Cinema adjusting to Postwar America and Reinventing Hollywood

The Paramount Case: The paramount case is officially known as the United States v. Paramount Pictures, and before this case Paramount had a massive monopoly on cinema in America. Before this case was settled and won by the U.S. government, Paramount financed their films as collateral for their loans. This format of loans from banks made it possible for Paramount to collect money from banks to make films. If the film were to fail the bank would own it, but if a film fails it is essentially worthless causing Paramount to get free money from banks at times. After the case was settled Paramount had to break up the monopoly and control over the film industry in America whilst also being forced to sell major studio assets. The united states government also found Paramount guilty of monopolization of distribution and showing of films in America as well (Lewis, pg.195 – 198)

Huac and Hollywood Blacklist: HUAC stands for House Committee on Un-American Activities, and in the fall of 1947 they subpoenaed 19 studio employees as part of the reason for the communist effect in Hollywood at the time. The HUAC called ten of the nineteen subpoenaed to the stand in order to testify, however the committee was adjourned early since it was getting nowhere with its witnesses. HUAC was a big part of the red scare at the time in America, thus they had a massive fear of communism and its influences on Hollywood film. HUAC committee members also believed that jews were secretly owned Hollywood and were running the movie business. HUAC then compared communism with unionism along with opposition to racism as a Jewish cause. This then led HUAC to suspect that communism was a part of Jewishness, thus also making Hollywood look bad due to the false assumption that Hollywood was run by Jews. Due to all of the fear building up in Hollywood it was harder to defend the employees, especially since the Hollywood Ten were thrown into prison between six months to a year, leading to an industry wide blacklist. By the fall of 1947 many studios were struggling due to many employees being staffed and the contract system in the decline whilst the union-guild system was gaining traction. The Hollywood Blacklist could prevent any Hollywood employee no matter how famous or successful to be unemployable based off of one single accusation, it was a media witch trial. MGM even stated that any employee would be instantly fired without pay, and would not be re-employed unless they declare under oath that they are not a Communist. (Lewis, pg.201 – 204)

Genre: Film Noir

Film Noir: Film Noir rose in popularity right after the war. The reasoning for this is that Noir spoke immensely on the frustration, discomfort, and alienation of living in a postwar America and world. Noir is known for being highly stylized visually, and for being characteristically realistic. This was seen so much that noir films are known for capturing the American feeling of the period of living in a postwar world that many could tell what people were thinking about the first few years after the war. Noir is also known for having gangsters that are a smoother bunch that are wealthier and have established circles around them. (Lewis, pg.207 – 209)

The Noir Visual Style, Narrative, and Ideology:  When Noir was being made it was not intentionally to be made a genre. No American Filmmaker at the time set out to make film Noir, instead this term was made by French film critics after Noir made it to France. The visual style uses specific lighting techniques from German Expressionism. Some of the techniques are nighttime setting, foreboding urban streets, key lights on the ground to render ominous figures, looming shadows, and the use of fill lights and backlights to eliminate shadows. Many Noir films wanted their character to be depicted as if they were un-stable in morality, thus the inspiration from Citizen Kane is everpresent. American Noir filmmakers loved to use the antimontage style that was used in Citizen Kane as well as the use of depth of field and off-angles that Orson Welles used inside of the same film. Noir films are set in the social changes that happened after the war and how many Americans felt disturbed by it. At the heart of many Noir films is pessimism, longing, and a sense of loss and insecurity since these are the ways that the films show the crisis of adjustment of a new world that many Americans who came back from the war felt. A vast majority of noir films pivot on a reckless moment since the past plays a huge role in these films. These decisions typically change the characters’ lives constantly since they usually lose something permanently or are trapped with no escape. Many Americans that returned from the war felt the same since they fear a dark future, thus it looms over them since America had changed so much since they left. Many Noir films narrative focus on punishment and crime, however this was done with such intricacy that was not seen in films before. Noir characters embark on a criminal adventure especially if they are not professional criminals. They typically diverge from the common reality of a middle-class life into a new universe of illegal enterprise. (Lewis, pg.209 – 215)

Femme Fatale: a Femme Fatale is a devouring woman. These characters in Noir films are seen as a nightmare version of the woman of the postwar period since many women after the war had great freedom due to the huge workforce and money they had obtained without the help of a man. Many men feared that women would reject the idea of settling down after the war since their freedom would be surrendered. Due to this fear many Femme Fatale would be shown to be incredibly beautiful and sexually promiscuous, but would be willing to protect herself and her freedom no matter what. In film noir if a Femme Fatale’s sex was no longer effective she would reach for a gun like other male heroes and villains in other film genres. Many women in Noir are incredibly realistic about sex, whilst men instantly give into it causing them to find ruin while chasing the Femme Fatale. (Lewis, pg.215 – 216)

Transcending Genre, Transcending Hollywood

Orson Welles:As stated previously Welles is known well for his artistic work on Citizen Kane and the filming techniques used inside of the film. Citizen Kane did impact noir film due to its lighting, use of space, and camera angles, but Citizen Kane would be Welles only successful film. Welles films afterward are stated to be “…Interesting, sometimes dazzling work, but by and large Welles’s movies meant little at the time of their release” (Lewis, pg.220). The follow up film to Citizen Kane is Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and many aspects of the previous film that made it so popular is found inside of the second movie such as set design, lighting, aspects of mise en scene, and the deep focus compositions. Due to this film being almost the same artistically not much can be said about it, and when Oroson Welles tried making his other films he would have a sour relationship with the producing studio and would be told to fix supposed problems inside of his films. This horrid relationship made it difficult for Oroson to produce the vision he would want for films, such as one film he wanted to be a slow paced movie, but the studio would cut it up to make it more hectic. These constant cuts and changes happened to many of Welles films so much that his importance to American film is now based on what he did not accomplish compared to what he did since so much was lost to cuts and what survived the studios cutting room. (Lewis, pg.220 – 223)

Howard Hawks:Hawks is known for making movies in a variety of genres with equal quality. He was able to do this with many different movie stars, studios, executives, and house styles. Hawks was known to be flexible since he worked in both color and black and white films. He also filmed his movies both on location and inside a studio. He liked to stylize his films to be smooth, thus he preferred to present information on-screen along with having the camera at eye level in order to suggest that the viewer was a casual onlooker to the action at hand. Hawks was known for his mise-en-scene, but not one that made a huge importance on that made others upset, and he used cutting techniques in order to segue the story from one action to another. Hawks does have his own artistic style to his films, One such example is that he likes to raise questions about morality and ethics in his films. Hawks was also known for his realistic pacing since he was aware that his films take up real time, and real time should match the subject and themes of a film. Due to Hawks willing to let the movie stars take the fame he never gained the praise he earned in his lifetime. Instead just before he died he gained an honorary Oscar and Hawks made so many good movies so easily his colleagues underestimated his talent throughout his career. (Lewis, pg.224 – 227)

Billy Wilder: Ran from Germany before Hitler made it difficult to leave, and found a spot as a writer in Hollywood even though he could not speak a single word of English. Wilder studied English and Hollywood filmmaking as hard as he could. This caused him to make his name well known as a crack comedy scriptwriter by the end of the 1930’s. His first assignment in Hollywood was modestly successful in light comedy known as The Major and the Minor, which starred Ginger Rogers. As he continued to work in Hollywood he made cautionary melodramas along with a number of romantic comedies, he made a name for himself as a director who did not have a distinct artistic stamp on his films. Instead he demonstrated the same flexibility that Hawks had, and had the same emphasis on telling a good story. Wilder did not hide himself like Hawks, instead he made himself known and became one of the sound-ears celebrities. He was known to be celebrated by his colleagues in the Motion Picture Academy. In most of Wilder’s films he loved showing affection for working class characters that had horrid luck or were in the worst part of their life. Wilder had little to no problems within the studio system and his films were known as compelling stories that were told with expertise. His success is in part because of the studio system itself since it allowed his story telling abilities to flourish. (Lewis, pg.227 – 230)

Eliza Kazan: Kazan is known for directing some of this era’s best and most well known films. He also decided to say names during the HUAC hearings which made many of his films diminish in the impact of film history, according to many historians. His films were made politically progressive and were an extension of his progressive stage work. His first Oscars were about a film about condemning anti-Semitism in postwar America, and an incendiary political film. Even though his film career was taking off he still maintained a presence in the New York stage scene by helping establish the Actors Studio where many of the best stage and screen actors were trained in the 1950’s. For his films he made his actors follow the style of method acting in order for his characters to seem more natural in their expressions on the screen. This made Kazan popular for the way he directed the actors in his films. One of his best known films is A Streetcar Named Desire, this film is praised for its use of method acting since Marlon Brando had a memorable portrayal of his character and it is said that this is one of the greatest Method performances of all time. Kazan was called to testify before the HUAC, and he was one of the biggest people that the HUAC had ever subpoenaed. Instead of resisting the HUAC he cooperated and he constantly remained unapologetic about his cooperation with the HUAC. During 1999, Kazan had obtained an honorary award from the MPA, and when he was on the stage accepting the reward everyone across world wide television knew how important politics were for his career. (Lewis, pg.230 – 232)

Ida Lupino in Hollywood

Ida Lupino: during a certain time there was only one woman making major films in Hollywood, this was the actress-writer-director Ida Lupino. She began her career as a contract player in Warner Bros., and made a name for herself in They Drive by Night. Like many other stars, specifically female stars, Lupino found herself restricted by the studio system. Due to her growing exhaustion of stereotypes in films Lupino made her own production company in 1949 in order to develop and produce her own films. Her first film as a producer was not credited on release of the film since the original director died three days into filming, but she took over in order to keep production on schedule. Lupino used her fame as a producer-writer-director to gain interest in her films about interesting, different, complex women throughout the making of her films; there is not much of progressiveness in terms of gender politics within the films. The men in Lupino’s films are written to be more flattering and less realistic. They are more caring in wish fulfillment type of ways. The women are written to be the opposite in her films however. They were written to be self-doubting, extremely ambitious, competent but cold, vulnerable but sexy thus creating complex characters that Lupino wanted to see. Lupino was known as the only woman director of any major films in the following years of the post war era. She was known to not use her job title and fame to radicalize her viewers or show a feminist agenda. Lupino instead used her position to write and direct films that showed more interesting female characters. (Lewis, pg.235 – 236)

Works Cited

Lewis, Jon. American Film: A History. 2nd ed., 2021.