Browsing by Subject "Film history"

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A critical study of Hammer Film Production’s brand of Gothic Horror from 1956 – 1972
(2013-05) O'Brien, Morgan Clark; Berg, Charles Ramírez, 1947-
Hammer Film Production’s brand of melodramatic Gothic Horror reinvented horror cinema in 1957. Despite bringing tremendous financial success throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Hammer’s Gothic had run its course by the early 1970s and cinematic production ceased altogether by 1975. After establishing multiple iterations of a markedly recognizable house style, it is generally agreed that Hammer failed to adapt to the demands of a changing marketplace. This thesis investigates the circumstances surrounding Hammer’s demise by conducting neoformal analysis of case study films and examining how they were affected by cultural, historical, and industrial factors. Looking to Hammer’s films themselves helps determine to what extent they were responsible for Hammer’s misfortune and why. This thesis demonstrates how Hammer’s own production setup and early genre success contributed to the studio’s eventual downfall and the outside factors that underscored this process. I argue that Hammer did experiment with house formula but the studio’s attempts to renegotiate the 1970s horror landscape were unsuccessful because of changing audience demographics, an industry in transition, and Hammer’s own perceived corporate identity.
Economies of tastelessness : trash horror paratexts
(2024-05) Shaffer, Reilly ; Fuller-Seeley, Kathryn; Scott, Suzanne
The following thesis project investigates trash cinema paratexts in order to explore questions related to the subcultural identity of trash horror fans and audiences as well as the relationship between these fans and the material history of the films. Though trash film fans often position themselves against the mainstream film industry, there appears to be a strong link between industrial production and distribution of trash films and fan engagement with these texts. We see a proliferation of trash or other low genre films on streaming services, Blu-ray, and DVD today primarily thanks to the fans who began operating independent video companies in the 1980s and 90s, often relying on celluloid prints from the personal collections of other fans to produce these transfers. The films are often defined by a sense of authenticity, their accuracy in relation to the past. This is defined by aesthetics which evoke the era of grindhouse exhibition as well as their ability to be “accurate” in the sense that they are “uncut,” as many exploitation films were severely re-cut to screen in states with varying degrees of censorship laws. Drawing on the history of “trash” as a genre signifier as well as a few archival case studies which have a paratextual relationship to trash films, I will consider some of the various ways in which the films were engaged with. The first case study will center around a zine known as Sleazoid Express, authored by seasoned trash film connoisseur Bill Landis. My reading of the zine will focus on Landis’s rhetoric surrounding the horror genre, his engagement with notions of taste and value within the context of ‘bad film,’ as well as his use of paratextual evidence to forge an image of the films he writes about. The second case study will involve a textual analysis of three trash-horror posters from the Harry Ransom Center’s Digital Collection, focusing on their rhetorical engagement with audiences while also exploring some of their individual histories. Finally, with the last case study I consider the position of the VHS tape within the changing world of trash horror appreciation, and the implications of treating this delivery format as an archival medium in both contemporary and historical trash film history.
For the maintenance of the system : institutional and cultural change within the motion picture producers and distributors of America, 1922-1945
(2019-07-16) Monticone, Paul MacLusky; Schatz, Thomas, 1948-; Staiger, Janet; Frick, Caroline; Keil, Charlie; Fuller-Seeley, Kathryn
This dissertation traces the formation and development of the Hollywood film industry’s trade association between 1922 and 1945. For nearly three decades, an oligopoly of vertically integrated production-distribution firms dominated the American film industry. Throughout this period these Hollywood majors relied on a powerful trade organization, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) to coordinate cooperative programs aimed at maintaining this form of industrial organization. In the existing literature, the operations of the MPPDA are taken as coincident with the economic imperatives of the major firms who were its sponsors, but this trade association often struggled to coordinate a membership that viewed its efforts with skepticism and outright resistance. Negotiating the competing member interests and reconciling their divergent views of cooperative action were core functions of the MPPDA that have been largely overlooked. This dissertation asks how the MPPDA created consensus around cooperative actions, what prevented it doing so by the early 1940s, and what the consequences of this failure were for the industry it represented. In order to account for the internal activities of this trade association and their consequences on the development of the film industry, this dissertation integrates a primary archival methodology with conceptual tools from economic sociology and organizational studies. Part One analyzes the trade association’s structure, resources, and activities in relation to changing economic and political contexts between 1922 and 1938. Part Two offers three case studies of the association’s cooperative actions during the 1940s—lobbying, public relations, and intellectual-property registration—in order to demonstrate how changes in the broader political environment, the workforce at member firms, and the production sector of the film industry exacerbated tensions among stakeholders in the MPPDA and undermined its ability to maintain the support of the oligopoly. This dissertation highlights the value in investigating the collision of various stakeholders, interests, and agendas within seemingly unified institutions. The use of overlooked archival resources reveals new sources for primary research, and the use of theoretical frameworks from fields like economic sociology suggests approaches to understanding aspects of institutions that have been largely neglected in film and media history.
Genre in context : toward a reexamination of the film musical in classical Hollywood
(2015-08) McDonnell, Cari Elizabeth; Neumeyer, David; Buhler, James; Schatz, Thomas; Carson, Charles; Almen, Byron
Though no single history of the Hollywood musical exists as such, a historical narrative nevertheless emerges from the extensive body of scholarly work on the genre. Most studies of the American film musical have used as texts a limited canon of films. Though these studies have illuminated many stylistic and critical constructs at work in the film musical, they have also presented an incomplete picture of the historical development of the musical in classical Hollywood. We need to contextualize our critical understanding of the American film musical by broadening the scope of films we study and by investigating the cultural and industrial circumstances in which these films were produced. The purpose of this study, then, is twofold: I offer a historical context in which to conduct critical examinations of the Hollywood film musical, and I provide examples of how this historical understanding can inform further investigations of the genre. By far the most attention in the literature is given to MGM musicals, particularly those produced by the Freed unit in the 1940s and 1950s, with RKO’s Astaire-Rogers films in the 1930s trailing not far behind. Yet almost every other Hollywood studio, whether major, minor, or independent, made cycles of musicals during the studio era. Paramount Pictures, through its Bing Crosby and Bob Hope Road films, provides a significant contrast to the MGM Freed unit among the large studios in the prosperous 1940s, while Walt Disney Productions, through its animated musicals in the 1950s, offers a rare example among independent studios during the dismantling of the studio system. Taken together, these two case studies present a cross-section of production and reception practices through the height of the classical Hollywood era and into the immediate postclassical period. I will use these two prominent cycles of film musicals to examine the dynamic relationship that existed between the industrial and cultural conditions of the entertainment industry and the film musical's aesthetic style and content. This study will work alongside the existing literature to create a more complete and historically grounded understanding of the American film musical in the classical Hollywood era.
Hollywood location shooting in San Francisco and the aesthetics of urban decline, 1945-1975
(2014-09-08) Gleich, Joshua; Schatz, Thomas, 1948-; Fuller-Seeley, Kathryn; Shearer, Allan; Shiel, Mark; Staiger, Janet; Straubhaar, Joseph
This dissertation traces the impact of Hollywood’s widening practice of location shooting on the representation of San Francisco between 1945 and 1975. Over these three decades, location shooting evolved from an ancillary practice to the dominant method of Hollywood feature filmmaking and throughout this period, San Francisco remained a key urban location on the forefront of this shift in production practice. For location shooting to expand so extensively required a combination of economic, technological, logistical, and aesthetic developments that made shooting in San Francisco a viable strategy in comparison to the established method of shooting primarily on the sound stages and back lots of Los Angeles studios. New location production techniques intersected with a fundamental postwar shift in America’s image of its cities. Despite San Francisco’s marked stability compared to other U.S. urban centers, Hollywood depictions of the city grew bleaker as the urban crisis degraded the image of the city in American popular thought. This dissertation relies on archival research into the production history of several American feature films and television series shot partially or entirely in San Francisco, drawn from The Margaret Herrick Library, University of Southern California’s Warner Brothers Archives, University of California-Los Angeles Special Collections, and the San Francisco History Center of The San Francisco Public Library. Additional research in Variety and American Cinematographer provides a larger context for changes in Hollywood filmmaking practices as well as the production, critical reception, and box office success of specific features. Each chapter examines how major shifts in Hollywood production methods shaped urban location shooting, particularly in San Francisco. The chapters conclude with case studies of films shot in San Francisco that reveal how specific location production methods approached the challenges and aesthetic choices encountered in San Francisco. These film and television texts construct an urban paradigm indicative of both filmmaking practices and cultural perceptions of the city.
Let's have a gay old time : how lesbians shaped early Hollywood
(2021-07-30) Reinschmidt, Janet; Isenberg, Noah William
This thesis puts forth Alla Nazimova, Kay Francis, and Greta Garbo as case studies for early Hollywood lesbian stardom and reception and unpacks how their star personas were constructed as well as the fan responses to their image and work. Through intersections of star studies, reception studies, classic literature, and queer historical texts, I discuss each star’s life and career with textual analysis of their films and primary sources such as fan letters, fan magazines, advertisements, and newspaper articles. I argue that each star represents a queer, and more specifically lesbian and bisexual, sensibility within the early Hollywood film industry that deserves more scholarly attention. The fan letters columns within old Hollywood fan magazines such as Photoplay and Modern Screen particularly illustrate the construction of queer star personas and the impact that they had on informed movie fans. Nazimova, Francis, and Garbo were all-powerful and influential figures in the film industry during significant periods of change such as the rise of the studio era, the arrival of sound, and the shift from pre-Code to the production Code era. Their star personas reflect how they were influenced by and went on to influence these critical transitions in Old Hollywood. There is a fundamental activist function to this work, to remind audiences that queer people have always existed, even without a framework to discuss identity, and this work endeavors to show a dedicated lesbian influence and audience of early Hollywood.
Living in the wasteland : character, worldbuilding and humanism in the Mad Max series
(2016-05) Harrison, Justin Sean; Schatz, Thomas, 1948-; Beltran, Mary
The long-running Mad Max series is a seminal entry in the contemporary western science fiction canon, particularly within the post-apocalyptic subgenre. This thesis argues that a major reason for the series’ enduring success is that it is a fundamentally humanist text. It further argues that Mad Max’s humanism is identifiable and trackable through the construction of its characters and the world they inhabit across the four films in the series. Subjects of analysis include the films themselves, as well as several books written on and about them.
Peter Bogdanovich : the devil in the details
(2020-09-03) Collins, Philip Anderson, II; Isenberg, Noah William
The Devil in the Details, is largely chronological. I work with a combination of sources, including Bogdanovich's original films, interviews with Bogdanovich and his contemporaries throughout various stages of his life and career, a combination of voiceover and originally filmed material that contextualizes this content within a historical and narrative framework, and historical and academic sources. I depend on fair-use rights to content (narrative, documentary and interview) that I purchased and ripped from DVDs and Blu-Rays. Likewise, I performed extensive exploration of internet archives, downloading and locating footage of interviews to help contextualize the narrative Through IMDB I located a list of 241 documentaries and interviews of Peter Bogdanovich. I compiled at least 10-20 hours of interview footage over the course of his life and used it as a primary narrative driver for the work. In developing my body of original material I used both UT's library and the Austin Public Library system to assemble these interview films. Through the process of curating these, it was important to prioritize interviews based on not just the historical value of the interviews, but also the thematic or cultural value they imparted. These interviews, particularly when supplemented with footage from period news, Bogdanovich's films, and original filmed footage, there was more than enough material to form not just an essay but a full documentary. This original filmed material was used to introduce some of my own theorizing on Bogdanovich and his role in Hollywood. It is through this material that I will introduce what specific film theory is present in the piece.
Prestige and prurience : the decline of the American art house and the emergence of sexploitation, 1957-1972
(2010-05) Metz, Daniel Curran; Schatz, Thomas, 1948-; Berg, Charles R.
“Prestige and Prurience: The Decline of the American Art House and the Emergence of Sexploitation, 1957-1972” presents a historical narrative of the art house theatre during the 1960s and its surrounding years, examining the ways in which art theatres transformed into adult theatres during the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning in earnest in the immediate post-war period, art houses in America experienced a short period of growth before stagnating in the middle 1950s. With the release in 1957 of the erotically charged Brigitte Bardot film …And God Created Woman, a new era of art houses followed, one that is characterized by the emergence of sexualized advertising, content and stars. As the 1960s came, sex films like The Immoral Mr. Teas played on art film marketing strategies and even screened in many art houses. Gradually, sexploitation films began to dominate art house programs and replace European art films and Hollywood revivals. In this transitional period, however, sexploitation films used key strategies to emulate many art film characteristics, and likewise art films used sexploitation techniques in order to maintain marketability for American distribution and exhibition. By studying the promotion and programming used by art house theatres during this period, this thesis identifies and announces a number of key trends within the dynamic period for art houses. The period is distinguished by its convergence of practices related to prestigious and prurient signs, merging art and sex in ways unique to the era and to the circumstances by which sex films infiltrated art houses and art films pandered to salacious interests. It presents a new perspective on the history of art houses, art cinema, American exhibition, sexploitation films, hardcore pornography and censorship.
“She’s done everything, except direct” : Polly Platt as visual artist, screenwriter, and producer : a critical career history
(2019-05) Herndon, Samantha Massey; Schatz, Thomas, 1948-; Fuller-Seeley, Kathryn
This thesis considers filmmaker Polly Platt’s design work, screenwriting, and producing contributions, particularly in the context of American film during the Hollywood Renaissance period from 1967-1980; Platt’s later work in studio film and television production during an era of major media conglomeration, and Platt’s involvement with the Austin Film Festival at the turn of the millennium. Utilizing Platt’s career as a case study, I construct a critical career history of the many projects on which she worked in order to better understand the shifts in opportunities available to women in recent cinema history. I also employ a study of Platt’s unique collaborations and mentorships to question the validity and scope of the auteur theory. Polly Platt is notable for having been a prolific filmmaker who shifted roles and gained agency throughout her working life, yet never achieved a directorial credit. I find that this does not diminish her status as a notable filmmaker who is worthy of further study. Material written by Platt in the form of published books and articles, interviews conducted with Platt and with her collaborators and her family, the films on which she worked, and information about one of the companies she helped to run, Gracie Films, form the materials upon which the thesis is based
Social documentary in the era of the popular front : The Plow That Broke the Plains, alternative filmmaking, and the struggle for independent distribution in the United States, 1935-37
(2015-05) Altenberg, Benjamin Creed; Fuller-Seeley, Kathryn; Stein, Laura
In the time before World War II in the United States, a generation was radicalized by the Great Depression and inspired to challenge cultural conventions across many forms of media. In the area of film, a peculiar instance of alternative production and distribution sprouted out of the United States government in the form of a 2-reel documentary entitled The Plow That Broke the Plains, originally released in 1936. Funded by a relief agency, directed by a man with no experience, and shot by radical leftist artists out of New York City, the film was an unusual challenge to the status quo of the prevailing classical Hollywood model. It was so jarring, in fact, that Hollywood studios denounced the effort publicly and prevented the mainstream theatres that they controlled from showing the picture. The following efforts to distribute the film in spite of this mainstream opposition allowed the film to be seen by an alternative set of audiences across multiple kinds of exhibition spaces, including educational assemblies and striking labor unions. Using a plethora of primary and secondary historical sources, as well as a framework developed by Chris Atton for studying alternative media, this thesis analyzes the production and distribution processes of the film to help elucidate how a work functioning outside of the dominant commercial industry could attain national recognition and reach audiences across urban, suburban, and rural areas of the country at a time when other such alternative cinematic endeavors never accessed many viewers outside of a bourgeois elite cultural sphere.