Love, Danger, and the Professional Ideology of Hollywood Cinema Article by Mark Garrett Cooper Presentation by Daniel Voellinger

Aims: To discuss the lovers’ gaze To learn about the heroine and what she had to do with racism in Hollywood films

Outline The lovers’ gaze (7 min.) The heroine (7 min.) Clips (5 min.) Review questions (4 min.) Questions from the class (2 min.)

The Lovers Gaze

The Lovers’ Gaze “Those who have seen American Movies will easily recall glowing images of lovers gazing deeply into each other’s eyes before collapsing into an enthusiastic embrace.”

The Lovers’ Gaze (2) These images appear in nearly every genre of film during the 1910’s, 1920’s, and 1930’s Filmmakers believed that these images would appeal to a kind of “common sense” about what love looked like

The Lovers’ Gaze (3) The lovers’ gaze bonds the two people and objectifies their emotional attachment, almost like they were joined at the eyes. This objectification of the lovers’ gaze both emphasizes its limitation, the fact that the characters must share the same space, and indicates an everlasting connection.

The Lovers’ Gaze (4) The lovers’ gaze however is reserved for the eyeline shared by young, adult, men and women. On the other hand, the loving glances of people that do not fall into this category such as old, immature, nonwhite, and same- sex couples appear as imperfect or asexual versions of the ideal, “true” love.

Other possible ways that love can be portrayed in movies: Letting the viewer read the couples correspondence (as in novels) Metaphoric substitutes including crashing waves and exploding fireworks Merge men and women using the technique of double exposure

“In Hollywood cinema, it is the union of two eyelines that defines love and thereby presents its viewer with a spatial problem.”

The Spatial Problem In order for two characters to have the lovers’ gaze they must be occupying the same space. This space has a mis-en-scene that is simply arranged and clearly lit.

The Happy Ending The final sequence shows key features of the images that established love: The lovers’ gaze is reunited A steady look is everything The lover’s well-illuminated faces make their differences even more striking The man’s face is poised higher in the frame showing superiority The woman’s face however has greater symbolic value

The Not-so-happy Ending Serials-refuse stasis, enclosure, or full illumination in the final sequence Tragedy-does not offer the viewer a clear, well-lighted space, which indicates that the protagonist was denied happiness

The Heroine

Heroines often receive special treatment during love scenes in film. Filmmakers imply that there is something special about them in many ways. Her face is brighter than his The camera lingers on it and shows it more frequently from a frontal angle Her eyes are more expressive She is definitely the more meticulously crafted using casting, lighting, makeup, cinematography, and photochemistry

The Heroine Because of this special treatment of the heroine, many scholars focus their attention on her image.

Richard Dyer Argues that lighting techniques were developed to convey white femininity as a redemptive virtue White actresses often appear to glow, which gives the audience a sense of spiritual illumination

Lighting of the Heroine The same kind of lighting was also used to valorize African-American characters. This lighting technique made the romantic couple paler than the rest of the black characters in the film and it made the female even brighter than the male.

“Scholarship has made race and sexuality categories for analysis by isolating them, a move that has also supported discussion of their intersection. Film scholars have often understood the importance of white women in this way, as holding a key both to how Hollywood films represent race and how they generate desire.”

Closing In studying the white heroine, it seems that Hollywood has racialized the face of love, meaning that love itself required whiteness.

Review Questions What is the lover’s gaze? What are the key features to a happy ending of a film involving a love story? How do filmmakers imply that there is something special about the heroine in love scenes?