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Activities: Context Activities Mass Culture Invasion: The Rise of Motion Pictures  Back to Context Activities
In New York City, on April 23, 1896, Thomas Edison projected the first motion picture on a public screen in the United States. At the time, few foresaw the dramatic effects motion pictures would come to have on American culture in the coming decades. Beginning as a technological novelty, motion pictures soon became popular attractions in amusement parks, music halls, traveling fairs, wax museums, and vaudeville houses all over the country (and in other countries around the world). This upstart entertainment had a tough time competing, however, against the traditional stage arts that were considered to be of higher quality, and therefore appropriate for a higher economic and social class. It wasn't until the 1910s that film began to be taken seriously as many performance houses--formerly devoted exclusively to live drama--converted to present a mixed bill of motion pictures and live performance or abandoned live performance altogether in favor of film. With the rise of the star system during this same period (driven by the popularity of actors like Mary Pickford, Sarah Bernhardt, and Charlie Chaplin), motion pictures became an increasingly powerful force in American life. Although most of the major Hollywood motion picture studios would not be established until the mid-1920s, the motion picture was here to stay. Along with broadcast radio and nationally circulated publications, motion pictures formed a large part of an ever-expanding "mass culture"--a culture consisting largely of standardized, mass-produced, and mass-distributed cultural products that included everything from movies to toothbrushes, and which meant that no matter where you traveled in the United States, you were likely to be able to find familiar products and entertainment. The rapid expansion of this mass culture formed a challenge to traditions of regional isolation and autonomy. In the South, the introduction of motion pictures into everyday life was fraught with controversy; therefore, the debates surrounding motion pictures often revealed a deeper and more pervasive anxiety about moral and social decay and offered, in some communities, a point around which conservative and "traditional" forces could rally. Many were quick to see that, while motion pictures offered new and unprecedented means by which to shape public opinion and teach the "right" values and behaviors, the medium was equally capable of teaching values a community didn't like. According to historian Gregory A. Waller, "The danger, of course, was that this powerful pedagogic tool would be (or had been) utterly prostituted in the name of profit and cheap amusement." Many of these anxieties about the rise of mass culture--in the nation as a whole, but especially in the South--coalesced around D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, which premiered in 1915. According to Russell Merritt, whose documentary "The Making of The Birth of a Nation" explores both the film's technical achievements and its cultural reception, The Birth of a Nation was "a runaway success that paved the way for the feature movie as the most widely seen mass entertainment in history up to that time." Griffith, who directed hundreds of short films, is often credited with defining the art of the motion picture. From a technical perspective, Griffith pioneered and/or popularized many stylistic and technical innovations, including closeups, establishing shots, medium shots, and backlighting. The Birth of a Nation also made use of the camera to achieve other novel effects, including composed shots, camera movement, split-screens, flashbacks, fades, irises, and dissolves. Audiences were also amazed by the realism and massive scale of Griffith's Civil War scenes, the detail and accuracy of his costuming, and the compelling combination of story-telling and editing that comprised the film. While critics agree that The Birth of a Nation represented many technical and formal firsts for the motion picture, the response to the story it told was much more divided. The film was based on a dramatic adaptation of Thomas Dixon's novel The Clansman (1905), which "celebrated the Ku Klux Klan as savior of the South from vengeful and vindictive blacks." Released during the fiftieth anniversary of the close of the Civil War, the film seemed calculated to revive the spirits of southerners who had begun to doubt the righteousness of the "Lost Cause." The film's opening was promoted by klansmen dressed in full KKK regalia, and the Klan, which had all but disappeared in the first decade of the twentieth century, was revived and went on to become a major political force for the next ten years. Knowing his message would be controversial, Griffith prefaced the film with "A Plea for the Art of the Motion Picture," which addressed the potential that the film might be censored and asked that it be given "the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue." Not unexpectedly, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups protested the film vigorously and succeeded in persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm "the right of state and local agencies to exercise prior restraint and censorship of motion pictures." This did little, however, to damage the success of The Birth of a Nation, which went on to become the most popular silent movie ever made. (Woodrow Wilson even showed it in the White House.) It was revived annually through the first half of the 1920s and remained the most profitable film for over two decades before passing that title to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. The controversy surrounding The Birth of a Nation and the film's far-reaching influence provide vivid examples of the way the growth of motion pictures--and the mass culture of which they were a part--challenged the isolated autonomy of small communities throughout the country. However, by the 1930s, the new medium had gained enough acceptance that prominent southern writers such as William Faulkner had begun to interact with Hollywood. Faulkner went to Hollywood for the first time in 1932 to work as a scriptwriter, and he returned several times in succeeding years when he needed to supplement the meager income he was making as a writer. Meanwhile, Margaret Mitchell challenged Faulkner for the title of best-known southern writer when her romantic portrait of the Old South, Gone With the Wind (originally published in 1936, the same year as Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!), was made into a popular film. Questions
[3346] Marion Post Walcott, Rex Theatre for Colored People, Leland, Mississippi Delta (1944), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USF32-052508-D]. Photograph of all-black movie theater in the South. Blacks and whites attended separate theaters and other civic facilities in the South. In the North, African Americans were isolated from white audiences by more informal social codes of segregation. [5652] Ralph Barton, Pearl White as a Dramatic Heroine (1930), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LCPP003B-41012]. Cartoon of woman in Roman clothing posing for movie director. The popularity of movies encouraged the growth of mass culture, leading some regionalists to worry about the erosion of southern traditions. [5687] National Photo Company, Margaret Gorman (Miss America 1921), and Stephen (?) Fegen Being Filmed for a Burlesque on the Burning of Rome by the Washington Producing Co. (1922), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-119624]. Films and beauty pageants played an important role in shaping the image of the "modern" American girl. Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor, noted that Gorman "represents the type of womanhood America needs; strong, red-blooded, able to shoulder the responsibilities of home-making and motherhood. It is in her type that the hope of the country resides" (New York Times). [5703] Riverside Printing Co., Elliot & Sherman Film Corp Present D. W. Griffith's 8th Wonder of the World, "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZC4-1971]. Advertising poster for The Birth of a Nation. The film was technologically innovative but racist. Glorifying the Ku Klux Klan, it was an adaptation of Thomas Dixon's novel The Clansman. [5719] Cleveland Advocate, Article: Oppose "Birth of a Nation" (1915), courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society. Civil rights groups, including the NAACP, organized protests against The Birth of a Nation. The film glorified the Ku Klux Klan and helped the organization regain strength. [7641] Anonymous, NAACP Members Picketing outside the Republic Theatre, New York City, to Protest the Screening of the Movie "Birth of a Nation" (1947), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-84505]. Despite the protests of civil rights groups, The Birth of a Nation achieved massive popularity and even was shown in the White House. |
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