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How Performing Arts Shaped the Film Industry, This assignment helped me to…

- - - - Both images here are taken mid-performance, capturing the essence of why they would have been popular or intriguing.
        
        Evidently, film, performance and dance techniques evolved quite a bit, and once the Hollywood era came around, performing took centre-stage. Although this time it was not just about entertaining, it was about wowing anyone who would watch. This was the sparkling newness of Hollywood, this was Spectacle.
        
        To accurately display these "spectacles", I've chosen two excerpts from the films screened in our class - Footlight Parade (1933, Lloyd Bacon), and Gold Diggers of 1935 (Busby Berkeley, 1935).
        
        As we can see in Footlight Parade, there is an almost impossible amount of people dancing. The grandeur of this performance would be sure to have people coming back for more. It paints Hollywood as a magical place full of possibilities, luring the collective consciousness of audiences in, and building what we know now as a monopoly of musicals in the 21st Century.
        
        Gold Diggers of 1935 also has a beautiful sense of grandeur to it. Pictured in this scene we can see numerous women swimming, creating gorgeously choreographed shapes in the water. The work itself is a grand accomplishment, but the moves of the swimmers paired with the camera work and transitions creates a hypnotic effect - it is impossible not to be enamoured in this scene, which makes it stand as such a staple in Hollywood performance history.
- - - - As we move through history, tropes and trends become apparent. In the film Blonde Venus 1932 by Josef von Sternberg, there is a striking scene in which Marlene Dietrich performs her "Hot Voodoo Dance". Surrounded by dancers dressed in a mix of "traditional" wear and Hollywood performers, Dietrich emerges from a gorilla suit to perform her song. The set is riddled with "primitive" decor, all working to promote a narrative around something that exists as an iteration of what is shown on screen. No matter how playful or funny, this still works to incite western narratives on any audience viewing it.
        
        A trope we watched develop in class was that of "Shanghai Lil". This first appeared in Footlight Parade as one number among many, showing us the gossip and mystique surrounding this "exotic" character. She is described as a pleaser of many men, and a very beautiful woman - although not much else is prescribed to her as a person. To audiences such as our history class, this character is obviously more of an object than a person.
        "Shanghai Lil" appears again in Josef von Sternberg's depression era film, Shanghai Express (1932). She appears to us embodied now by icon Marlene Dietrich, and stands ever so strongly as a figure of mystique and desire. The film is painted head to toe in supposed Japanese set and decor, making it perfect for depression era audiences needing to see something new and exiting. This is the "safari tour" that you don't need to leave your theatre seat for. The only problem is that it is completely constructed - not just out of wood and plaster, but out of western idealizations and fetishization, and projected all across America.
        
        An interesting connection to be made here is that "Shanghai Lil" comes from the same film as the fantastic swimmers of Footlight Parade. As a film pioneering in spectacle and dazzling the audience with Hollywood ideals, I find the embedding of Western superiority into film evident here.
- - - - Another early innovation in performing is evident in Alice Guy Blache's efforts to encourage naturalistic acting in her films. Many early films relied on dramatic expressions to carry the film, but Alice Guy Blache focused on the real nature of our actions. This proves effective in the 1912 film Falling Leaves directed by Guy Blache. The film is compromised of several moving performances, and even almost brought me to tears upon watching for the first time.
        
        These "naturalistic" acting practices are now the norm for many films since then, and continue to be the basis for many films being made now.
        
        The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dir: Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) was a film that stood out to me among others we watched. I found that it set a very high bar for solo performances by women. Not to demean prior female performances, but Renée Jeanne Falconetti's performance was astounding in its raw and vulnerable nature. Through her, we are exposed to what Joan of Arc was feeling. Her acting brings Joan's feelings to the forefront as well as makes the audience feel them as she would have.
        
        I am titilated to include a commentary on Marlene Dietrich's performance in the 1930 von Sternberg (not surprising) film Morocco. The nature of innovation in this film lies within Dietrich's willingness to perform dressed as a man, and defy standard practices of Hollywood stardom, especially for a woman. The impact of Dietrich's numerous performances can be heard echoing through almost all queer film and performance today.
        
        The final area of innovation I want to comment on is in developments against discrimination, or more-so in the uncovering of Black and Mixed-Race people in cinema. To display this I have chosen Imitation of Life (Dir: John M. Stahl, 1934). This film opens the door to the consideration of the realities of BIPOC families for at the time, present, and now of the past. The innovation lies in the intention to work in the perspective of the Black characters, not simply using them as caricatures. Of course I say this all with a grain of salt as the film did impose and inspire multiple stereotypes of Black people, and had to censor/replace some very impactful scenes with more "digestible" or "easy" content.
- - - - These first two appear as pioneers of "Icon status". Clara Bow and Louise Brooks, served as some of the original It Girls of cinema. With Clara Bow actually starring in The It Girl (1927) she quickly rose to stardom, becoming an influence to anyone going to the movies. As well, Louise Brooks was an early subject to this level of status, although in her case it seemed to be riddled in some scandal as well. Her starring roles in G. W. Pabst's german films, such as Pandora's Box (1929) gave her a name synonymous with the film noir era, and cemented her position among the stars of the time.
      - Finally, I would like to revisit Marlene Dietrich once again to help in understanding the influence of the "Icon". Many people were enamoured her every move, she embodied glamour, talent, status, all things everyone seemed to want. If you pair this with her uninhibited intensions, you can see changes being made. For example, in Morocco, her performance in a mans costume was cause for controversy, but with this also came a large influence. We can see the "Icons" effect on popular culture as vibrant today, everywhere you look there is someone new and sparkly, someone shaking things up, and cinema culture as well as regular culture has learnt to love it. The Icon is timeless, and it is owed to these pioneering women.