The Coen Brothers & Hollywood

Defying the Genre: 

The Coen Brothers and their Aversion to the Hollywood Dogma.

by Peter Morris

We're only interested in one thing, Bart. Can you tell a story? Can you make us laugh? Can you make us cry? Can you make us want to break out in joyous song? Is that more than one thing? Okay! – Jack Lipnik, Barton Fink - Written by Joel and Ethan Coen, 1991. ^[1]

For over 25 years, Joel and Ethan Coen have created some of the most unique and undeniably curious films to grace the cinema screens of the world.  These two brothers from Minnesota have, over the course of their careers, been responsible for creating a genre onto themselves; their films are Coen-esque, in some ways the simplest way to describe them.  Often darkly humorous, drenched in satire and black irony, and filled with unforgettable characters that are heavily characterised regardless of their importance to the overall film with even the small roles standing out with distinctiveness and influence.  The lead roles the Coen Brothers have created are dense and quirky but none-the less utterly unforgettable, with one character, that of The Dude from their 1997 film The Big Lebowski, gaining his own religion, Dudeism, from his cult fans on the internet.

Importantly, over these 25 years, the ability to write original screenplays together, concocting this distinctive style of writing, and developing their films has never waned, and importantly, has never been subject to influence from anybody outside their own two heads, with 20^th Century Fox releasing the majority of their films.  They write their scripts together and continue on to produce, direct and edit the projects themselves.  For many this would be an extremely difficult process; however the Coens themselves describe it as more of an organic process. Ethan describes it as “basically just us sitting around in a room, moping for hours.”^[2] Their coy answers, common amongst interviews with them, often hint at a refusal to explain these methods of writing, and indeed, this awkwardness is understandable as the creative process can be personal, even if it is shared between two writers.  They do both agree however, that they never argue regarding this process ^[2]. 

Their films are often a post-modern homage to the genre film, taking the formula but re-interpreting it through their own idiosyncratic minds.  Their first film, Blood Simple, written in 1984, was a take on the noir thriller but was fused with sardonic black comedy.  It paved the way for nearly 25 years of filmmaking, writing and directing 13 films which range in genre from the screwball comedy homage of the 30s like Raising Arizona and Intolerable Cruelty to the intricate twisting of  The Man Who Wasn’t There.  Between these you’ll find westerns (No Country For Old Men), gangster films (Miller’s Crossing), surreal comedies (The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou) and a few films which seem to deny a rooting to any specific genre, instead fusing them together to form a pastiche view of the world (Fargo, Barton Fink).  Although they have tried a film in practically every genre that Hollywood recognises, none have been specifically related to the genre itself.  Each film is a unique view, a unique voice and a unique example of how the Coen Brothers will not succumb to the cohesion of writing a single-facetted genre film.  Perhaps it is their own upbringing in rural America that has given them this mysterious ability to avoid the usual and concentrate on the specific and highly distinctive worlds they create, often setting their films in the past to further glorify the time period with their own exaggerated motifs. 

The Coens live in New York City and have spent their careers in the financial shadows of the Hollywood machine, a place they are more than happy to stay, and it is their 1991 film Barton Fink which shows their own personal view on what would happen to a young screenwriter newly arrived in Hollywood.

Barton Fink tells the story of the a young, Jewish, idealistic, leftwing playwright (Barton Fink) from New York in the 1940s, who is commissioned by a studio to write a wrestling picture, however after reaching Hollywood and checking into the hellish Hotel Earle he is overcome by a bout of writers block.  The story itself takes place for the most part in Barton’s claustrophobic and sweaty hotel room, a place written as;  

                                                

The room is small and cheaply furnished.  There is a lumpy bed with a worn-

yellow coverlet, an old secretary table, and a wooden luggage stand.^[1] 

Here he meets his neighbour Charlie Meadows, a salt of the earth salesman, who may be a vicious serial killer. 

The Coens wrote the script in just three weeks, whilst themselves suffering from a bout of writer’s block while attempting to complete the intricate Miller’s Crossing.  They mention, amongst others, the writings of Otto Freidrich and Jim Thompson as influences on the story along with the Roman Polanski films The Tenant and Repulsion.  Ironically, when the film went on to pick up three awards at the Cannes film festival it was chaired by Polanski himself.  Thematically the film is a maze weaving in the quick fire satire of the Hollywood machine with the desperate journey of Barton as he egotistically struggles with lowering himself to the level of writing a B-movie.  Along with this are themes of Nazism, the idea of art imitating life (and vice versa), and the dangers of living within one’s head.  Add to this a bout of murder and left-wing cowardice and it’s your standard Coen Brother’s mesh of intricate subject matters which seem to hint at certain things without ever letting you interpret them cohesively.  Generically, even the Coen’s don’t know what it is, they say, it’s a comedy, a buddy movie, a coming-of-age story, a horror ^[2].

As screenwriters the Coen follow the basic three act structure with Barton coming to Hollywood in the first act, and losing his ability to write and falling in love in the second act.  The third act however, takes a dismal and sinister turn to an eventual surreal and thoroughly dark finale.  The Coens prefer to play with the structure in keeping with their own dark humour regarding genre.  The structure is there and the genre is there but there is something not quite right about them.  This style of writing echoes in many of their scripts, particularly in their 1996 film Fargo.

The Coens employ a rather dialogue heavy style to their script with many characters talking at ferocious speed, not for specific expositional reasons but rather for the embedding of the characters idiosyncratic nature on the audience.  It is because of this that so many of the Coen’s characters over the years have been so memorable, along with the unforgettable nature of the stories they are involved in.  In Barton Fink the studio head Jack Lipnik, written to resemble Jack Warner, speaks at a pace resembling that of a machine gun and represents the Coen’s view of the fallacy of Hollywood.  An excerpt from the script:

LIPNIK

That's okay, that's okay, that's okay - that's

just fine.  You probably just walked in here

thinking that was going to be a handicap,

thinking we wanted people who knew something

about the medium, maybe even thinking there was

all kind of technical mumbo-jumbo to learn.

You were dead wrong. The point is, I run this dump and I don't know the technicalmumbo-jumbo.  Why do I run it?  I've got horse-sense, goddamnit.  Showmanship.  And also, and I hope Lou told you this, I bigger and meaner than any other kike in this town.  Did you tell him that, Lou?  And I don't mean my dick's bigger than yours, it's not a sexual thing - although, you're the writer, you would know more about that.  Coffee? ^[1]

This sort of dialogue appears in the majority of the Coens scripts and puts aside the writing of specific image systems, however, considering the two write the scripts that they themselves will direct then it is hard to know whether these image systems are created but just not written, a sort of unspoken knowledge of how they will appear concocted during the writing process. 

Throughout Barton Fink the Coen Brothers hint at what they feel about the Hollywood machine and the lure money and glamour has on the imagination.  As the final act descends into its hellish fiery finale, the Coens seem to be telling Hollywood that they are not tempted to do a genre film, much in the same way that Barton himself is reluctant to do a wrestling film.  This, perhaps, hints at their own self-deprecating humour.  They like the idea of writing a film that plays with the viewer’s perception of a specific genre, whether it is to play with the genre itself, or whether it is to write a film that seems to be a web of genres as intricate as the plots written to support them.  Either way, the screenplays they write form some of the most unique and compelling films of modern times, attracting praise and attention to both the visual style and the idiosyncratic writing that has made Joel and Ethan Coen a creative force unrivalled in the field of film-making.

Bibliography:

1.      Coen, J & E, (1992) Barton Fink & Miller’s Crossing Faber & Faber

2.      http://cinepad.com/coens.htm

Additional Reading

·         Coen, J & E, (1996) Fargo Faber & Faber

·         Coen, J & E, (1988) Blood Simple Faber & Faber

·         http://www.aboutfilm.com/movies/b/bartonfink.htm

·         http://www.bafta.org/access-all-areas/videos/a-life-in-pictures-the-coen-brothers,212,BA.html

·         http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3rP76T5E8zQC&pg=PT171&dq=Coen+Brothers+Screenplays&lr=&cd=3#v=onepage&q=Coen%20Brothers%20Screenplays&f=false

·         http://lawrenceyong.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/6-filmmaking-lessons-from-coen-brothers/

·         Simon, A (0000) Brother’s Keeper (Online) http://thehollywoodinterview.blogspot.com/2008/02/coen-brothers-hollywood-interview.html

·         http://nymag.com/movies/filmfestivals/newyork/2007/38025/

·         http://www.utne.com/Arts/The-Quotable-Coen-Brothers-5383.aspx

·         Cowen, D. S. A Viewer's Guide to Barton Fink (Online) http://www.coenbrothers.net/viewer.html

·         Gabler, J. (2009) http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2009/09/06/movies-barton-fink-coen-brothers-wrestling-match-muse

Filmography:

• Barton Fink (1991) Joel and Ethan Coen
• The Big Lebowski (1997) Joel and Ethan Coen
• Blood Simple (1984) Joel and Ethan Coen
• Raising Arizona (1987) Joel and Ethan Coen
• Intolerable Cruelty (2003) Joel and Ethan Coen
• The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) Joel and Ethan Coen
• Miller’s Crossing (1990) Joel and Ethan Coen
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) Joel and Ethan Coen
• Fargo (1996) Joel and Ethan Coen
• The Tenant (1976) Roman Polanski
• Repulsion (1965) Roman Polanski

Objectivity in Documentary

Objectivity in Documentary

by Peter Morris

In their essay Redefining Cinema: other genres, Izod and Kilborn state that ‘the photographic realism of the documentary, for instance, can easily conceal the extent to which it often actively constructs a particular view of the world…documentaries can never be wholly objective; they will always involve a greater or lesser degree of intervention on the part of the documentarist.’

Documentaries hold a particularly resonant role in the society of today as a visual medium in which to learn and evaluate the facts of a certain situation.  We are expected to believe what we see and as viewers and consumers of this information, we expect to be shown the truth of an event or events that take place on the screen before us…as the saying goes…”a picture never lies”.  But what if we can’t see the whole picture, the bigger picture, the picture cut from view, the edited expression of the reality of an event?  Do we as the viewer have to construct this bigger picture ourselves?  Are we expected to derive the truth from the information given to us by the photographer?  Is that the lure of this medium of expression?  Dai Vaughan, a documentary film editor for over thirty years, suggests that “realism has nothing to do with totality but involves, on the part of the recipient, a sparkling of understanding across gaps in the text; such creative response, such active construction of meaning by the recipient, lying at the heart of aesthetic pleasure.”¹  This gives the documentary the ability to select and discard, allowing a certain margin for the creative processes of the human mind…this is John Grierson’s “creative treatment of actuality”², a phrase that has been and will be debated on many levels for many years to come.

The Lumière Brothers were the first to produce moving pictures of real people involved in real world situations.  These images of workers leaving their factory workplace on a bright evening astounded their viewers…this was the first instance of a real situation being presented to an audience, and is probably one of the most honest attempts at documenting a particular event with no sense of bias, or subject, or objectivity, or treatment of the images for the viewer.  This didn’t last long.  Soon, the Lumière Brothers discovered that to show the demolition of a stone wall in reverse could astound any viewer.  The creative treatment had begun.  And, in the decades that followed, the search for truth in documentary got more and more difficult, more and more hidden behind the emerging abilities of the film-makers and their ever evolving equipment.  This new forum for expression had begun and the documentary film began to grow, from the simple images of factory workers to films which can cause political, social and moral unrest, affecting millions of people.  Documentaries can be used to promote one’s subjective views or to analyse the subjective nature of institutions and individuals across the world.  A forum that can bring to us the world of a lonely individual or the strife of an entire nation, the remembrance of something that is now gone or the promotion of something that is yet to come.

This form has, since its inception, taken many different shapes, each with its own unique take on how the “creative treatment of actuality”² should be recorded and presented to the general viewer.  Film writer Bill Nichols describes these various modes…the expository mode is described as “Voice of God commentary and poetic perspectives sought to disclose information about the historical world itself and to see that world afresh, even if these views came to seem romantic and didactic” (Watt and Wright’s Night Mail (1936), Alberto Calvacanti’s Coalface (1935), John Grierson’s Drifters (1929)), the observational mode “of representation allowed the film maker to record unobtrusively what people did when they were not explicitly addressing the camera…But the observational mode limited the film maker to the present moment and required disciplined detachment from the events themselves (Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (1967 ), Albert & David Maysles’ Salesman (1969), Robert Drew’s Primary (1960)), the interactive mode “arose from the…desire to make the film maker’s perspective more evident.  Interview styles and interventionist tactics arose, allowing the film maker to participate more actively in present events (Michael Moore’s Roger and Me (1989), Nick Broomfield’s Tracking Down Maggie (1994)), and the reflexive mode which “arose from a desire to make the conventions of representations themselves more apparent and to challenge the impression of reality which the other three modes normally conveyed unproblematic.” (Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line (1988), Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room (2005)).³  These different modes of documentary-making changed over the years partly due to technological innovations in equipment, most notably in sound recording equipment and hand held cameras, and partly in the ability of the film-maker to push the boundaries in terms of the presentation of the truth as a viable mode of creative communication.  Izod and Kilborn argue that “The photographic realism of the documentary can easily conceal the extent to which it often actively constructs a particular view of the world.  This view is determined, among other things, by the film-maker’s own preconceptions, by the perspective from which the events are witnessed, and by the structuring principles according to which the material is edited.  In other words, documentaries can never be wholly objective; they will always involve a greater or lesser degree of intervention on the part of the documentarist”² Even with these varying modes of documentary, the holy grail of pure objectivity is still elusive, lost amongst the techniques involved in the film making process, but some have come close and regardless of what style of documentary, in the majority of attempts, an accurate portrayal of the truth is paramount.

Direct cinema was America’s answer to the cinema veritè movement that was blooming in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s; led by such film-makers as Chris Marker, Jacques Rozier, Pierre Perrault and Jean Rouch, whose film Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d’un Été 1961), had a huge influence on the cinema veritè movement⁴.  The direct cinema style of documentary making focused on a lack of participation on the film-makers behalf, in terms of influencing the reality of the situation they are recording, a form of the observational mode of film-making mentioned earlier.  The Maysles brothers were integral in the establishment of this mode of film making, along with Robert Drew (credited as the father of direct cinema), Richard Leacock, D.A. Penneaker and Frederick Wiseman, who all believed that this form of documentary making was the only true objective form of documentary, even more so than their European counterpart’s version; cinema veritè.  Erik Barnouw defines the differences – “The direct cinema documentarist took his camera to a situation of tension and waited hopefully for a crisis; the Rouch version of cinema veritè tried to precipitate one.  The direct cinema artist aspired to invisibility; the Rouch cinema veritè artist was often an avowed participant.  The direct cinema artist played the role of uninvolved bystander; the cinema veritè artist espoused that of provocateur.  Direct cinema found its truth in events available to the camera.  Cinema veritè was committed to a paradox: that artificial circumstances could bring hidden truth.”⁴

Made in 1969, Salesman follows the fortunes of four salesmen as they attempt to sell expensive bibles, door to door, to low-income households across New England and Florida.  The film was produced and directed by brothers Albert and David Maysles along with Charlotte Zwerin and followed the mandate of the direct cinema mode – no interviews, no voice of god, no intertitles, no participation.  The film focuses on the struggle of Paul Brennan A.K.A. ‘The Badger’, an Irish – American salesman, under pressure to increase his sales numbers.  Even upon its release the film was both praised and ridiculed for its stance on realism.  Salesman follows the rules laid down by the direct cinema mode but has still been criticised for not being able to be wholly objective.  The presence of a camera can influence how people react and the unavoidable use of selective editing was the basis for much of the criticism given to Salesman, and indeed, to the direct cinema movement as a whole.  Vincent Canby of the New York Times said in 1969, “they have eliminated from the film all evidence that the people being photographed – the salesmen and their customers – are aware of the presence of the camera.  Obviously, they also photographed much more material that is included in the finished movie, allowing them to impose a certain narrative order on the events, and with that order, a point of view.” ⁵   “You could call it that,” Albert Maysles responds, “but if the POV is set up to give you a message – the hell with the facts – that’s where POV gets into trouble.  When you’re getting into “purposes”, then you’re getting into POV.  If your purpose is just to reveal the human condition, then that’s ok.”⁶   Regardless of the critics’ comments in terms of the objectivity of direct cinema, it showed a new and engaging attempt to portray the subjects of their films with a truth, a reality and an honesty that had not been seen before in any other mode of documentary.  In an interview on the force of reality in direct cinema, Albert Maysles says; “in Salesman, for example, you’ll see Paul (Brennan) sitting in a cafeteria, and it’s quite a long sustained shot of him just looking off into the blue.  Now, I would venture to say that any other documentary filmmaker would have thought it smart to say, “But Paul, what are you thinking of?  We want to know what you are thinking.”  You probably would have needed cutaways, because there would be questions and answers, and you can’t just go along continuously that way.  So, you’d have cutaway shots, food on the table or a waitress walking, or whatever.  Instead, in our film, the audience is totally absorbed in the man’s thinking, whatever it is.  And you don’t exactly know what it is, but you can pretty damn well guess.  In fact, in that guessing process you become all the more engaged, because now, more than ever, the process of identification is taking place.  You are identifying with that person.  You are in that person’s shoes.  You are with him, heart and soul.”⁷  It is this engagement, this truth of the human being that the Maysles brothers sought and brought to the screen in Salesman and subsequent documentaries such as Grey Gardens (1975), a character study of real people going through real events.  These events are portrayed as authentically as possible, considering there is the buffer of a director between the characters and the audience.  In direct cinema this buffer is minimised to the best it can be.  Is it objective realism or is it a constructed view of reality?  Either way this buffer is present and a very real determining factor in what we are expected to feel.

In 1988, Errol Morris released a film that chose the truth as the subject matter of the documentary.  His film The Thin Blue Line (1988) studies the case of Randall Adams, an innocent man who was convicted of murdering a Dallas police officer in November 1976 and sentenced to death for his crime.  Morris’ film is both an investigation of the murder and a nightmarish meditation on the differences between truth and fiction⁸ which used interviews, archive footage and re-enactments to portray the facts of a convoluted miscarriage of justice.  These rather stylised devices, alien to the world of the Maysles brothers and direct cinema, were a new step in the creative reflexive mode of documentary making, especially the re-enactments, which were shot much like a noir film; rich in texture and resonating with the viewer, as they played out the various accounts from various perspectives of the shooting on that fateful night in Dallas, to the haunting score by composer Philip Glass.  These re-enactments drew the attention of many critics who felt that Morris was taking liberties with the truth by using these stylish re-enactments as a medium to portray the realities of an actual event.  He defends himself, “My re-enactments focus our attention on some specific detail or object that helps us look beyond the surface images to something hidden, something deeper – something that better captures what really happened…The engine of uncovering truth is not some special lens or even the unadorned human eye; it is unadorned human reason.  It wasn’t a cinema veritè documentary that got Randall Adams out of prison.  It was a film that re-enacted important details of the crime…I use re-enactments to burrow underneath the surface of reality in an attempt to uncover some hidden truth.”⁹  And he understands the power of these pictures, and understands the power he wields as the director and buffer of the truth between subject and audience, “If seeing is believing, then we better be damn careful about what we show people, including ourselves – because, regardless of what it is – we are likely to uncritically believe it.”⁹  There is no doubting that Morris was very subjective in this film, he wholeheartedly admits believing that Adams was innocent of the murder before he started filming¹⁰ and used these re-enactments, collected evidence and interviews with all the people concerned with the investigation to prove the innocence of Randall Adams.  A year after Morris released The Thin Blue Line Adams was released from jail after serving twelve years for a murder he did not commit.  It was up to Morris to solve the case that the court system in Texas couldn’t, even though there was overwhelming evidence to the contrary of Adam’s guilt. 

One critic, Stephen Rowley states; “It’s fashionable amongst certain academic circles to argue that there is no such thing as objective truth; that any account of events is inherently a fiction, shaped by our own prejudices, beliefs, values and so on.  In re-enacting every perspective of events without distinction, Morris at first seems to be ascribing to his view.  Each version is another tale, apparently equally valid.  Yet Morris never loses sight of the fact that although different people might reconstruct real events in different ways, somebody pulled the trigger that night.”¹¹  There is inherently an understanding in Morris, as a documentarist, to show only truth in his films.  With The Thin Blue Line, he went one step further, he showed not only what was true but what was perceived to be true and what was utterly false.  There is no arguing that the ‘the photographic realism of the documentary can easily conceal the extent to which it often actively constructs a particular view of the world.’ ²  In the case of The Thin Blue Line this particular view of the world turned out to be the only view based on actual truth.

The idea of pure objectivity in a documentary film is simply impossibly.  There is inherently a creative process involved in the making of any documentary film, be it an observational film or a reflexive film, an interactive film or an expository film, there is somebody behind the camera who chooses to point it here and not there, there is somebody sitting in an editing suite choosing what is important and what is not, there is somebody who decides they want to make a film about this person or that object.  Errol Morris and the Maysles brothers sit on very opposite sides of the objective film-maker divide, but both aspire for the same thing – a fundamental truth in their films, be it the world of Paul Brennan or the world of Randall Adams.  The objectivity of direct cinema reveals to us the truth about how people act and perceive the world, the subjectivity of Errol Morris reveals to us how the world can act on the people within it.  Both will agree, there is only the truth as they see it, that they can perceive.

“But I’ll make every effort to tell the truth…but what I tell will be the truth as best as I know.  What is documentary but one divine accident after another?  I mean, reality is a force outside of ourselves that we play just a small part of.”⁷

- Albert Maysles - 2007

References:

1. Jordan, Randolph (January 31^st 2003) The Gap: Documentary Truth between Reality and Perception (Online) http://horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/documentary_truth.html
2. Hall, J. Ed & Church Gibson, P (1998) Oxford Guide to Film Studies Pgs. 426 - 433 (Oxford University Press)
3. Nichols, Bill (1989) Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press)
4. Barsam, Richard M. (1992) Non-fiction Film: A Cultural History Pgs 299 - 305 (US: Indiana University Press)
5. Canby, Vincent (April 18^th 1969) New York Times Review: Salesman (Online) http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?_r=2&res=EE05E7DF173AA52CAB494CC4B679958D6896&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
6. Lewis, Anne S. (February 11^th 2000) Stories That Tell Themselves.  The Texas Documentary Tour: Meet the Maysles (Online) http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/print?oid=75859
7. Zuber, Sharon (2007) The Force of Reality in Direct Cinema: an Interview with Albert Maysles (Online) http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-33571787_ITM
8. Maslin, Janet (August 25^th 1988) Review/Film; Anatomy of a Murder: A Real Life Whodunit (Online) http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=940DE2DA1F30F935A1575BC0A96E948260&pagewanted=print
9. Morris, Errol (April 3^rd 2008) Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part One) (Online) http://morris.blogs.nyimes.com/2008/04/03/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-one/index.html
10. Wisconsin Public Radio (July 2^nd 2004) A Conversation With Errol Morris (Online) http://www.wpr.org/news/errol%20morris%20iv.cfm
11. Rowley, Stephen (2007) The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris) 1988 (Online) http://cinephobia.com/thinblue.htm

Bibliography

• Merin, Jennifer (2008) Errol Morris: Probing the Truth; Exceptional Interviewing Skills (Online) http://documentaries.about.com/od/documentarydirectors/a/ErrolMorris.htm
• Rafferty, Terrence (September 5^th 1988) Errol Morris: True Detective (Online) http://www.errolmorris.com/content/review/rafferty_true.html
• Ebert, Roger (1988) Errol Morris: The Thin Blue Line (Online) http://www.errolmorris.com/content/review/tbl_ebert.html
• Wikipedia (2009) The Thin Blue Line (Online) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(documentary)
• Stehlik, Milos (July 16^th 2007) Truth in Documentary? (Online) http://chicagopublicradio.org/print.aspx?audioID=12016
• Unknown (December 17^th 2004) Essay: Does Subjective Documentary Have Worth (Online) http://discussanything.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-69189.html
• Wikipedia (2009) Salesman (Film) (Online) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salesman_(film)
• Van Gelder, Lawrence (October 18^th 1987) Maysles: Filming the Impossible (Online) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE5DF1E38F93BA25753C1A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

Films Cited

• Night Mail (1936) - Dir. Basil Wright, Harry Watt
• Coal Face (1935) – Dir. Alberto Calvacanti
• Drifters (1929) – Dir. John Grierson
• Titicut Follies (1967) – Dir. Frederick Wiseman
• Salesman (1969) – Dir. Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
• Primary (1960) – Dir. Robert Drew
• Roger and Me (1989) – Dir. Michael Moore
• Tracking Down Maggie (1994) – Dir. Nick Broomfield
• The Thin Blue Line (1988) – Dir. Errol Morris
• Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room (2005) – Dir. Alex Gibney
• Chronique d'un été (Paris 1960) (1961) – Dir. Edgar Morin, Jean Rouch
• Grey Gardens (1975) – Dir. Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer

German Expressionism

German Expressionism and the Influence of an Era

by Peter Morris

German expressionism has been credited as one of the most influential art movements in cinema history.  Its 15 year peak, from 1917 to 1933, created a new force of ideas and styles that can still be seen and felt today, and it is seen as one of the earliest movements of art from paintings to the cinema screen.  The works of Fritz Lang, Robert Wiene and Erich Pommer amongst others brought this movement to life with films such as The Cabinet of Dr, Caligari, Nosferatu, M and Metropolis.  These film-makers along with F.W. Murnau, cinematographer Karl Freund and many others brought this unique and revolutionarily dark and moody style to audiences across the world.  An audience then, in the 1920s, and still now, over 90 years later.  Their influence on modern cinema is startling and their effect allowed for the creation of some of the most extreme elements of current film-making styles.

German Expressionism – Born from Despair

Germany 1917 – World War 1 was destroying Germany and much of Europe.  The German people had endured despair and horror on equal measures as their ultra-nationalist government continued fighting in an unending war.  It was out of this horror that German expressionism in cinema was born.

Near the end of 1917 the German military’s propaganda division struck a deal with a number of production companies to create the Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA) in a vain attempt to boost the morale of a people suffering the hardships of a nation at war.  As a result of Germany loosing the war in 1918 massive economical controls were placed on the nation by the victorious Allies.  As a result imports into Germany were heavily restricted and because of this the influence of Hollywood on German film-makers was very limited.  These factors plus the creation of the open-minded Ufa allowed for a unique creative situation in Germany.  This independent development, cut off from the rest of the world, allowed for the expansion of unique styles within the German borders.  Thus, German expressionism as a movement in cinema was born.  The Ufa took the helm of German cinema and was nearly wholly responsible for the development of German expressionist films between 1918 and 1933 when Hitler’s Nazi Party took control over the Weimar Republic under which the Ufa had freedom to create and develop the German expressionist style.  The Ufa took over nearly all the production companies in Germany including their directors, actors, set designers and writers.  This massive pool of resources increased the quality of German cinema a great deal and this pooling of creative minds developed German expressionist cinema.  As a result of the unstable economic situation in Germany, mass export was necessary.  This worked well for Ufa who now saw a massive market for their films and in 1919 Ufa produced its first truly expressionist film to receive notoriety abroad, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and director Robert Wiene and producer Erich Pommer created the epitome of expressionism in their dark tale of a hypnotist and his minion.

What is German Expressionism?

“All human action is expressive; a gesture is an intentionally expressive action. All art is expressive – of its author and of the situation in which he works – but some art is intended to move us through visual gestures that transmit, and perhaps give release to emotions and emotionally charged messages.  Such art is expressionist”.  This principle as described by art historian Norbert Lynton was at the core of the German expressionist movement in cinema.  The dark and gothic mindset of the film-makers was transferred onto the screen using some specially designed, key techniques – heavily contrasted black and white photography, long tracking shots, exaggerated angles and intrusive off-angle set designs.  The use of shadows also gave an ominous mood to the screen, the most famous example being the shadow of Max Schreck in F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) as he ascends the staircase towards his victim.

Most expressionist films were set in the urban underworld allowing the director to play with the looming cityscapes and the industrial face of complex cities.  The director plays with the viewer using reflective windows, tilted roofs and in all creating a truly surreal and dream like atmosphere.

Even the characters themselves have exaggerated and off-kilter make-up, again playing with the unease of the viewer.  All these factors comprise what essentially is needed for a film to be in the expressionist style and for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), the inclusion of all these factors make it the true original German expressionist film in cinema history.

Over the next 12 years Ufa produced many expressionist films that gained world-wide recognition – Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), and Fritz Lang’s M (1931) and Metropolis (1927), however, the true influence of German expressionism on the future of film would come from the arrival of Adolf Hitler

When the Nazi Party took power in Germany in 1933 the relative artistic freedom of German cinema was finished.  Along with the Dawe’s Plan, which was established in 1924 by the US Government to stabilise the German economy which in turn caused the budgets of films to rise dramatically and curtailed the export of many of the expressionist projects, the German film industry began to collapse.  The volume of expressionist films being made in Germany steadily decreased and eventually ceased in 1933.  The fascist Nazi government were in power and the anti-Semitic and anti-liberal policies forced many of the key expressionists to flee to America and especially to Hollywood.  And it was here where the influence of German expressionism began to be, and still is, being felt today, as directors such as Lang and Billy Wilder brought their new style of film-making to the masses, via the Hollywood machine.

  

The German Influence

The emigration of many of the masters of German expressionism to Hollywood in the early 30s led to their style, honed in Germany the previous decade, to be drip fed into the Hollywood mainstream.  The majority of Hollywood films up until that point were slapstick comedy or moralistic tales void of depth, however, the influence of these German artists brought a sense of mood and dark style to the cinema screens.  One of the first signs of this was the film noir genre which gained much popularity around the beginning of the 40s, with films such as The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Double Indemnity (1944). Film noir was almost like a refined look at the expressionist elements of urban settings, foreboding shadows and the darker side of the underworld, that these German directors had worked with previously.

It is, of course, no coincidence that it was German émigré Billy Wilder, who had learnt his trade during the expressionist movement, had directed Double Indemnity (1944), Ace in the Hole (1951) and the brilliant Sunset Boulevard (1950).   Wilder, along with Fritz Lang (who directed noir classics such as The Big Heat (1953) and The Woman in the Window (1944)) went on to be prolific film-makers in Hollywood over the following decades.

However, the influence of German Expressionism goes far past that of film noir.  Modern day film-makers such as Tim Burton, David Cronenburg and David Lynch have all been influenced by expressionist styles.  Johnny Depp’s character Edward Scissorhands in Tim Burton’s film of the same name is generally regarded as taking its influence from Dr. Caligari’s assistant, Cesare, in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).  Both characters are dressed all in black with white sullen faces, both tall and both thin, with both walking at a strange and peculiar slow pace.  This look was repeated again for Brandon Lee’s character in Wes Craven’s The Crow (1994).  Burton again tips his hat to the expressionist movement with Batman and Batman Returns (1992), even naming Christopher Walken’s character Max Schreck after the actor who played the lead in Nosferatu (1922).  Even the look of Gotham City resembles that of the cityscapes in Metropolis (1927).

Metropolis features again in the works of Tim Burton with the futuristic assembly line machinery seen in Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2006).  Tim Burton is just one of the countless film-makers who has seen the beauty of mise-en-scene in German expressionism and felt an obligation to try to replicate this beauty in their own works.

Nearly 90 years after its development the movement known as German expressionism is still influencing the minds and actions of not just film-makers, but artists and audiences alike.  This movement, born out of a mindset of despair and tragedy, has grown so readily that many modern cultural icons can find their roots in Germany during the 1920s, in the minds of Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Robert Wiene, Erich Pommer and Karl Freund.  They represent the power of belief and resilience and the ability to bring from the shadows of an empire to the minds of an entire century.

Bibliography and References

• http://www.transatlantica.org/document1192/html
• http://www.blogs.warwick.ac.uk/pbrown/tag/german
• http://www.digitalfilmarchive.net/clda/docs/FromGermanExpressionismToFilmNoir.pdf
• http://www.home.nikocity.de/fabianweb/gerexp.html
• http://www.cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=90528&rendTypeId=4
• http://home.nikocity.de/fabianweb/gerexp.html
• http://www.greencine.com/central/guide/germanexpressionism?page=0%2C0
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0010323/
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013442/
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022100/
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/
• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000485/

HUAC and High Noon

The HUAC and High Noon:

An Examination of the Darker Side of Post-War Hollywood

By Peter Morris

“Five years after a world war has been won, men’s hearts should anticipate a long peace—and men’s minds should be free from the heavy weight that comes with war. But this is not such a period—for this is not a period of peace. This is a time of “the cold war.” This is a time when all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile armed camps—a time of a great armament race...Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down. ^[1]”

-          Senator Joseph R. McCarthy - Wheeling, West Virginia, February 9^th, 1950.

And so, less than five years after the end of the second world war, a war in which fifty million people died, another war is declared, not a war of bombs and bullets, of bravery and duty, of courage and moral responsibility, but a war of ideologies and political conviction, a war of opinion, a cold war where people fight not with rifles but with words and outlook, a war in which people are not killed but muted, where the battle lines are not black and white but a shade of grey where opposing forces cross each others paths daily.  The war declared by Senator McCarthy used fear as its primary weapon.  And this fear would be a weapon stronger and more violent than any moral person could estimate. 

The people who were victims of this savage and autocratic tool were often not the “modern champions of communism” that the Senator from Wisconsin made reference to, but rather honest Americans whose rights to freedom of expression and political affinity were no longer tolerated due to the emergence of another opposing ideology in the East, beyond the Iron Curtain. It is legal to be a Communist in America ^[2] and it is these rights that American people can boast about, it is these rights that America was built upon, and it was these rights, which were removed and abandoned when some conservative aspects of the cold war era felt it was necessary; when fear took hold.  It for this reason that fear is such a powerful weapon and this weapon was harnessed to its full ability by Senator McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities Committee set up to flush out the far left socialist aspects of American society and banish them from actively influencing the minds of good, hard-working Americans.

One of the most influential spheres of American society came in the form of Hollywood and so began, in 1947, the investigations into the film industry that would have far reaching consequences on, not only the people who worked there, but on the industry as an entity of entertainment production.  The initial hearings took place in September 1947 and consisted of the committee subpoenaing forty-one witnesses from Hollywood who were to testify as to their connections to, or knowledge of, Communist influences in the film industry. The assault on the film industry was in many ways a predictable aftermath of the recent release of films of predominantly liberal sentiment ^[2].  The innovative moods of film noir was cresting in the forties and its unsympathetic view of life under any government were surely cause for concern for the members of the investigation committees, led by New Jersey Republican J. Parnell Thomas.  However, the studio system in Hollywood was based heavily on a policy of studio heads deciding on the final cut of any projects under their names and many of the Hollywood heads concurred with Sam Goldwyn’s sentiment of “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.” ^[3] Hollywood was in the business of entertainment and that was that. 

Some of the best–known friendly witnesses to the HUAC hearings were Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer, representing the studio heads, as well as Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor, Robert Montgomery, and Ronald Reagan, representing actors.  These witnesses were not under suspicion, but, instead, were willing to testify about any Communist activity that they were aware of in Hollywood. ^[4] Of the forty-one witnesses called to the 1947 HUAC hearings, nineteen declared that they were to be “unfriendly” and would not answer any questions regarding their political affiliations, citing their fifth amendment rights within the constitution.  Of these nineteen, eleven were found in contempt of court and sentenced to up to one year in jail.  One of these eleven, Bertolt Brecht, left the country to repatriate to his native East Germany while the rest would become known as the infamous “Hollywood Ten” and consisted of one director (Edward Dmytryk) and nine screenwriters (John Howard Lawson, Dalton Trumbo, Albert Maltz, Alvah Bessie, Samuel Ornintz, Herbert Biberman, Adrian Scott, Ring Lardner, Jr., and Lester Cole) ^[5]

Hollywood initially led a campaign against the HUAC investigations fronted by Humphrey Bogart and wife Lauren Becall along with John Huston, Gene Kelley, and others, known as the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA) and Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, pledged that he would "never be party to anything as un-American as a blacklist”^[3], however, a day after the Hollywood Ten were found in contempt of court a secret meeting was held by over fifty executives from the Hollywood studios to discuss the situation.  The two-day meeting at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel discussed the matter and decided that regardless of the outcome of the hearings, they faced huge losses at the box-office.  On November 24^th they capitulated to the investigations and released a statement known as the Waldorf decree which announced that the Hollywood Ten were suspended without pay and furthermore “We, will not knowingly employ a Communist or a member of any party or group which advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force, or by any illegal or unconstitutional method.” ^[4] The infamous blacklist of Hollywood had begun.

Marshall Will Kane stands alone in the town of Hadleyville, New Mexico.  His townspeople have abandoned him to his fate as he waits for the arrival of Frank Miller – released criminal seeking revenge on the lawman for putting him away.  It’s almost high noon and the train with Miller on board is fast approaching.  Marshall Kane is not going to bow down and submit to what’s coming.  He feels a sense of honour and duty that the other people in the town do not.  He has the moral courage to stand up to the tyrants coming to remove him from his life and the people around him don’t.  The people of Hadleyville make their excuses and hang him out to dry.  And so the narrative of the 1952 western High Noon is set. 

Directed by Fred Zinnemann, High Noon starred Gary Cooper in the role of Will Kane – the lawman left stranded by his fellow towns people in the face of the incoming gang of outlaws.  Carl Foreman wrote the film at the height of a new and more expansive wave of HUAC investigations into the Communist persuasions of Hollywood, this time led by Georgian Democrat John S. Wood, which continued until the fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954.  These investigations, which started in March 1951, named three hundred and twenty-four people who were, or have been, active members of the Communist party in America, working in Hollywood. ^[4] The fates of these subpoenaed Hollywood workers had already been decided by the committee, and only the “naming of names” could prove some sort of allegiance to the democratic system. Regardless of their political leanings or beliefs and regardless of what sort of testimony (friendly or unfriendly) that was given, these people were unofficially blacklisted by Hollywood and removed from work.  High Noon writer, Carl Foreman, was one of these people, subpoenaed while writing the western and had to flee to Britain before the filming could be completed.  Having originally began writing the script as an metaphor for the United Nation, his subpoenaing by the HUAC investigations led him to use the story of High Noon as an “indictment of the fear in America that led to people doing nothing while brave men stood up for what they believed in, in this case the right not to incriminate themselves by revealing their or their comrades present or former Communist affiliations” ^[7] This allegory, about the evils of naming names and the political persecution by people like Senator Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC investigations, studied the isolation that overwhelmed people who tried to stand up for what is right, even if it meant standing alone; ^[8] a theme also shared by Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible” released the same year.  Foreman had been producer on the film along with long-term friend Stanley Kramer, however after Foreman’s subpoenaing Kramer insisted that his friend’s name be removed from the producing credit and asked Foreman to name names at the hearings but Foreman refused.  The two men never talked to each other again. Other ex-Communists such as Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan (writer and director of On The Waterfront) felt there was a Communist conspiracy and that it was proper, if not patriotic, to expose it. ^[3]

The film went on to be nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Screenplay for Foreman’s script, Best Picture and Best Director however it did not pick up any of these awards on the night. However, Gary Cooper did win his second Oscar for his role in High Noon.  Ironically Cooper had testified as a “friendly” witness at the 1947 HUAC hearings, however he did not name names but did state that he “turned down quite a few scripts because I thought they were tinged with communistic ideas” ^[10] Cooper was considered a conservative minded actor but would go on to disapprove of the blacklisting that took place as a result of the HUAC investigations in the early fifties.  In another ironic twist, Cooper asked screen legend John Wayne to pick up the Oscar for him, as he was ill at the time of the awards ceremony.  Wayne, along with director Howard Hawks and friend Ward Bond, were strong supporters of the HUAC blacklisting and actively tried to expose Communist influences within Hollywood.  He criticised High Noon heavily, describing it, in a famous interview for Playboy Magazine in May 1971, as “the most un-American thing I've ever seen in my whole life” ^[8], he also stated in the same interview that he never regretted helping the blacklisting of liberal writer Carl Foreman from Hollywood.  However, he did collect the Oscar for Gary Cooper.  Wayne and Hawks would go on to make Rio Bravo in 1959 which was seen as a right-wing response to the “un-American” liberal peachiness of High Noon, where Wayne refuses the help of the towns people and does his duty as Sheriff. ^[11]

At the end of High Noon, Kane stands his ground and fights off Frank Miller and his posse and survives the struggle on his own. Disillusioned with the place that he once lived and worked, and throws his lawman’s badge away.  The people of Hadleyville, New Mexico watch in a fickle, irresolute silence, as he rides out of town.  Carl Foreman continued to write scripts under the guise of various pseudonyms from abroad but never worked in Hollywood again. After his death in 1984 he was honored with the Oscar for Best Screenplay for his part in co-writing Bridge on the River Kwai (1956) with fellow blacklisted screenwriter Michael Wilson.  Carl Foreman, and the character of Will Kane, represents the moral honesty and courage to stand up for one’s own beliefs.  In the time of the HUAC investigations, 1947 – 1954, Hollywood entered a period of suspicion and bitterness that destroyed many working and personal relationships.  It epitomized the loss of civility across a nation of free thinkers and free expressers, a loss of courage in a community torn apart by fear and disquiet.  The Golden Age of Hollywood had truly ended, and ended bitterly, as on the horizon the power of television was growing and the fallout from this dark period in the cold war would tarnish the film industry for many years to come.  Dalton Trumbo, blacklisted screenwriter and member of the Hollywood Ten, describes it quite generously, he simply states, “We were all victims.” ^[3]

Bibliography:

1. Speech of Joseph McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia, (February 9, 1950) (Online) http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456

2. Mills, Michael (2007) A Different Look at the 1947 HUAC Hearings (Online) http://www.moderntimes.com/blacklist/

3. Buhle, Buhle, and Georgakas, ed. (1992) HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN LEFT, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992) (Online) http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/blacklist.html

4. Basinger, Jeaaine (1994) American Cinema: One Hundred Years of Filmmaking: HUAC and the Censorship Changes (Online) http://www.moderntimes.com/huac/

5. Slantchev, Branislav L. (2004) High Noon (1952) English Review (Online) http://www.gotterdammerung.org/film/reviews/h/high-noon.html

6. Wikipedia (2009) High Noon (1952) (Online) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon

7. Lequidre, Zorikh (2006) The HUAC, McCarthyism, and Witch-Hunts Through Captain Marvel Comics (Online) http://www.captainmarvelculture.com/witchhunt.html

8. Weidhorn, Manfred High Noon Liberal Classic? Conservative Screed? Or something else…(Online) http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/47/highnoon.htm

9. Everhart, Karen (June 3, 2002) Documentary Settles Hollywood Score from Blacklist Years (HUAC Pitted Liberal Against Liberal) (Online) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1448905/posts

10.  Isaacs, Jeremy (1998) Actor Gary Cooper: Testimony to House Un-American Activities Committee, from documentary Cold War (Online) http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/06/documents/huac/cooper.html

11. Dirks, Tim High Noon (1952) Review (Online) http://www.filmsite.org/high.html

Further References:

·         Weinraub, Bernard (April 18, 2002) 'High Noon,' High Dudgeon (Online) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/movies/18CRED.html?rd=hcmcp?p=042sOn042sXx43HPe012000mfzyTfzu_

·         Graham, Don (April 10, 2008) Western Films, History and Criticism (Online) http://www.franklin.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?bbid=535540

·         IMDB (2009) High Noon (Online) http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=high+noon

·         IMDB (2009) Rio Bravo (Online) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053221/

·         Barasanti, Chris (2000) Rio Bravo: A Review (Online) http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/reviews/Rio-Bravo

·         IMDB (2009) Carl Foreman (Online) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0286025/ 

·         IMDB (2009) Fred Zinnemann (Online) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003593/   

Filmography:

1. High Noon (1952) Dir. Fred Zinnemann

2. On The Waterfront (1953) Dir. Elia Kazan

3. Rio Bravo (1959) Dir. Howard Hawks

4. Bridge on the River Kwai (1956) Dir. David Lean

Wires and Lights in a Box? – Public Service Broadcasting and its Role in Society

“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire.  But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends.  Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box”[1] Edward R. Murrow, October 15^th 1958.

In 1958 Edward Murrow knew the power of television.  He knew how, if used correctly, television could change the landscape of a nation, it could educate the consciousness of an insulated population, and it could free the minds of an entire generation.  Murrow looked at an America that refused to be subjected to the horrors of the real world and the threats it imposed, the fears it harboured and the evil it proposed.  But Murrow knew that television had the power to educate.  To show that this fear was being created by what is not shown on television rather than what is.  Murrow used television to take down Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose “witch-hunts” of the 50s against supposed communists perpetuated much of this fear, and distrust.  This marked an unprecedented first for television as a true media power, with the capacity to criticise the world around it and the forces that control it.  Indeed only a few years later a televised presidential debate between candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon was essentially decided on the screens in front of millions of viewers and voters.  Television’s role as a dominant media outlet has continued steadily over the decades and now, as of 2008, we stand, as Edward Murrow did in 1958, on the brink of a new dawn in what we perceive television to be.  And we require caution.  Murrow said in his speech; “But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage”[1].  In 2008 this fear is manifesting itself again as the digital age takes hold.   Can we maintain our society, our culture and our heritage while our television channels are flooded with more and more international (mostly American) programming?  Does RTE have the capability, as our public service broadcaster, to maintain our society, our culture and our heritage in the international world of mass media?  In a 1999 lecture titled “Is there a post-Reithian model of public service broadcasting that can thrive in the communicopia of the future?” Richard Eyre, the then head of ITV responded “Here is my answer to that question: public service broadcasting will soon be dead.”[2] The reasons Eyre gives are that “Public service broadcasting relies on the notion of an active broadcaster and a passive viewer and, in an era of wide choice, many viewers will pass on the wholesome, healthy and carefully crafted in favour of the easily digestible, pre-packaged and the undemanding.” He continues; “It relies on regulators who will be unable to do a comprehensive job.” And concludes; “An enduring definition of public service broadcasting will be impossible to formulate.”[2] These comments indeed seem ominous.  But both RTE and the British public service broadcaster, the BBC, have developed digital mediums from which to broadcast.  The BBC being, however, a number of years ahead of their Irish counterparts, who are still in the process of digitising their service.  But is it too late now that commercial networks rule the airwaves?

Ireland’s public service broadcaster Radio Telefis Eireann went on air at 7pm on the 31^st of December 1961 with a public address by President Eamonn De Valera.  He said of television in this address; “Like atomic energy, it can be used for incalculable good, but it can also do irreparable harm”[3].  De Valera was aware of the dangers that television could bring to an Irish society who, at the time, were very conservative and guarded.  But RTE saw, like many before them, the power that television could generate in terms of social change and even social awareness.  Television is a mirror of society and this mirror image gave us show like The Riordans of the 60s and the more cosmopolitan Fair City of the 90s and 00s.  These drama shows that existed, during the decades since the inception of RTE, have tried to influence social agendas and it wasn’t until the 90s that RTE felt confident enough to portray, say, a gay couple on Fair City.  But in terms of fully addressing the social issues of the time, Gay Byrne and The Late Late Show took precedent.  The Late Late Show was RTE’s flagship programme and took the initiative in delivering on Lord Reiths ideals of what a public service broadcaster should do: inform, educate and entertain [2].  It has been credited with being a major influence in the changing social structure of this entire country [3], since its first show was aired in 1962 through the hardships of the 70s and 80s, and into the economic boom of the 90s.  RTE saw the challenge of debating highly controversial topics, such as divorce, the role of the clergy, and matters of countrywide importance, and put them in the public spotlight for all to see.  It gave the people of Ireland the opportunity to speak and not to be spoken at, as was the tradition in the extremely Catholic social structure of the country.  This was a democratic government’s public service broadcaster giving the people their liberty to carry out their basic democratic rights.  And this is what allowed Ireland to undergo the social changes it did over the decades, as RTE, its public service broadcaster developed and grew and began to understand the medium that was television.

So what does our public service broadcaster do for us today? What obligations must RTE keep and what obligations can RTE waver?  Graham Murdock, reader in the sociology of culture, defines the “four promises” of public service broadcasting central to the development of a democratic culture as; 1. A potential space for free expression and open debate, provided for by public service broadcasting’s relative and continually threatened distance from private capital and government influence.  2.  Accessibility for everyone to this space of expression and debate without additional charge for service.  3.  An arena in which the politics of difference can be negotiated and a provisional notion of the common good arrived at, because public service broadcasting includes a range of experiences, perspectives and arguments with a single stream of mixed programming.  4.  Audiences are addressed by public service broadcasting as citizens, not consumers [2].  So how does RTE stand up to these principals?  In terms of government influence, RTE threads a fine line.  There is always the danger that an organisation, like RTE or the BBC, funded by the government and directed by the upper-middle class is likely to favour the government line [2].  Famously, in 1926 Lord Reith himself argued that the BBC was the people’s service and the government was the people’s choice, so it followed that the BBC supported the government [2].  In regard to accessibility for everyone, RTE has programmes in place such as The Late Late Show, which is now widely regarded as a shadow of the programme, which broke social barriers in the four decades previously, that give people the ability to air their views.  Of course it’s not free to call in and the increasing cost of the licence fee questions whether there is additional charges for this service.  The third principle, in regards to an arena in which the politics of difference can be negotiated, is generally held up by RTE.  Programmes such as Questions and Answers, Prime Time and once off specials known as Prime Time Investigates show willingness by RTE to debate issues of contention throughout the country.  This again verified by Prime Time Investigates’ report on the Lee’s Cross Rest Home, which led to a public inquiry into the malpractices forced upon the elderly who were patients there.  RTE, indeed, had the ability and the right to investigate and debate these issues and perhaps these investigations should be commonplace to our TV listings.  In terms of RTE viewing its audience as citizens and not consumers, one must question why RTE’s revenue is now a fifty fifty split between commercial income and the licence fees.  However, many public service broadcasters do not term these advertisements as “commercials” but rather as “underwriting spots”.  While “these advertisements resemble traditional advertisements on commercial broadcasting stations, there are usually limitations, such as a prohibition on making product claims, stating prices, or providing an incentive to buy [4].  RTE seem, however, intent on providing regular commercial advertisements and are, of course, under no obligation to provide these “underwriting spots”.  With the ever-increasing profitability for companies to advertise on regularly viewed programmes, the sheer value of that time slot is too precious for RTE not to reap the maximum monetary worth from the advertising companies.  If this is the case then RTE certainly view its public as citizens who consume.

RTE’s statutory mandate requires RTE to provide programmes that entertain, inform and educate [5].  This follows the Reithian mode of public service broadcasting, however, Reith himself ad entertainment as the third priority on the list, seeing television as on opportunity to inform and educate primarily.  But times have changed since Lord Reith defined his principals in 1922 as the director-general of the BBC and therefore the foremost authority on public service broadcasting.  However, today, in the hugely competitive market that is television in the digital age, it seems that the need “to entertain” has grown in importance.  Grown so much in fact that it seems to supersede the need to inform and the need to educate.  Does Desperate Housewives educate? Does it inform? And, in fairness, some people have to ask does it even entertain?  But it is prime-time viewing on the airwaves of our public service broadcaster along with Lost, C.S.I. and various other American hit shows.  These shows along with the likes of Friends, Scrubs and Eastenders have forged the backbone of RTE’s scheduling system for many years.  Do these inform and educate? Does Fair City inform and educate, it being the only soap to be produced directly by RTE?  It surely gets the ratings though.

And what of the social effects of television on the viewing public?  In the digital age of television, the concept of communal viewing is all but finished and television can seem to isolate rather than consolidate the minds of a community who now can choose from 900 channels.  Not only that but with the rapidly evolving technological advances in digital television you now have the option to choose what you watch and when you watch it.  Does RTE have the power to draw the viewer back home?  The television listings in the weekly supplement say no.  But it’s not only RTE.  In Britain the BBC are facing similar problems with declining ratings and programmes of questionable qualities as compared to previous eras.  The launch of BBC Thee and BBC Four seems to have diluted the already deteriorating quality of the BBC’s flagship channels BBC One and BBC Two.  Lord Reith would be reaching for the remote [6] desperate to find something informative and educational, as opposed to being subjected to an hour with Lilly Allen & Friends.  Of the four BBC channels BBC Four is left to keep alive the Reithian ways the BBC were built on.  It’s mildly informative and educational documentaries desperately squeezing the weakened heart muscle of a channel in critical need of a transplant.

The role of television in society is immeasurable.  Edward R. Murrow told his fellow workers of the importance of television when he said; “It is not necessary to remind you of the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other”[1].  Today that voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the world to the other, and it is our uniquely Irish voice that is being amplified by our public service broadcaster.  We should be pound to have that voice.  We should lay stake to our share in the world and make good of our heritage, our culture and our society.  But we need to be vigilant as to what our voice is saying.  Is it saying something uniquely Irish or does it speak with an American accent?  Does it speak the same as every other voice amplified across the world?  What RTE has is the ability to produce something of value and worth; reflective of the society it is obliged to service.  Public service broadcasting is being swallowed by the world of mass communications and eventually it will be nothing but another three-digit number on your decoder, unless RTE as an entity can see its role in society.  It is there to inform, to educate and to entertain [2].  But in order to do these things it has to stand up and be recognised.  Murrow asks; “I would like television to produce some itching pills rather than this endless outpouring of tranquillisers”[1].  These tranquillisers are numbing the world to a point where television cannot teach, it cannot illuminate and no, it cannot inspire, “it is merely wires and lights in a box”[1].

References:

1. Murrow, Edward R. (October 15^th 1958) Speech to the RTNDA Convention (Online) http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/commentary/hiddenagenda/murrow.html
2. Underwood, Mick (June 21^st 2003) Mass Media: Broadcasting Systems (Online) http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/media/peacock.html
3. Wikipedia - Radio Telefís Éireann (Online) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Telef%C3%ADs_%C3%89ireann
4. Wikipedia – Public Broadcasting (Online) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting
5. Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources (June 2004) Public Service Broadcasting Charter Pg. 6
6. Guardian News and Media Limited (July 7^th 2003) The Ghost of Lord Reith (Online) http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/jul/07/mediatop100200361

Bibliography:

§  Anthony, Dr. the Hon. Kenny D. (March 8^th 1998) The Role of Broadcasting in Contemporary Society (Online) http://www.pm.gov.lc/former_prime_ministers/kenny_d_anthony/statements/1998/broadcastingincontemporarysociety.htm

§  Witt, Dr. Susan D. (2000) The Influence of Television on Children’s Gender Role Socialization: A Review of the Literature (Online) http://gozips.uakron.edu/~susan8/arttv.htm

§  Wikipedia – Social Aspects of Television (Online) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_aspects_of_television

§  Dowling, Jack; Doolan, Lelia; Quinn, Bob (1969) Sit Down and Be Counted: The Cultural Evolution of a Television Station.