What Does Ondeandas Mean

Course No. 1 (continued) Cinema and Popular Culture: American cinema in the early twentieth century

Cinema was born as an element of popular culture in Europe and the United States. We will try to see how this statement, developed by many historians in reference books, peut être vérifiée, précisée et développé dans le cas de films précis. On considérera ici Le court métrage « The Rink » (La patinoire) tourné par Charlie Chaplin en 1916 pour la firme hollywoodienne Keystone, spécialisée dans les films burlesques. On se demandera ce qui permet d’associer ce film à la culture populaire américaine. On considérera ensuite le film choisi du point de vue du contexte de la production et de son esthétique. On s’intéressera à la parenté entre la tradition du music-hall anglais, d’où est issu Charlie Chaplin, et le burlesque américain. On notera par ailleurs l’inscription des films burlesque Americans in the carnival tradition, characteristic of European urban popular culture.

- The beginnings of cinema in the United States

cinema in its infancy in the United States is controlled by the entrepreneur Edison, through an association system called by his detractor "The Trust and control patents on shooting equipment and production, receives royalties on all films. These are first-time shot in the workshops of Edison by technicians converted into operators. The bands are very short. The subjects are diverse: burlesque, pantomime, incidents borrowed from urban life, transposition of famous tales. The films are first screened in arcades and in specialized theaters, especially numerous in areas of poor immigrants. The silent films are not the language barrier.

Owners music hall or theater folk complain about the lack of quick movies. They contribute to the creation on the West Coast (Hollywood) small production company seeking to loosen the grip of Edison. these small companies produce so industrialized in a record time of short films (two coils) which are not intended to be works, although a cinematic language is being elaborated. These films are screened and distributed without much regard for their contents: the coils can be thrown into disorder, pieces of film cut. Censorship settled at local level in some U.S. cities (Chicago). At the request of the police scenes where we see police officers killed or beaten are removed. A decision Justice said that cinema is a business and that the studios can not rely on the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of conscience (religious). The expected decision of censorship or censorship attempts emphasized that the public cinema is because of "weak minds that must be protected" illiterate, children, women ...

The first films therefore, represent a urban popular culture. (Robert Sklar).

The Rink

http://www.archive.org/details/CC_1916_12_04_TheRink

- The film The Rink , 1916 is the eighth film by Chaplin made for Mutual Film. It shows, if we analyze its mode of production, the process of industrialization of culture, moreover, it allows us to understand more fully how the film collects the legacy of another urban popular culture: the English music hall.

-Chaplin in Hollywood

Chaplin is a character who makes the link between the tradition of 'farce' (in the English sense of the word) and English music hall and the 1890 film of the year 1910. He was born in Britain in a family of theater artists and music hall, he toured the United States and was recruited by Mark Sennett for Keystone Film Company.

At the Chaplin Keystone acquires a skill. The gags are developed by specialists gathered in a workshop. Films made very quickly and directors / technicians tried solely on the importance of public success (number of entries).

in 1914 for his second film Kid Auto Races in Venice, he created the "character" of Charlie Chaplin (French name character). It is easy to recognize a character for the audience (brand). It is characterized by clothes, props (cane, hat) and theatrical gestures. His way of walking legs apart, to turn around by moving the torso, bend your legs straight is directly borrowed from the knowledge of the theater.

Chaplin will try to identify the mode of production of rigid Keystone does not allow him to use all the possibilities.

- Aesthetics and content

• In 1916 the Mutual Film Corporation offers Charlie Chaplin 670 000 dollars to make twelve comedies of two coils. The Rink is the eighth. It is still a work in a very brief bill, consisting of the combination of sketches linked by a tenuous narrative thread. This is an opportunity given to Chaplin put in place in front of the camera gags whose analysis shows a part they are related to the tradition of burlesque, secondly we can link them to own an older tradition in European popular culture: taste of violent overthrow of the social order. This tradition is illustrated in France by the Lyon Guignol in France and carnivals past.

• In The Rink there

• A physical violence on the screen, the "rich" customers or citizens have fought and are identified by their clothing and body mass (in the tradition Wholesale is the rich)

• The denial of social codes of deference (Charlot key client-server anywhere on the body, he deliberately puts a brush to clean their plate, hits ...)

• Physical assaults against the femmes (grosses/riches).

- Réception

Ces films de Chaplin obtiennent un succès public aux Etats-Unis qui dépasse le public populaire. En Europe il en est de même. Les surréalistes les apprécieront pour deux raisons

- leur côté agressif vis à vis de l’ordre établi;

- leur expressivité formelle (rompant avec le théâtre bavard qu’ils exècrent). Ce faisant, paradoxalement, ils réintégreront le cinéma burlesque américain dans la culture savante via l’avant-garde.

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