The series of essays in this weeks readings by Staiger, deCordova, and Hansen were all challenging and interesting in their own ways. As a music student, I find myself with hardly any working knowledge of the film industry and film history, so it was helpful to read both Staiger and deCordova's revisionist histories of the formation of the star industry. In my opinion, Staiger's was a little more difficult to comprehend because it assumed more prior knowledge on the reader's behalf. I found that deCordova's language suited itself much better to my way of learning and understanding, and I was left with some very interesting concepts to chew on in relation to the formation of the "star system" (which, by the way, sounds a little too similar to the "solar system", in my humble opinion).
deCordova referred to the emergence of this system as the emergence of a particular type of "knowledge", with the site of this knowledge being the actor. It is very relevant and important that this knowledge was "produced" and propagated through different mediums such as magazines, posters, and picture reels, as today these changing mediums alter the forms of knowledge that we may hold, and therefore may change the upper structure of our star system.
I really appreciated deCordova's laying out of the three forms of knowledge that emerged to produce the picture personality. First, the circulation of a name. And what's in a name? Well, apparently, the concealment or revelation of a name could tell you a whole lot about a person. It was fascinating to me that a major reason for concealment of an actor's name was that they were a "legitimate" stage actor who feared being "discovered" in the cinema world, the irony being that not knowing an actors name might in fact mean that they were well known. The second form of knowledge is intertextuality, which necessitates a regular audience who can see one actor in multiple films and grasp the essence of that actor's personality through their performance in these films. The last form of knowledge is "discourse on acting" or discussion of previous stage experience, which for me really stressed the fact that picture personalities were people whose professional lives were up for discussion. Beyond this, deCordova made evident that the main mark of transition between a picture personality and a star was whether or not their private lives were also on the table in terms of public discourse. I find the "reel hero/real hero" wordplay very interesting because of this concept that a star's private life needed to resonate on a moral level with the actions of their characters. I wonder if people think this belief is upheld today or has been turned on its head.
I was very surprised by the Hansen reading because I wasn't expecting to see a discussion that involved Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" so deeply. I personally love that essay because it (quite literally) opened my eyes and taught me a lot about being a critical spectator, but I appreciated Hansen's critique of some of Mulvey's points, as well as her willingness to explore Valentino as a possible contradiction to Mulvey's thesis. I have to say that I can't help but think of Valentino as more of a tool for exploitation of female moviegoers than as a result of the recognition of women as a "socially" significant group. As a music student, this situation reminds me of record companies development of race records after realizing that they could take Black people's money if they simply recorded a couple of Black musicians on vinyl. However, I am definitely interested in learning more about female desire and how it has played out in cinema and in the star system.
In reading the sections your talking about on theatre vs. films and how that all changed, I kept being reminded of Helen Hayes's memoir.
ReplyDeleteIn her book, Hayes confirms that legitimate actors did hide their names in films at first. Hayes talks about being a child star on Broadway, and how she would sneak off with her mother during the day to make films. And she describes actually changing her appearance with make up and wigs to make sure no one would recognize that it was HELEN HAYES, rising young star, in the film and would instead think it's some some unknown girl. Hayes explains that she and her mother hid the activity from whatever production she was working for, and lived in fear that someone from the theatre would find out about her activity.
Then cut ahead, and once again Hayes reflects on the phenomenon described in our reading where stars of screen eclipsed stars of stage in status and in accessibility to the public. Helen Hayes became a star on stage through the strategic work and attention of a patron producer (much as screen stars were made). By the time Helen Hayes was "First Lady of the American Stage," she got signed to a film contract and made a series of high profile movies. In her book Hayes talks about how different it was to be a film star. She says that being a star on Broadway she still had privacy, but after starring in pictures people recognized her and approached her everywhere. She describes being much more public and much more belonging to the public after appearing in films.
The last correlation between this reading and Hayes's first-hand account of living it is contrary. Unlike the assertion that film stars have a home life and are more "regular" than theatre actors, Hayes lived in a house in Nyak, NY and took the train or boat down every day. She was very much a part of her community, raised a family, and lived a very traditional life with a stable home.
It's interesting to see the personal account of these situations the readings talk about. Obviously someone's memoir is going to be biased, but I couldn't help thinking how it lined up and how it didn't line up with what our readings asserted.