Brittany Bounds

March 21, 2007

Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth Précis

Paula Marantz Cohen

The embodiment of the American myth, according to Paula Cohen, is an “American who was contending successfully with a dynamically changing world.” Silent film was the first medium that could visually use this portrayal as a model for American society during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Cohen uses a three-element lexicon to show how silent film was used to further the image of the American myth. The three elements that became the “raw material of film” and also the “defining characteristics of the American myth” were the body, landscape, and face. She also cites the three most important film operations of the cut, the long shot, and the close-up to show the connection of silent film to the three elements. Silent films also used three elements of written language, music, and simultaneous sound in addition to the on-screen acting. Lastly, these operations and elements were used in three main film genres: comedy, western, and melodrama.

Cohen begins her analysis by detailing the background of the antecedents of silent film. American writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry James embraced the American myth by writing about the country’s noble landscape. These authors, with varying degrees of success, tried to transcend words with their writing to become one with the landscape. Walt Whitman came the closest to achieving this goal, and in the process, came to personify the archetypal American. Thomas Edison became the first visual link to the silent film as the embodiment of American ingenuity. Ironically, film did not surpass literature until it was wrenched from Edison’s control, as he felt movies were not a significant form of cultural expression. Adolph Zukor helped pioneer film by extending the length of movies and shortened the use of intertitles. Other directors, like D.W. Griffith and Vachel Lindsay, would help give movies form.

The body played an important role in the emerging silent film. Bodies had been on display at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, showcasing vaudeville, theater, the Wild West, and a beauty pageant. Harry Houdini used his body to epitomize the concept of the American, “cut free from traditional rites, customs, and class affiliations of Europe.” He also used his lack of clothing to expose the fraud of other performers, trying to debunk spiritualism (symbolically showing the tensions between the old past that was associated with words and a new confident present associated with bodies). When public figures appeared in movies, however, the response was less than desired, for the films were designed more to draw the audience to a live performance. It was only with the introduction of narrative that the body took on a new meaning in film. Filmmakers introduced plot, thereby allowing for the development of character. In Cohen’s three-element lexicon, the focus on the male body mainly used “the cut” shot in comedies. The new narrative was not focused on rags-to-riches; instead, it was a movement from formality to freedom, connecting the audience with the American myth.

The western landscape, seen through the lens of the long shot, had traditionally played a significant role in the national mythology. Represented as vast and pure, it provided a way for America to separate itself from Europe. Cohen uses paintings to show the portrayal of American landscape as authentic and powerful. This also plays into Turner’s announcement of the closing of the frontier; since the articulation of his “frontier thesis” anchored the American experience around the idea of a changing landscape, which was a vital part of the American myth. Western films were the first to abandon the primitive slapstick and chase movies. They used outdoor landscape for more creative use of the camera, cheaper backdrops, and as a contrast to indoor shots. William Hart took the landscape to a higher level of expressiveness, as he approached filmmaking as an extension of the western experience. He uses oscillating states of being between different length of shots and elements to show a rhythm of separation and assimilation both in films and society. In his early roles Douglas Fairbanks solidified the American myth by playing an Easterner who goes West and proves his worth. The changing face of sets also mirrored the changing perception of space in America, and ultimately collapsing the American landscape into one actor by having him play multiple roles in a single film.

As men’s bodies were used in comedies and westerns, so were women’s faces in melodramas. Appearances could not deceive, as physicality gave away an actor’s real motivations. The silence of films was crucial in the ability to show the real character. Directors like Henry James and D.W. Griffith capitalized on the use of close-up and looked for girls who were nervous and pliable. Lillian Gish offers the ultimate representation of this archetype, as she perfectly played the close-up role of an overly emotional woman. The close-up was extremely instrumental in the making of the star system, as the audience became more familiar with the same actors’ faces in their various roles.

It was the increased exposure of particular stars, including the advent of the feature-length film, which fueled the public’s desire to “know” the actor. The star system, instead of heroes and heroines, was about role models and friends, extending to the nicknames actors were given. The character on screen was seen as a projected version of the actor’s off-screen personality. As fan magazines began to publish articles on the movie stars, the public expected them to act in person the same way as they did in their movie roles. This can be seen in the case Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, whose divorce of their respective spouses and marriage to each other was accepted as “natural.” The characters’ roles on screen allowed for a shift in their real lives, which also resonated within the American society. Actions seen in film became socially acceptable and consumerism based on the star’s preferences helped women create their own identity.

The introduction of sound had dramatic effects. It put most actors out of a job, as audiences could not envision their silent heroes as talkers. At the same time, sound took away the necessity of facial expressions, as sound could express emotion on a different plane. Although the new sound films used American minorities as characters, thus giving them a voice, their roles usually reinforced ethnic social stereotypes. Further, many stars and directors opposed sound film as it took away the international language of silent film; others celebrated sound as an extension of the American myth with the use of English words. European countries also used sound to speak out against US imperialism and declare their own supremacy. Speech itself in films went through an evolutionary process, changing from fast-talking to more natural. These films are “our cultural unconscious,” using a combination of body, landscape, and face to reinforce the American myth of a new beginning. Silent films, although sound has been added, have not become extinct. One can still see elements in present forms of cultural expression, such as the constant movement in a video game, compact messages in a TV ad, physical stunts in the American comedy, and long wordless sequences of action in American action film. Cohen ties her thesis back to current times by examining the death of Princess Diana, whose life was consolidated in body, face, and landscape with the scandal of her death, continuing the promise of the American myth.