Film

History Week 8


Q: What is Method Acting?

The technique gained popularity in the 1950’s:

Method acting is a range of training and rehearsal techniques that seek to
encourage sincere and emotionally expressive performances, as formulated by a
number of different theatre practitioners. These techniques are built
on Stanislavski's system, developed by the Russian actor and director Konstantin
Stanislavski and captured in his books An Actor Prepares, Building a Character,
and Creating a Role.
Among those who have contributed to the development of the Method, three
teachers are associated with "having set the standard of its success", each
emphasizing different aspects of the approach: Lee Strasberg (the psychological
aspects), Stella Adler (the sociological aspects), and Sanford Meisner (the behavioral
aspects). The approach was first developed when they worked together at the Group
Theatre in New York.

Q: How did this change film going forward?

Prominent practitioners:

Marlon Brando – A Streetcar Named Desire (’51), The Men (’50)

James Dean – Rebel Without a Cause (’55), Giant (’56)

Montgomery Cliff – A Place in The Sun (’51), From Here to Eternity (’53)

The 50’s represented a changing time in America – a prosperous time full of
optimism and the beginning of a demographic market.

Youth Culture arises as young people gain their own voice through consumerism.
The rise of rock n’ roll as a voice, manner of dress, a sense of rebellion begins.

This gives rise to the drive-in theatres. Most homes only had 1 TV set, usually
“controlled” by the parents, teens hit up drive-in theatres.

Although major studios’ output would sometimes be featured at these drive-ins,
what really was a staple of the era were the small studio (American International
Pictures, Independent International) “exploitation” or horror or sci-fi films directly
produced for the teen market.

Most of these films had improbable stories and premises’ , but many of them often
touched upon arising social themes of the time period.

The threat of communism was ubiquitous within the American pschye and would
manifest itself in many sci-fiction/horror films under the guise of alien threat.
Ex. “Invasion of The Body Snatchers” (’56)

Instant death via Atomic Destruction – Nuclear War/Nuclear power was on the
minds of everyone. This fear was often played out on films such as:
“Them” (1954) – effects of radiation

Godzilla (1954) – Toho Productions (Japan)

Value Systems/Youth culture is evident within “Rebel Without a Cause” and a slew
of musical films about rock n’ roll such as “Rock, Rock, Rock,” or “Rock around the
clock”



Mainstream Hollywood reveals the effects of television as a major competitor. Quite
a few technological leaps are made in order to differentiate the viewing experience –
wide screen, stereo sound, 3D, etc.

Famous actors of the 50s: Marlon Brando, John Wayne, Vivian Leigh, Jerry Lewis and
Dean Martin, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, Rock Hudson,
Glenn Ford, Doris Day, etc.

The “Blonde Bombshell” Explosion:

Marylin Monroe


Jayne Mansfield

Mamie Van Doren


Notable Films of the 50s:

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) – Drama (Brando)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

d. Elia Kazan, 122/125 minutes, Charles K. Feldman Group/Warner Bros.

• Kazan's film was a subversive, steamy film classic that was adapted from Tennessee
Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.
 • The visceral film, considered controversial, decadent, and "morally repugnant"
challenged the regulatory Production Code's censors (and the Legion of Decency) with
its bold adult drama and sexual subjects (insanity, rape, domestic violence,
homosexuality, sexual obsession, and female promiscuity or nymphomania). Ultimately, it
signaled the weakening of Hollywood censorship (and groups such as the Catholic
Legion of Decency), although a number of scenes were excised, and new dialogue was
written.
• It was the first production to come from Elia Kazan’s Actors Studio (founded in 1947), and
first presented on Broadway. It was highly unusual to have nine members of the original
Broadway cast reprise their roles in the film - including Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and
Karl Malden (Vivien Leigh replaced Jessica Tandy).
• 27 year-old Marlon Brando, in his second screen role and recreating his 1947 Broadway
role (premiered on December 3, 1947), delivered an overpowering, memorable, and raw
naturalistic performance (an example of the Method approach to acting that he learned at
the Actors Studio in New York under Stella Adler) as a sexually-powerful, animalistic,
brooding primal brute - Stanley Kowalski.
• The film's jazzy score by composer Alex North was the first of its kind - earning its place
in the history of film music. It was the first all-jazz score ever written for a motion picture.
• The controversial film was nominated for a phenomenal twelve nominations and awarded
four Oscars (an unprecedented three were in the acting categories): Best Actress for
Vivien Leigh (her second Best Actress Oscar), and Best Supporting Awards to Kim
Hunter and Karl Malden. This was the first time in Academy history that three acting
awards were won by a single film (this feat was later repeated by Network (1976)).
Humphrey Bogart's Best Actor win for The African Queen (1951) was an upset, since it
denied the predicted clean-sweep for the cast of the film, and a much-deserved Oscar for
Brando.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952) – Musical (Gene Kelly)

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

d. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 103 minutes, MGM

• One of the all-time best Hollywood musicals that spoofed and satirized the transitional
chaos surrounding the end of the silent film era and the dawn of the 'talkies.' Set in the
year 1927, it humorously parodied the panic surrounding the troubling transitional period
from silents to talkies in the dream factory of Hollywood of the late 1920s as the sound
revolution swept through.

The Rob e (1953) – Biblical Epic

The Robe (1953)
d. Henry Koster, 135 minutes, 20th Century Fox

• In further desperate warfare against television and rival 3-D movies to lure back viewers
to theatres, Hollywood developed grander, wide-screen processes, such as 20th Century
Fox's anamorphic CinemaScope, first released and seen in Henry Koster's Biblical
sword-and-sandal epic The Robe (1953).CinemaScope was one of the first successful
widescreen (or panoramic) processes.
• The film was the first motion picture in CinemaScope to be nominated for the Best Picture
Academy Award.
• The groundbreaking film was introduced by the studio's head Spyros Skouras, and
helped to save the movie industry from the onslaught of its major competitor - television.

The Man With the Golden Arm (1955)

d. Otto Preminger, 119 minutes, Otto Preminger Films/Carlyle Productions/United Artists

• This socially-conscious film was one of the first attempts by Hollywood to deal with the
issue of drug use - its censor-defying, ground-breaking topic. It was the first big-budget
cautionary tale about the horrors of drug abuse, and daring as a major Hollywood film to
star A-list actors with this story-line.

• The Searchers (1956) – Western



The Searchers (1956)

d. John Ford, 119 minutes, Warner Bros.

• A true American masterpiece of filmmaking, and the best, most influential, and perhaps
most-admired film of director John Ford. However, the sophisticated, modern, visually-
striking film was unappreciated, misunderstood, and unrecognized by critics. It did not
receive a single Academy Award nomination.
• The film's complex, deeply-nuanced themes included racism, individuality, the American
character, and the opposition between civilization (exemplified by homes, caves, and
other domestic interiors) and the untamed frontier wilderness.

Psycho (1960)
d. Alfred Hitchcock, 109 minutes, Shamley Productions/Paramount Pictures

• The greatest, most influential Hitchcock horror/thriller ever made and the progenitor of the
modern Hollywood horror-slasher film, based on Robert Bloch's novel. The story included
 the untimely, violent murder of the main protagonist early in the film, a cross-dressing
transvestite murderer, insanity, a stuffed corpse, and Oedipal Freudian motivations.
• Considered the "mother" of all modern horror, scream-inducing suspense films. A risky
horror film, it invented the contemporary psychological thriller. It single-handedly ushered
in an era of inferior screen 'slashers' with blood-letting and graphic, shocking killings by
serial killers (e.g., Homicidal (1961), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween
(1978), Friday the 13th (1980), Motel Hell (1980), and DePalma's Dressed to Kill (1980),
and many more).