hollywood as art--12/20

20 Dec 2024

hollywood as art--12/20

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Today's selection-- from The Hollywood Brand by Peter Catapano. In 1927, many still hoped that Hollywood would be a fountain of great art:

“In her keynote address at the inaugural banquet of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927, the actress-producer Mary Pickford declared the American motion picture ‘the greatest medium of entertainment in the world.’ Pickford's audience of Hollywood's elite producers, directors, and actors had much to celebrate that year. Profits were high, and stars like Pickford were household names in America and abroad. The motion picture was no longer just a technological curiosity, as it had been at the turn of the century. In the successive decades, an entire generation of Americans had grown up with the movies. There was no doubt that the movies had become a permanent feature of American life. While concern about their pernicious influence continued to be raised, even the harshest critics of the movies believed that the medium could be a positive social and cultural force if properly regulated. Intellectuals and cultural commentators who advanced the idea that the movies were art also found more receptive quarter. The American motion picture industry had captured the hearts, minds, and pocketbooks of the American public and was continuing to grow globally.Those industry leaders who gathered that January evening at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles looked forward to an even brighter future as they prepared studios and theaters for the introduction of sound.

“The public debate over whether the movies were or were not art also seemed to have been resolved. The arguments that the medium had artistic potential, coupled with the importation of a number of well-received ‘art films’ from France and Germany in the 1920s, had convinced intellectuals that the movies were more than a disposable, cheap form of amusement. Film critics had been especially effusive regarding the post-World War I ‘German invasion.’ Alfred B. Kuttner, in an issue of Exceptional Photoplays published in 1921, claimed that ‘the outstanding event of the past year in the American motion picture world has been the exhibition of a series of German pictures.’ Perhaps American moviemakers, some would argue, had much to learn from their European counterparts; but with this fresh evidence from abroad, many considered the expression of film art already to be at its pinnacle.

Harold Lloyd in the clock scene from Safety Last! (1923)

“Indeed, critics increasingly voiced the sentiment that American movies could not match the artistry of the European cinema, reinforcing an existing sense of cultural inferiority. Kuttner and other critics cited the artistic superiority of German films like the critically acclaimed (but publicly unpopular) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the more warmly received Ernst Lubitsch import Passion as contrasts with the ‘picture hokum’ produced in America. Walter Prichard Eaton encouraged the exhibition of ‘better moving pictures’ from Germany ‘to counteract the fearful deadening and cheapening of taste that is resulting in this country from constant attendance at our own product.’ During the 1920s, American films dominated domestic screens, and significantly increased their presence overseas. For Eaton, this new hegemony of Hollywood represented a ‘deadening’ rather than a ‘cultivation’ of the aesthetic sensibility of movie audiences.

“Hollywood was commonly blamed for the generally low quality of American movies because of its insistence on attracting a mass audience. H.L. Mencken described the mainstream American film as ‘idiotic’ and suitable only for the ‘present mob.’ He claimed that ‘soon or late the movies will have to split into two halves’ in order to serve those interested in ‘sense and beauty.’ He also believed that better films could be produced ‘if competent men to make them are unearthed.’ For Mencken, the problem with American cinema rested in the character and (lack of) education of ‘unenlightened’ studio producers.

“The main problem for other critics of American cinema was not the taste of individual movie producers, but that the criteria for success in the movie business was mass popularity and high profits. The editors of Exceptional Photoplay expressed this common sentiment:

“Even our most advertised ‘artistic’ producers have not risen to the challenge to bring us better pictures ... Many of our producers are masters in swaying the public, if popularity is their only standard they may always succeed. But it will be tragedy if they allow their easy achievements to blind them to their greater opportunity.”