Framing Media #8 - Jennifer Peterson on Government Sponsored Environmental Awareness Films

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Today's episode features Jennifer Peterson, Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Woodbury University and author of Education in the School of Dreams: Travelogues and Early Nonfiction Film. We discuss her article for the "Medicine on Screen" program for the National Library of Medicine entitled "Darkening Day: Air Pollution Films and Environmental Awareness, 1960–1972." Peterson examines a select series of films from the postwar era, all sponsored by the United States government, that tackled growing concerns about air pollution and other environmental concerns in a world before the Environmental Protection Agency. The two look at unique aspects that make these films shocking today, not just for their strong anti-corporate advocacy but often their aesthetic qualities that reflected the experimental films of the era. But Peterson also acknowledges the limitations they held to advocate for positions by turning away from mass mobilization or community organizing by putting trust in the government, a position hard to rationalize in today's continuing climate emergency.

Framing Media #5 - Chris Yogerst on the 1941 Senate Investigations into Pro-War Hollywood

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Today's episode features Christopher Yogerst, an assistant professor of communication, at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and the author of From the Headlines to Hollywood: The Birth and Boom of Warner Bros. We discuss his new book, Hollywood Hates Hitler!: Jew-Baiting, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures, a fascinating look into the 1941 hearings in Congress over Hollywood's role in American life. Yogerst contextualizes an oft-forgotten event in the shadow of World War II, where isolationist Senators (many connected with the anti-Semitic America First Committee) attempted to argue a conspiracy against the film industry for making what they suggested was pro-war propaganda. As Yogerst details, the hearings revealed the follies of the Senate to actually understand the film industry, and highlighted the changing nature of the role of movies within the public. The result is a fascinating telling that would foretell the events that would soon grapple the industry—particularly the HUAC Investigations and the antitrust litigation—and has resonance for the continued role of Congress in its attempts to take on industries in Silicon Valley.

Episode #118 - Daniel Steinhart (Bunny Lake Is Missing)

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"When Hollywood films go overseas, they do have to become more flexible and adaptable, but that has always been the case."

As much as many will espouse the "universal language" of cinema, the experience of both making and watching films from location to location is full of fascinating difference. As someone who grew up watching films in both America and Colombia, Daniel Steinhart became attuned to look for these differences as he traveled film festivals as well. But his book, Runaway Hollywood, moves from the audience to the filmmakers who escaped the studio lot and made works across the globe in the postwar era. Peter and Dan discuss this fascinating taxonomy of taxes and tea, gaffers and genre, politics and panning shots. How exactly could this cultural exchange create a change in film style? Finally, they dive into an oddball thriller from Otto Preminger shot in London, Bunny Lake Is Missing, examining how this film balances both its unique locale and the demands of its auteur.

0:00–3:28 Opening
5:11–12:52 Establishing Shots — Gilberto Perez's The Eloquent Screen
13:37–1:07:22 Deep Focus — Daniel Steinhart
1:08:06–1:11:33 Sponsorship Section
1:12:52–1:33:02 Double Exposure — Bunny Lake Is Missing (Otto Preminger)
1:33:07–1:35:50 Close

Episode #115 - Joshua Gleich (Days of Wine and Roses)

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"I think one of the reasons I work on location shooting is not because I understand it completely but because I have a question I still can't answer."

For anyone whose lived in Los Angeles or New York, it's easy to see when a film cheats its its locales. Just watch John Wick 3 and see the eponymous character seemingly make the trip from Midtown to Chinatown in a matter of minutes—and all by foot. But why has location shooting evolved such as it is? Joshua Gleich, a historian making his home at the University of Arizona, Tuscon, explores this by looking at the city of fog, San Francisco. Less an exploration of which films "get it right" or "get it wrong," Gleich's new book explores the evolution of location shooting from the 1940s to the 1970s, and how curiously the films of SF soon diverted from its actual life, attempting to mimic the urban nightmares that took up the imagination of Hollywood. Josh talks about his new book with Peter, exploring a number of classic films and the production contexts that made them. Finally, the two explore Blake Edwards's alcoholic drama Days of Wine and Roses and how a little location shooting can help pepper an entire film, especially one that breaks many of the molds of the classic Hollywood melodrama. Plus, Peter praises the work of the back-in-action Le Cinema Club and its opener with a rare Claire Denis short made in New York.

0:00–3:28 Opening
3:51–8:37 Establishing Shots — Le Cinema Club and Claire Denis
9:21–59:20 Deep Focus — Joshua Gleich
1:00:23–1:03:49 Sponsorship Section
1:05:44–1:19:21 Double Exposure — Days of Wine and Roses (Blake Edwards)
1:19:27–1:26:52 Close

Episode #114 - Katherine Groo (Archives de la Planète)

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"I've been thinking about archives as sites of mediation, as sites that are doing things to artifacts and objects, and what we do to them as well."

In the search for reclaiming masterpieces, creating streaming services that put every film at our fingertips, and investigating narratives that simply continue variations of the canon, what have we missed? What happens when we put our foot on the breaks and reconsider not just the what's of cinema and media history but the hows? In her extraordinary body of research, Professor Katherine Groo has been looking toward the objects that film history often ignores, simply because it seems there is nothing to do with them. The result in her new book, Bad Film Histories, considers some methods and ideas of how to approach a particular set of objects: early ethnographic film. From there, Peter and Katherine look into her much discussed op-ed for the Washington Post on the role of streaming services like FilmStruck and end by examining not a film but an archive: a set of films and glass plates collected to create an archive of the world by Albert Kahn. Needless to say, it is the odds and ends there that remain more fascinating than considering the body of work itself.

0:00–4:37 Opening
5:23–58:48 Deep Focus — Katherine Groo
1:00:09–1:04:36 Sponsorship Section
1:05:46–1:25:08 Double Exposure — Archives de la Planète
1:25:13–1:26:52 Close

Episode #106 - Janet Staiger (Zombieland)

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"I see both my work as an attempt to understand how history works and how people experience and live, and how they can live better lives as critical consumers of media."

What does it mean to study the means of production? Is one deconstructing the way an industry might operate, its cultural and political signification, or is simply one reproducing an apologia for capitalism itself? In a lively and spirited conversation, Peter explores these questions with one of his all-time academic heroes, Janet Staiger. The author of Interpreting Films, Perverse Spectators, and co-author of The Classical Hollywood Cinema examines the various political undertones that have always peppered her work, and where the future of media studies can go in today's political age, whether it be studying the way images are made or the way they are received. But there's also a lot of fun to be had, including the unique connections between Zombieland, a recent "romantic comedy" that just happens to feature blood and gore, and a certain 2017 film of fashionable elegance. Plus, Peter recaps his recent trip to Il Cinema Ritrovato with Welsh critic Christopher Small, where the two debate whether the films or the gelato stood out more.

0:00-4:00  Opening
4:58-29:48 Establishing Shots — Il Cinema Ritrovato with Christopher Small
30:33-1:05:47 Deep Focus — Janet Staiger
1:06:45-1:11:40  Sponsorship Section
1:13:06-1:26:35 Double Exposure — Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer)

1:26:39-1:28:18 Close

Episode #101 - Shelley Stamp (Not Wanted)

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"We hope to chip away at this persistent myth that there weren't many women making films in Hollywood or they weren't of consequence. It's an extraordinary body of work"

One of the most critical ways that women can break the overwhelming male-controlled industry in Hollywood is acknowledging how central they have always been to its existence. UC Santa Cruz Professor Shelley Stamp has been on the forefront of that narrative, exploring how women dominated silent film culture both in terms of their moviegoing habits and the films they created. The author of Movie-Struck Girls and Lois Weber in Early Hollywood sits down with Peter to discuss the critical wave of film historiography that blossomed during her early career and the pre-internet research methods she used to create these and other texts, as well as what the future of the field may hold. Finally, they dive into Ida Lupino's directorial debut Not Wanted and look at both the similarities and differences between her and Lois Weber as the actor charted a new type of social problem film for the noir era.

0:00-3:59  Opening
4:44-1:05:43 Deep Focus — Shelley Stamp
1:06:48-1:10:01  Sponsorship Section
1:12:06-1:26:23 Double Exposure — Not Wanted (Lupino)

1:26:27-1:18:40 Close

Episode #95 - Chicago Film Archives (American Revolution 2)

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"We have an impulse to simply collect and preserve. We don't want things to disappear."

For many historians, what made the 20th century so unique from the time before was the idea of the visual, the idea that we as a society began responding to images (both still and moving) rather than text. This visual life did not just happen through Hollywood, but in films made by advertising groups, for school children, and by families across the world as we documented the world's beauties and scars. Saving a particular section of these images has become the goal of Chicago Film Archives. The institution has spent over a decade finding and saving the images that define the Great Lakes city and the surrounding area, demonstrating how visual images capture and display American life through the 20th century. In this episode, Peter sits down with multiple members of the archives (Michelle Puetz—Curator of Programming; Brian Belak—Collections Manager; Amy Belotti—Digital Collections Manager) to discuss its history and its future. They end their conversation examining one of its most prized works, American Revolution 2, in which ideology along the left becomes an increasingly impossible debate.

0:00-3:42 Opening
4:17-12:27 Establishing Shots — Blockbuster Auteurs (Dunkirk and Logan Lucky)
13:12-50:19 Deep Focus — Chicago Film Archives
50:57-54:10 Sponsorship Section

55:19-1:12:19 Double Exposure — American Revolution 2 (Howard Alk and the Film Group)

1:12:23-1:14:00 Close

Episode #81 - Emily Carman (The Misfits)

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"It's important to be reflexive about the archives and materials you have to work with when writing film history."

If you know a bit about Classical Hollywood, you probably know that as much as the stars of the 1930s showed glitz and glamour on screen, they were often slaves to the whims of the studios that owned them. Or did they? Emily Carman of Chapman University joins Peter to discuss her book, Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System, which explores the legal contracts behind stars like Carole Lombard and Irene Dunne, who were able to find control over the films and public image they made in an unprecedented matter decades before the independent takeover. Emily also discusses the importance of thinking about archives in film research, the tactile nature of film studies, and rethinking how to approach a feminist film history. Finally, Emily brings her knowledge of the city of Reno to a discussion of John Huston's The Misfits, a film with stars morbidly moving through a dying space that Peter declares it "the death of classical cinema."

0:00-3:53 Opening
4:42-10:54 Establishing Shots — Tsai Ming-Liang's Goodbye Dragon Inn

11:40-1:14:57 Deep Focus — Emily Carman

1:15:46-1:20:30 Sponsorship Section

1:21:45-1:43:15 Double Exposure — The Misfits (John Huston)

1:43:20-1:45:15 Close // Outtake

Episode #64 - Brandon Colvin (Hail Mary)

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"I always think about filmmaking as trying to get it down to the most 

essential thing that has to be there."

What exactly is acting, and how can we pull apart its elements for our analysis? Madison-based cinephile Brandon Colvin has been trying to figure that out, whether through his academic studies, his programming, and most importantly, his own filmmaking. Colvin is the filmmaker behind two of the smallest but most unique films this side of American independent cinema, Frames and Sabbatical, and in this interview with Peter, discusses how he merged his own filmmaking interests with his academic interests, creating and exploring the relationship between directors and performers in the current landscape of today's films. Later, they dive into one of Jean-Luc Godard's most spiritual features, the aptly named Hail Mary, and talk through why this may be the most emotional film the French legend ever made.

0:00-2:20 Opening

3:10-7:54  Establishing Shots - Hill of Freedom
8:38-58:48 Deep Focus - Brandon Colvin

59:55-1:02:32 Mubi Sponsorship
1:03:41-1:21:42 Double Exposure - Hail Mary (Jean-Luc Godard)

1:21:48-1:24:37 Close 

Watch Sabbatical and Frames on Vimeo.
Check out the site for Brandon's production company, Moss Garden Films.
Follow Brandon on Twitter.
Hail Mary is available on Google Play, iTunes, and Blu-Ray.