How did the cinema affect the lives of women and children in 1930’s?
Labelled the ‘golden age of Hollywood’ the 1930’s was arguably a decade of turmoil. This led to many people attending the cinema to escape from reality. Among adults, women tended to go to the cinema more often than their husbands, and this finding was echoed by rowntree, who found that 75 per cent of cinema-goers in New York during the late 1930’s were women[1]. With large numbers of children attending these types of pictures, parents and adults began questioning the effect the movies had on their children. As one 1930s screenwriter, Dudley Nichols, put it: "Our exposure to the theatre is either helping us to resolve our own conflicts and the conflicts of society by
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It appears to be a family affair as the girl went to the cinema with her Nan and her Mother.
Horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. The advent of sound, as well as changing the whole nature of cinema forever, had a huge impact on the horror genre[8]. Horror films were seen as escapism from the great depression and at little cost. Films such as Dracula, the mummy and Frankenstein were successful horror classics. Although going to a movie theatre can be exciting, movies can create anxiety for children with loud noises and frightening and upsetting scenes. This is portrayed in source 2 and source 3 as a young girl could still remember the terror she experienced when going to the cinema 23 years later, therefore cinema had a negative effect on the life of children in the 1930’s. Furthermore, children idealised the Hollywood life and imitated the violence and crime that they saw at the cinema. Younger children may have trouble telling the difference between make-believe and reality[9].
Source 3 is an extract from a report commissioned by the London County Council (LCC) Education Committee, ‘school children and the cinema’. This source has the same message as source 2, in that both sources give the message that the cinema had a negative effect of women and children. “Children for a time imitate in their play what they have seen in the films, for example children under seven who have seen a fighting adventure
The film industry operates in a continuous cycle, searching for the newest and best pieces to make their movies creative, interesting, and marketable. Historically, the film industry attempts to follow a set structure in an attempt towards success in such a volatile market, however, this approach creates a system much like that of Ford’s Model-T production line, invented in the 1910s, which involved each worker on the line doing a single job. Only a few years later, during the 1920s and 1940s, the film industry showed that they adopted a similar approach to their industry, with each person—actor, director, producer, writer, etc.—performing a distinct role. In the late 1920s, as Hollywood transitioned from silent films to “talkies”, actors and actresses were met with the challenge of adapting to a new role and many of them no longer fit the role required by the growing Hollywood machine. The film Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950) explores and critiques the landscape of the hierarchy and harsh realities of Hollywood. In the same vein as many films of the film noir style, the mood of pessimism and fatalism reflected in the form parallels the reality of many people in Hollywood during the 1900s.
Audiences love to be scared. Horror films attempt to find some sort of trigger in the audiences mind, and develop it to create horror. Preceded by the great horror novels such as Dracula, and developed in the early nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties in Germany. From slash movies, to the post-modern psychological thrillers, horror films have evolved into an art form. This genre relies heavily on the basic horror conventions.
Watching frightening films such as “It,” Stephen King’s masterpiece, which is engrossing its monumental audience, is a favorite pastime of many young people. This industry is vast and creates a large amount of wealth for many of the people behind it. However, parents should diligently research these films’ psychological effects on minors before allowing their children to engage in this form of entertainment. After all, “‘Given that very young children may not yet know what types of stimuli frighten them most, nor do they enjoy the power to choose which media the family will view, they are in special need of protection from exposure to such scary stimuli before coping strategies are necessary’” (“Scary”). This shows that parents must carefully consider the content they allow their children to see. People watch horror movies for myriad reasons, as shown in Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” and watching these films have both positive and negative effects that parents should be aware of, which are displayed in Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies” and in the USA Today article “Scary Movies and TV Programs Have Long-Lasting Effects.”
Radio spread rapidly, bringing news, sport, light entertainment and advertising into every home. It was realised that radio could be a useful political tool too. The 1920s was also the golden age of silent cinema, with the emergence of Hollywood as the ‘dream factory’ and a new obsession with films stars as celebrities.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The Stock Market crashed in the 1930’s, causing many people agony. The Stock Market Crash was when Wall Street and stocks collapsed. This caused a lot of turmoil, many people were left on the streets with no money or food. America was not the only country going through the depression, this affected many other countries as well. Life today is effortless compared to the life in the 1930’s; socially, economically, and politically.
An example of a talkie is the film, “Bright Eyes.” In 1934, Shirley Temple starred in the film as a young girl who lost her father to a plane crash. The film is a comedy, yet audiences were able to relate to the young girl as she finds her way through custody battles and more (Document 3). This was also the beginning of movie theaters. Movie theaters began to take the streets between 1900-1920, where people would pay between five to seven cents to watch around an hour and a half film (Document 1). There were a variety of ways to watch films, such as drive-in movie theaters. In drive-in movie theaters, the viewer would drive into a lot with a big screen and watch the film from their car. However, these were very popular in the 1950’s as apposed to the roaring twenties (Document 6). By 1920, such men had been replaced by teams of specialists. Another significant change was the relocation of the industry from the east coast of the United States to Hollywood, a suburb of Los Angeles in southern California. A third important trend was the emergence of several film studios that came to dominate production and distribution during the interwar era. By 1930, the structures and formulae of modern commercial motion pictures had been
The winds came and blew more than fifty miles an hour from 1936 to 1940. Dust
During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that,
One thing that movie entertainment fulfilled was attracting people to the big screen. For example, I can introduce this quote: “In just eight years, from 1922 to 1930, weekly U.S. movie attendance soared from about forty percent to over ninety percent of the population” (americainclass). This shows how in just eight years movie popularity spiked, where as about 40 million Americans went to motion picture theatres on a weekly basis. As the brink of silent films came to society and the evolution of the industry had risen, going to the movie theatre became a weekly event. This transition in entertainment, from stand-up comedy/plays to movies, was remarkable. The huge trend and liking for going to the movies impacted America in the way it had reshaped entertainment. Movie companies like Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros made a lot of money and success. The industry became very rich. Going to the movie theatre in the 20s was classy, fashionable, and it became a
So, now the question of how they could entertain without offending anyone come into play. Films from this period have been named the "Cinema of attractions" by film scholar Tom Gunning, in part, because they treat show over narrative. The popularity of film in its first decade was for some, a cause for concern. It faced challenges to produce longer pictures, which not only would advance their profitability, but also needed to be narrative, which in turn allowed films to carry ethical and good messages.
The media has a way of influencing people of all ages. Specifically, violence and horror in the media are the most debated. Why do people go to watch violent movies or horror movies? They go for entertainment without realizing the physical or mental effects. Kathy Benjamin’s “5 Scientific Ways Watching Movies Effects You” and Bernie DeGroat’s “Scary Movies Can Have Lasting Effects on Children and Teens” both mention the negative effects of movies, especially horror movies, with research or studies. However, only one of the essays, “5 Scientific Ways Watching Movies Effects You,” mentions some positive effects. Statistics have shown that watching these type movies can have short and long term repercussions.
In the silent era, most American horror movies were somewhat nervous efforts, more likely than not to have their supernatural elements explained away, and to be leavened still further by the insertion of the most painful kind of “comedy relief.” As far as actual screen horror went, the Germans expressed their films in their way; this would not change the way horror films were created until sound cinema. The year 1931 would prove to be a landmark in the history of screen horror. Horror films during this period reflected the need of the population for entertainment that bore little resemblance to their real-world circumstances. The viewer's favorite movies had highly fantastical creations and featuring supernatural creatures from 19th-century literature. Universal Pictures was undoubtedly the studio that most successfully tapped the audience’s desire for escapist horror during the period. There were successful horror films produced by other studios in the 1930s.
Many things have shaped the world as we know it today. The 1920’s was a huge factor in social change. One huge change that shaped America is women. Women in the 1920’s became involved in politics, economics, and more. Little did they know that they would have a huge influence on the women of today.
The 1920s was a time in which society changed dramatically. During this rich decade, many exciting social and political changes took form. More citizens started moving to the cities, which was different than the farm life that they have been so accustomed to. Due to the emerging consumer age, many Americans started having extra money for leisure activities, clothes, and products for the home. People also started having extra time and money for activities.
This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.