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The Crowd and the Screen

The Crowd and the Screen. FR 255: Week 8 Dr Jessica Wardhaugh. La Bellevilloise , Paris. Lecture plan. A) Overview: Mass communication and politics in Europe How was film used to transmit political messages? B) Close up I: Film and the crowd in France

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The Crowd and the Screen

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  1. The Crowd and the Screen FR 255: Week 8 Dr Jessica Wardhaugh

  2. La Bellevilloise, Paris

  3. Lecture plan • A) Overview: Mass communication and politics in Europe • How was film used to transmit political messages? • B) Close up I: Film and the crowd in France • How were the crowd/people/workers depicted on screen? • C) Close up II: Encounters with the crowd on screen • How did audiences respond?

  4. A. Mass communication and politics • « Un nouveau régimeouplutôt un nouveau mode de rapports s’établitpeuàpeu et modifienotre Europe. Aucunpeuplen’est plus désormais tout entierdans la seule main de sespropres chefs ou de sespropresmandataires. Par ces interviews retentissantes, par la radio, par d’autres interventions indirectestransmises par le cinéma et bientôt la télévision, les Guides ne seront plus absents nulle part. Ilspourrontétablirquandils le voudront le contact et rétablir la vérité de leurpersonneàplaisirdéformée par le pamphlet et les polémiques. De gouvernantsilsdeviennententraîneurs de peuples et il se constitueunedémagogieinternationale. » (Gabriel Boissy,Comoedia, 1936)

  5. Culture and legitimacy • The ‘guides’ to whom Boissy referred turned to culture (as aesthetic production and as everyday practices) to create and substantiate their legitimacy • Historical studies of ‘everyday Stalinism’ or the ‘fascination of fascism’ have explored how dictatorships both aestheticized and normalized extreme politics • State-sponsored film could offer images of the leaders and their supporters

  6. Film and Soviet Russia • Cinematographers followed in the footsteps of the Red Army • Goskino, a state-owned film company, was established in 1922 • Eisenstein’s October brilliantly played out the Bolshevik interpretation of 1917

  7. Film and Fascist Italy ‘Your talking newsreel has tremendous possibilities. Let me speak through it in 20 cities in Italy once a week and I need no other power.’(Mussolini, speaking to the American Fox-Movietonecompany, 1927) Cinecittà, established in Rome in 1937, was the largest cinema complex in Europe (84 feature films produced in 1939, rising to 119 in 1942).

  8. La Vecchiaguarda(Alessandro Blasetti, 1934)

  9. Triumph des Willens(1934) (Leni Riefenstahl)

  10. Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947) • ‘What films reflect are not so much explicit credos as psychological dispositions — those deep layers of collective mentality which extend more or less below the dimension of consciousness.’

  11. Film in Nazi Germany • Reich film legislation in 1934 gave extended powers to the censor and exiled Jews from the film industry • Youth film evenings or Jugendfilmstuden were organized on a weekly basis by the Hitler Youth, with a network of 1,500 mobile film units • From 1936, attendance was compulsory

  12. B. Close up: Film and the Crowd in France • ‘Le cinémamatérialise le pireidéalpopulaire. Il ne s’agit pas de la fin du monde, mais de la fin de la civilisation.’ (Anatole France) • ‘Pour la première foidepuis les cathédrales et les chansons de geste, nous nous trouvons en présence d’un art vraimentpopulaire.’ (André Maurois)

  13. ‘Social’ cinema in France • L’Atalante(Jean Vigo, 1934) portrayed the life of a young working-class couple • Workers were also a key focus in Jean Renoir’s La Petite marchanded’allumettes(1928) and René Clair’s A Nous la liberté(1931) • Jean Duvivier’sLa Belle Equipe (1937) showed a group of workers winning the lottery and running a café together • Marcel Carné’sLe Jour se lève(1939) offered a darker portrait, with Jean Gabin as tragic proletarian hero

  14. Film and politics in France • Pre-World War I, French anarchists had established a cooperative called the Cinéma du Peuple • Jean Renoir worked with the Communist Party (PCF) to produce the electoral propaganda film La Vie està nous (1936) • Amateur film-makers in the Socialist Party (SFIO) such as Marceau Pivert and Germaine Dulac filmed party events

  15. Jean Renoir, La Marseillaise (1938)

  16. Theatre/film critic Marcel Lapierre on La Vie està nous (Le Peuple, 17 April 1936) • ‘C’est la première fois, en France qu’unpartipolitique fait réaliser un grand film de propagande et c’estégalement la première foisque, dansnotre pays, une oeuvre cinématographiqueestproduite en dehors des formescapitalistes et commercialisteshabituelles, “par un groupe de techniciens, d’artistes et d’ouvriers.” A ce double titre, La Vie està nous nous apportedonc du nouveau dans le cinémafrançais.’

  17. La Marseillaise(1938) • Jean Renoir described La Marseillaise in his autobiography as a ‘celebration of the French people’ • Proud of their regional identities, these ‘people’ are also depicted as more patriotic than the aristocrats in Coblentz

  18. A national film… — La nation… les citoyens… qu’est-ceque tout ça? —La nation, c’est la réunionfraternelle de tous les Français. C’estvous. C’estmoi.

  19. …and a ‘popular’ film • ‘Ce film, queJean Renoir, sur l’initiative du Rassemblement Populaire et avec le concours du gouvernement et de la CGT, tourne ne sera pas un film populaire seulement à cause de son thème ; toute la production va être fait avec la collaboration des masses du peuple français. Même le financement va être effectué par les masses.’ (Guide àl’ExpositionInternationale, Paris, 1937)

  20. C. Close up: encounters with the crowd on screen • The popular reception of crowds on screen can be very difficult to trace • Yet the French police did report on the reactions of cinema audiences, e.g. to newsreels depicting controversial leaders or demonstrations • Such newsreels did not always feature audio recordings of the leaders’ speeches, however

  21. Maurice Bardèche and Robert Brasillach,Histoire du cinéma, 1946 Contempler une émeute ou un dictateur passe encore: les entendre, cela devient dangereux.On assista à ce spectacle inconcevable que, tandis que l’univers était secoué des plus certaines catastrophes, l’écran ne nous présentait que d’anodins matches de boxe ou de tennis, le tour de France ou d’Italie, la culture de la vigne en Californie, la moisson au Danemark, les fêtes régionales dans le monde entier, des concours de beauté sur toutes les plages, des concours de chiens sur tous les trottoirs, et la vérité nulle part…

  22. Private film evenings • Organized by political groups and parties across the spectrum, these offered opportunities to view political films in partisan settings • Action Française militants watched films about the Orleanist pretender, such as La Croisière de Campanaor Le Sentiment populaire en monarchie • The Croix de Feu/Parti Social Français filmed its mass meetings and leisure activities • Communist film evenings featured films from the USSR (including October) alongside Charlie Chaplin

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