hi everyone welcome to the first lecture of this course by now you should have done your syllabus quiz looked over the syllabus and made sure that you have access to every single movie required for this course now remember just because you cannot access it at the moment it does not mean you should completely write off that movie you should be watching every single movie on the course schedule now if you cannot access a movie please contact me ASAP so we can figure out something to do but yeah other than that please look over the discussion boards I put an introductory discussion board on there so if y'all want to do that I thought it'd be nice to kind of wean us into this course but again you get to pick the five that you want to do so if you don't want to do that one by all means don't um but yeah this is the first lecture of the semester we're going to be doing a to I'm going to be doing 14 of them however many movies we have this semester to get us through um so you should watch this and then watch the movie because it's going to help you get your brain moving and thinking about what you want to say either for your film review or for the discussion board okay so getting into it a little bit of brief history on the American film industry it began around the late 19th century so around the around 1889 something around there and inventors actually would just splice together still pictures to create moving images so kind of like a slideshow if you will and then they would take this to either fairs or carnivals or just big gatherings and show them to people people so sort of like a makeshift audience and then Thomas Edison in 1889 he created the kinetoscope which was for electricity and a Keta phone which is for sound so there was a lot of movies also created that were just silent pictures but Thomas Edison definitely helped carry the film industry into what we see it today and then here are just some pictures of his inventions that he did do okay and then moving aist a little bit along we have 1903 which was The Great Train Robbery and the reason why this was so important was it was the first film that actually featured video and not just pictures spliced together and this also inspired western movies and similar tropes to follow in that sort and then we have things such as firing a gun into the camera for the first time and the split screen which could show simultaneous actions which was really important for the film industry and then from 1904 to 1906 we have what's known as Nickelodeon start to really take off and this was similar to a movie theater but you could buy a movie ticket for like a nickel I'm pretty sure it was and this created the perfect Catalyst for Hollywood to then absolutely boom and that happened around 1910 and the important thing about Hollywood was that it was far away from New Jersey where Edison was so it could delay lawsuits from taking place and on top of that it had great weather so most films were going to be taking place outside because Hollywood had great terrain so if you needed to go to the beach if you needed to go to a desert like area things like that Hollywood was great for that because we didn't have things like we have today such as green screens and CGI where we could make it happen through technology you had to actually go out and film in these different environments to get the setting that you wanted and then in World War I we saw a rise in propaganda so films again continued to Boom because we saw things such as the Central Powers getting a little bit poked fun at and propaganda is going to be very important in film in the literature that's also attached to this module because it's all about the usage of propaganda and how it's used throughout the film industry and then moving us a little further along in history we have the jazz singer which was incredibly important in film this happened in 1927 it was the creation of the Takis and what that literally means is that films were now being produced with sound instead of just silent films so things such as actual acting and plots and the stars in the film became incredibly important because now there was going to be a lot of talking in them and to kind of Drive the plot line so that was incredibly important and then around the 1930s we have what's known as the Golden Age and the term movie star became very very popular and why do you think that is so that's a question you're going to want to ask yourself as you're kind of going along with the movies and the literature so just ask yourself that question why do you think movie star became very Pro popular during this time um you can also see that the Golden Age it lasted and and everyone's kind of different but my personal opinion is it lasted around 1930 to around like 1955 is and then we kind of get more into like modern but it's also known as classical Hollywood um so the production code Al has a large effect on Films there something to keep in mind this is the code that Production Studios had to follow and then in the 1940s there was a lack of Television so this meant that people had to go to the film so like how we see now where it's like trailers of films coming out like you go to the movie theater you see like 5 to 10 trailers of films that are coming out are going to be produced back then it was updates on the war so it was updates on news updates on everything and sometimes it was the only form of that so people would go to the films to see them but they would also get updated on what's going on around the world and then the 1950s television causes a sharp drop in the number of movies but increase in budget for large sweeping films so drive-ins also are very important during this time as well so televisions because now instead of going to the movie theaters you can watch things on your television at home it was kind of back and forth for the film industry during this time but it was continuing to Boom because people were buying televisions and then in the 1960s film started to be marketed towards teenagers so comedies and musicals increased as well as sci-fi that begins to make an appearance as well and then moving us a little bit further along we have the 1980s and this is where films found a brand new market to increase their profit and that was the VCR so films that weren't as popular in the movie theater particularly kids movies because a lot of adults are not going to go see kids movies multiple times they found a new place in VCR so you can just go buy the film bring it home and you don't have to spend more money because at the time movie tickets were around $3 to6 so not crazy expensive like we're paying now but at the same time at at that given time that was a little bit pricey um we then have the 1990s and the 2000s so film studios are really relying on a new model so the Blockbuster and the pull of movie star/ special effects uh the studios rely on a handful of movies to make a ton of money and assume the others will be losers so they're just kind of like tax writeoffs so we can see this happening a lot where um if you've noticed there's like a bunch of movies that get a lot of lot of marketing and then you'll go and see the movie at the movie theater but you'll see all these other movies that are also showing that's kind of what this is they also rely heavily on CGI they were they rely heavily a lot on getting um certain actors to C play certain parts I mean you can see some actors get paid upwards to $50 million to just be in a film so this is incredibly important and it's kind of following an entirely new strategy than what we've seen in the previous years and just to give a little visual for yall so you can see it we can see that around 1930 the golden age is when that started we can see that there is a rise and then a drop in movies and then it kind of stays on this upward path until around 1944 where then it heavily drops off again Rising a little bit in the 50s and then dropping once back off this is due to the television kind of coming into play again people do not have to go to the movie theaters to go see them they can just watch them at home VCRs DVDs all of these different things now the film that you're going to be watching for this first movie It's called Birth of a Nation it was in 1915 there was a chance that some of youall maybe watched it in history class I know that I had to um so it's a silent film it's around 3 hours long and it's black and white so just prepare yourself because it's not an easy movie to get through at least I didn't think so um but it was the first film screened in the White House under woodro Wilson and then on top of that it was the first Blockbuster as we know the term today so it was the first 12 uh real film and then the NAACP LED protests to have the film banned the director DW Griffith was so outraged he made a film about censorship the following year so just to give youall some context this film does have some pretty heavy topics within it including the clue clug Clan including everything to do with segregation it is it's pretty intense for a silent in black and white film so just prepare yourselves ahead of time for that um it's one of the earliest film preserved in the Library of Congress so it's incredibly important to history but it also does it kind of touches on some sensitive sub subjects so please keep that in mind um it tells a story of two families the Stoneman who are from the north the Camerons who are from the south and they're from immediately before the Civil War so throughout the war and Reconstruction Era that's what this film is about and it's it's a lot and the second half also tells the story of the founding of the KKK and the films were kind of used as recruitment material for the KKK so it has some dark history to it but it is in my opinion important because it does showcase what propaganda is and very important and it connects with the literature very well so please just watch in for that and know that it does have some educational purposes to it but it does get a little dark and for the literature for this week the Frankfurt School and the culture industry and this kind of is a personal topic as well because I did write a lot of my thesis over the culture industry I find it incredibly important and also very interesting everyone's allowed to have their own opinions so take it for that what you will but to get into it the Frankfurt School is a group of social theorists influenced most by VOR who were originally around the 1920s and early 30s at the goth University mostly Jewish and they focused on critical theory simplistically put it was criticizing Society by looking at Power Dynamic so it was looking at the way that power structures are in society and it was kind of criticizing that aspect of it and that was where a lot of the Frankfurt School theorists were at the time you Al need to think to um or take this into account that this was during around 1940s so propaganda is being used heavily because we're right in the smack dab middle of World War II where everyone is using propaganda and that's where kind of the culture industry came from we then see that a lot of theorists a lot of theorists also came from Germany and they happened to be Jewish so they fled to Columbia University in NYC in 1933 and the two most famous Scholars to do this were adorno and horkheimer and they ended up writing the culture industry they saw what was happening in Germany with Hitler and the propaganda that he was using with the radios with newspapers with the media all of these different things to promote his ideals and so they took that and they came to America and then they wrote about it so the pie is famous for arguing that all artculture production is propaganda designed to make us think a certain way so if you put yourself in the context of around 1940 is it makes sense so you have to think about this especially this is something you need to hold yourself to with the entire class put yourself in the context of when it's being written and what it's talking about in that context and that will help you out a lot as well especially just in sociology in general and then in a capitalist Society it's designed to Keep false consciousness going and to keep the population tranquil so it's designed to kind of keep everyone at a new neutral standpoint but on the same page with the leader so the leader uses it as a chance to promote his ideals his or her ideals and then keeps this keeps from keeps fights from breaking out within the population itself right so here in America we now have what's known as you know Democrats Republicans all of these different parties and we can kind of you know butt heads at times but in the 1940s there was really only one political party that really stood out and so the leaders grasped on that and used all the media they could to promote those messages and here are just some quotes from the culture industry specifically that you're going to want to pay attention to while you're reading it so the first one is on page 465 and it says what is not mentioned as the basis on which technology is gaining power over Society is the power of those econ in whose economic position in society is strongest technical rationality is the rationality of domination so technology is booming right and what they're trying to say is that those in power those that are wealthy for the time have the ability to promote their ideals further in the media versus those that maybe have a different view they don't have as much money and therefore they cannot promote their ideals right so that higher power um individual is winning in the ways of swaying the views of the public and gaining power over the technology because they have the means to do so and then that kind of continuing from page 466 to 467 the Relentless Unity of the culture industry Bears witness to the emergent Unity of politics sharp distinctions like those between A and B films what they mean when they say A and B films is you can see like an A-list celebrity Bist celebrity the A-list celebrity is going to get paid a lot more money than the Bist celebrity so take this in the context of an A-list film a lot of people are going to see it it's going to get promoted a lot more frequently B film not so much but the ailm are the people that are in power that are creating those or between short stories published in magazines in different price segments so short stories that are getting or that are very expensive to publish versus those that are not do not so much reflect real differences as assist in the classification organization and identification of consumers something is provided for everyone so that no one can escape differences are hammered home and then propagated so no no one can escape the culture industry and that's something that I hit very hard within my own personal research was that media affects everybody and if you say it didn't you're lying to yourself but that's just my personal opinion take it for what you will however media affects everyone so what adorno and hor kimer are getting at here is that it does not really reflect the difference in classification organization and identification of consumers but it's provided for everyone so everyone's getting the same message over and over and over again and it gets them thinking about the same exact things and then we have on page 468 entertainment is the prolongation of work under late capitalism it is sought by those who want to escape the mechanized labor process so that they can cope with it again at the same time however mechan mechanization has such power over Leisure and its happiness determines so thoroughly the fabrication of entertainment Commodities that the off-duty worker can experience nothing nothing but after images of the work process itself now that was a mouthful but the basic idea is that the media is producing the same thing over and over again because it works right so think of it like this the sequels the prequels all of these different things that come out the media continues to reproduce them because they work right they already saw that it got booming hits in the um first film so let's make a another one with the same characters similar but let yet slightly different plots and let's run it again right so recently I watched the Pirates of the Caribbean right different plots similar but different plots same actors and actresses so of course it's going to Boom because it was loved once it'll be loved again now this was also it's the media sought by those who wish to escape the mechanized labor process so it's those that wish to you know get away from from their day job and kind of just zone out for a little bit but we can experience nothing but after images of the work process itself so we can experience nothing but what those in power want us to experience now looking at in Birth of a Nation these are the things I want you to pay attention to and this will also be on your discussion board so this is for The Birth of a Nation discussion board not the introduction one so pay attention to the use of body language and music to communicate character traits and the increase of tension so remember no sound there's no sound in this film there's nobody talking in this film so you have to look at body language heavily to depict what's going on so take a look and look at how the body language differs and the music picks up or slows down given what's going on in the scene how the filmmaker and actors LED you to sympathize with certain characters so this is going to happen you have to pay attention right you can't just put it on 2x spe and not watch it you have to watch it to get this but how does the filmmaker and the actors itself lead you to sympathize with certain characters in it that you might notd right so kind of like the character Arc that you see you know first they start off as a bad person and then oh slowly but surely oh wait I ended up really liking them you know that's how I was with Captain Jack Sparrow so keep that in mind as you're going through the film the overall moral messages communicated to the 1915 audience including symbology so religious whatever political whatever it may be keep in mind with the moral messages communicated to the 1915 audience right not the 2024 audience because they're not thinking about 2024 they're thinking about 1915 so kind of step out of the context that you're currently in and step into 1915 to trying to get your mind to connect with what's going on on screen because if you try if you go into with the 2024 ideals you're going to probably miss some of the moral messages certain historical figures are oddly changed or um created differently why is that try to figure out why that might be why would the filmmaker do that and then how this sets the stage for American Film afterward so we have this film that has some heavy context to it right for 1915 was it heavy context I want you to ask yourselves that question for the time being of 1915 would this have been considered an incredibly um um a scandalous film or was this something that was just being promoted you know disagree agree whatever you want to do but think about it like that how does this set the stage for American films to then move on after this and the prompt for this week how is the birth of the nation IND indicative of the culture industry that adoro and horkheimer wrote about 30 years later so this film came out in 1915 adoro and horer wrote the culture industry around 1944 it was right at the end of World War II so this came out 1915 around 35 years later the culture industry came out what sort of messages is it communicating to the audience and how so ask yourself these question you know look over it see if you want to do the discussion board again you don't have to that's completely up to you but keep in mind that there is one for this week remember that there's not a certain due date on the discussion board you don't have to complete it by the end of the week but please keep in mind that you have to keep up with the ones that you do they're two points a piece and you have to do five of them to get all 10 points so just keep that in mind you don't have to do one for birth of the nation up to you we have a lot of other great movies coming afterwards so if you want to save them and do it then feel free that's up to you um but yeah I hope you guys enjoyed this lecture if you guys have any questions over it or need some clarification please let me know I do tend to talk a little bit fast um so please let me know if you guys need any clarification or need me help with the readings I'd be happy to help this was actually something that I did for my research like I mentioned earlier so I'm pretty well versed in the literature because of that aspect so if you guys need help this writing was taking place a long time ago so the wording can be a little tricky at times so just let me know but other than that I hope you guys have a good rest of your week and I look forward to seeing y'all's discussion responses