111 (Il)Xh), 3, 23i1, 2"X Till' filII (Il13S), Xl), l)I 'lillO,' 'I'llI'd.' 'Iill"ll.' (11170),12' '1'111,,1 R",-"II (1l)<j0), 20.., 2,)+
309
'Iilll(iI III' f;'i/ (Il)SX), 221 Tourncur, jacque, 17X, 22X Iilll'alllg /II/i'mo, TlIe (1l175), 2..0 'Ii~)' SIIIIT (Il)l)S), 75, 27+ '!IlIds (ll17S), Xo Trafl;" III SlIlIls (Iljl3), 136 tl'agelh, 32, Jl) Tralll IIrLI/i- (1I)!)l)), 2M-7 limll RIiMas, rhe (IlJ7,;), 7h Trelor, Claire, 217 1'l'lal Oil Ihe Rllad (1<j71), 122 hif> III ,lIe \111011, ./ (lIi03), 1h III' ,ii,' Sf>lI'll (Il)XX), 2i15 7/-1111 (Il)Xl), 20" Trill' (200.. ), 235, 2.1 I '1'1''''' 1,1<'-' (lI)ll+), 2"X, 2.10 "!i-lle ROlllilil"e (Il)l)"), 1..(, Truthut, Fran<;ois, l) "hllllli/ll Shlill', TII<, (Il!'JX), 200 20'" Centun-Fm:, l)iI, 2.. 1 TII'IIIS (I l)XX), ., Tudor, :\ndrell, S, 12, 1(,7, 1(,9, 17X "/'III11/J!ell,,,,,ds (Il)2X), (,(, Turner, Frederick Jack"m s,',' Turner thesis Turner thesis, ('3 h, (,7, Xln, qo tll,I(la (1I)l)(»), 2.1 I
1"11'11 .\llI/n For Slsl<'l" SlIra (11170), 7X TII'fI Rode 'li,g,'llla (,,)(1I), 73 .2001:.1 Sf>a<'l' O'/)'s"<'j' (II)(,X), lXX, "17,200 Llmer, Fd~ar G., 1(1I
I hlllll's Rlllil (11171),25,72 I II (II IIl1l1u II I iIillr ('<jX3), 12.i l'IIJ(I'li'"rU (IIP7), 13(' IIl/i,rgiC'l'1I (Illl)2), 57, (IS L nited :\rtists, .ill, lOX Lnilersal, 1(1I, 162, I('-t, 1(,7,21(,,2..0 I '11l11ll1n"d 11'111111111,111 (IIJ7X), ..I) I II 11111 (IIII/J!<,(, "I'll<' (II)X7), I H I silol SiI.'/,<,(I-', TlI<' (Il)l)S), 22(, 1 II IIII' iI'<' I_II;'<'!'(, 'IiII' (Il)70), 173 I illllf>)'r (11)3 .. ), 37, ,(," I an I ),ll11me, jean Claude, 233, 2..<j 1"'1 Helsillg (200.. ), I (,x I '"l1lla SAT (2002), 200 1 ,m<'l.1' (periOLlictl), 5, 3h, son, 77, SS, 27+ \ 'eerhoL'\ en, P,nd, 235 luisimilitudc, q-I(" X3, ,%, l)o, l)3, 100, 107, 2+2, 2 "::;H, 27 I \"ertOl, Dzip, 2Sl) 1 Id<,u'/rolll" (II)S.. ), 173, 11)3 \ ietlum comh,.t film, 3.:;, son, 107, 121, [226, 127, I2{) \"ietnal11 \\'ar, 22, 2.1, 72, Xo, 107, lOX, III, 120, 121, 122, l.!(l, 170, '72, ISq, 22{, 2JH
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