Since the first motion pictures were released at the turn of the twentieth century, the American film profession has grown both technically and artistically, and has come to be respected as an invaluable historical and cultural record of American life. Throughout the twentieth century, films successfully captivated audiences through vivid portrayals of fact and fantasy--from short black-and-white silent films to full-length features filled with special effects. However, beyond the technological advancement of film production or even the subject of the script itself, much of the poignancy of a motion picture is derived from the historical context within which the film is presented to its audience. e the changes made by filmmaker's and the film profession at large as they adapted their medium to respond to the audience's needs, tastes and sentiments throughout three major historical periods: World War I, the Great Depression and World War II. The sessions that follow are intended to reveal oft-missed imagery and connections between popular film themes, genres or plots and the historical events that faced the world at those times, providing readers with a new understanding of how films can reflect, and possibly even influence, a nation's response to hardship, prosperity and war.
The films discussed in this seminar are all feature films, that is, at least 40 minutes in length, and all are American made. Although documentaries will be mentioned, the primary focus of the sessions will be on the dramatic film.
A brief history of early motion pictures
In the 1910s, motion pictures were technologically much less sophisticated than what is experienced by today's audiences. Films were silent, black-and-white and projected on a relatively small screen much more square than the modern, wide screen aspect ratio.
Experiments in sound began early in the century, but it would not be until the enormous success of Warner Bros.' 1927 partial "talkie" The Jazz Singer that silent films began their rapid decline. During the 1910s, motion pictures did not yet include spoken dialogue, sound effects or music. In movie houses, music and occasional sound effects were provided by live musicians, ranging from a single pianist or organist in small venues to entire orchestras for significant films shown in large movie palaces. "Title cards" provided text of dialogue and descriptions to supplement what was being dramatized. Early title cards were sparse and consisted of few words, but they gradually became more frequent and fleshed out as the decade progressed.
Motion pictures were shot in black and white in the early years, but shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, films often contained beautifully hand-tinted or color-toned scenes to highlight settings or express mood. By the mid-1910s, a large number of films were released with scenes containing tones of red, yellow or blue, with a smaller number of films released with the more time consuming and expensive-to-produce hand-tinted scenes. The two-strip Technicolor process was developed in 1917, providing a more pleasing color, but the vivid, three-strip Technicolor with which modern audiences are familiar was not perfected until 1934.
Although the earliest films ran for little more than a few minutes, two and three-reel films soon became popular and by 1914 more than 330 American-made films were produced in a length of four reels (approximately 40 minutes) or longer. Motion picture production in the earliest decades was much more rapid than current standards. Rather than the eight months to a year it currently takes from the time a film starts production to when it is seen in cinemas, the average movie in the 1910s was shot in five to ten days and often released within a few weeks.
Because of the short production schedule for these early silent films, motion pictures could easily adapt to changing times and public tastes. In addition, as films became longer and more sophisticated, they were also quickly becoming a means of shaping a nation's memory of and sentiment toward major historical events.
The power to provoke
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| American Film Institute |
| Poster for D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915). |
The most important film of the 1910s and one of the first feature films to successfully convey an historical period was D. W. Griffith's Civil War epic The Birth of a Nation. Although the film created controversy upon its release, and remains controversial today for its racist portrayals of African Americans, its power to provoke public opinion is undeniable. When President Woodrow Wilson was shown the film he reportedly marveled that it was "writing history with lightning." 
