Wesleyan College and Coursera offer an exciting MOOC (massive open online course) for film lovers. Titled "The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound and Color," it's led by Scott Higgins and is a free course examining the history of storytelling with sight, sound and color from the Silent Era to the present day. Here's a look at the films included in the class:
Street Angel
Starring the near-perfect Janet Gaynor and her costar from "7th Heaven," Charles Farrell, this is Frank Borzage's melodramatic love story with a simple plot about a young woman named Angela (Gaynor) who is forced on the street to become a "street angel" in order to pay for a proscription for her ill mother. Angela's run from the law finds her in the loving arms of Gino (Farrell), who is determined to provide for her. One of Higgins' motivation for including the film in the syllabus is Borzage's exuberant visuals, which had the purpose of "externalizing emotions." This is perhaps best demonstrated in the exciting climax in which Gino, bitter about losing his love for reasons he does not understand, lights a match to the face of every woman he encounters; inevitably, he comes across Angela, whose once hopeless face now matches the brightness of the flame. Gino, however, glares back, and the match extinguishes. The film briefly becomes a horror movie. Note the stupidity in such a situation -- we are forced to believe that these two characters happen to both be walking out at night and both happen to be in the same spot in Naples at the same time, and yet we do. Higgins has a theory for this: Silent pictures (especially Borzage's) are emotionalized and abstract, like an opera, whereas sound films have increasingly been grounded in reality. This allows for a heightened sense of melodrama, which critics often complained about. But Borzage's response was that life
was melodramatic. This belief guided his rule for movie making: make the audience sentimental, so the players don't have to be.
The Docks of New York
A bit shorter than the previous film and much less melodramatic, "The Docks of New York," from the same year as "Street Angel," takes place in a much smaller, tighter, colder, less romantic, more specific, stronger, and more grounded world. The world is the docks of New York, and more specifically the saloon and hotel. The saloon is not a vast area of lighthearted romance, but a small, degenerate bar with a rowdy group of people searching for sex. The Stoker (George Bancroft) is a big, gruff man, who, despite his affection for one-night stands, falls in love with a woman (Betty Compson) he's rescued from drowning herself. They marry in an orgy of decadence; as Higgins puts it, it's an arena where the saloon patrons find marriage to be a dirty joke. The movie certainly starts with a lot more excitement but bores as it progresses, ending in a similar preposterous manner of "Street Angel." This does not make "The Docks of New York" a bad film, however, it does require a bit more patience.
Applause
Now we're in the era of sound, with "Don Juan" showing the world that film can be accompanied by an orchestral score, "The Jazz Singer" showing us that there can be (a few) audible moments, and "Lights of New York" demonstrating that movies can be all-talking (though Higgins doesn't recommend viewing the film because of the low quality of its content). So we have a 1929 Paramount film called "Applause," by Rouben Mamoulian, and starring Helen Morgan. It cannot be doubted that Mamoulian had a talent for innovation, but the limitations of the technology at the time are too distracting; sound projection and synchronization were tremendous obstacles for early cinema pioneers like Thomas Edison and William Dickson, and yet even by 1929, the sound was so dismal that it seems like barely half of what was being spoken can be interpreted. (Before 1930, there were no blimped cameras, boom mics or sound editing equipment.) Joan Peters as Morgan's daughter looks the part but provides such horribly Transatlantic diction that the annoyance is only surpassed by the awful voice of Fuller Mellish, Jr. as the story's villain. I understand why the acting is so atrocious, but that does not mean I have to like the film, nor does the fact that its technological innovations and feminist viewpoint improve my opinion of it very much. In my mind, it should be stricken from the syllabus.
Monkey Business
The class moves into specific genres, starting with comedy, or more specifically, vaudeville. Set almost entirely on a cruise ship until they have exhausted just about all they could do with the specific situation, Grouch, Chico, and Harpo -- the Marx Brothers -- and their less shticky brother, Zeppo, star in their third film. "Monkey Business," from 1931, has aged a bit; Professor Higgins remarks that the situation comedy is sort of a "law of diminishing returns" with respect to each situation involving less for the brothers to do, but it also features fewer returns in the sense that the over-the-top slapstick hasn't aged so well. Still, it is a humorous change of pace for the course. Grouch's verbal barrage, Chico's piano scene, and Harpo's pantomime and harp scene, all practically self-contained acts that are gag-centered and feature practically no logic, are all delightful (though the racism and anti-women moments are all creepy). It's a very labor-intensive production by these four, particularly the three more recognizable Marx brothers. (Zeppo didn't continue to pursue the vaudeville-style film performances, but eventually became a millionaire through his work in film engineering.) There's such anarchic bursts of energy throughout it all as they run around the ship in a "world of straight men," tearing up the scenery, sometimes literally.
Scarface
While just about everyone has seen Brian DePalma's 1983 remake, less folks have seen its source: the original, from 1932, produced by Howard Hughes, directed by Howard Hawks, and based on a story by Paul Hecht. Sold as sort of a societal film (that at times comes across as too unnecessarily preachy), it is nevertheless quite stylized with great sound effects and dark expressionistic lighting; just as the oranges in "The Godfather" four decades later, the cinematography in "Scarface" featured at least one letter X whenever a character was about to be killed. Paul Muni, who would go on to win an Oscar and a Tony, puts in a pretty stellar performance of the title character, though he sometimes overdoes it (perhaps influencing the bombastic yet iconic performance of Al Pacino in the remake sixty years later). Also supplying decent performances are George Raft, Karen Morley, Ann Dvorak and Boris Karloff, who a year earlier shot to stardom with Universal's "Frankenstein." Fans of "Some Like It Hot" might recognize Raft poking fun at his coin-flipping image from "Scarface." With all due respect to the remake, I think I might like this one better.
The Ghost Ship
Another genre explored is horror, although Higgins admits immediately that this could hardly be defined as a horror film. It's more of a psychological thriller, produced by the Val Lewton low-budget unit at RKO films. Lewton, whose more famous low-budget horrors include "Cat People," "The Body Snatcher," and "I Walked With a Zombie," and director Mark Robson are more interested in suggestion and utilize a lot of sinister, low lighting. Taking place almost entirely in a claustrophobic ship led by a captain (Richard Dix) suffering from the onset of insanity, "The Ghost Ship" was a hit in 1943, but a lawsuit by two playwrights caused it to be pulled from theaters and not shown for another fifty years, and it wouldn't be discovered again until it entered the public domain. Despite a genuinely eerie start and a thrilling sequence involving a giant hook, "The Ghost Ship" soon becomes a more boring version of "The Caine Mutiny," and at a length of just over an hour, it barely is saved in time. Higgins, though, does an effective job at explaining why the film is important, and he claims that the way it uses sound to create such an unsettling atmosphere for perhaps the first time by a Hollywood film is why "The Ghost Ship" deserves to be studied.
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
The second three-color film ("Becky Sharp," opening to harsher reviews, was the first), "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" from 1936 is considered the first to set aesthetic standards for films in color. Despite the limitations the crew had in requiring more lighting than black-and-white films, "Lonesome Pine" is a "film of restraint," filmed with a lot of neutrals (grays and browns) that surprisingly still looks gorgeous. That said, despite its technological advances, this film, while not as torturous as "Applause," bores more often than not. Its cast is mostly sufficient -- Sylvia Sydney, Fred Stone, and Beulah Bondi (James Stewart's mother in four films, including "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "It's a Wonderful Life") are pretty good, but its male leads, Fred MacMurray and Henry Fonda, two of the 20th century's most respected actors, mostly disappoint. MacMurray laughs and smiles a lot, while Fonda mostly looks angry; neither of the two provide much else. Just about every viewer, though, will delightfully recognize two actors: George McFarland (Spanky in the "Our Gang"/"Little Rascals" series) and Clara Blandick, who appears in a small role in one scene, and whom most viewers would easily recognize as Aunt Em in "The Wizard of Oz."
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Most likely the most well-known of Higgins' list of films in his syllabus, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" was filmed on a budget of $2 million at a time when the average production cost per film was several hundred thousand dollars. The costs largely paid off, and despite the ostentatious laughter throughout, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is quite good fun. Originally to star James Cagney, it instead reunites Errol Flynn with his "Captain Blood" co-stars Olivia de Havilland and Basil Rathbone, and it was Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" that inspired Warner Bros. to film it in Technicolor. Its color palate is much denser, according to Higgins, than "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine," with many more colors, almost like a mosaic. The primary vehicle for this is its extravagant costume designs. Its cast includes Claude Rains, Eugene Pallette, Melville Cooper, Una O'Connor, and Alan Hale, Sr., who appeared here as Little John, and also did so in 1920 alongside Douglas Fairbanks, and then again in the role in 1950, making it one of the longest character spans in Hollywood history. But the real star is Rathbone, who is terrific in every scene.
All That Heaven Allows
Next to "Applause," Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" is the worst film included in the course. True, this is a beautiful color design by Sirk and his cinematographer, Russell Metty; to be drained of color, Higgins tells us, is to lose life in a Sirk movie. There are great uses of matte paintings, including the farm scenes. The film's leads, Jayne Wyman and Rock Hudson, do a mostly decent job. But "All That Heaven Allows" is, on the whole, quite boring. Its impressive use of color doesn't erase this fact.
Punch-Drunk Love
Fortunately, Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love" from 2002 not only fantastically uses color, but also tells a great story. Calling this Anderson's least presumptuous film (because it's a 90-minute rom-com starring Adam Sandler), it tells the story of a man named Barry, tortured by his many sisters growing up and who probably has some kind of personality disorder. He falls in love with a friend of his sisters, but must protect her from being harmed by a violent group of men hunting him down for blackmail money due to Barry's one-time use of a phone sex operator. "Punch-Drunk Love" is half the length of "Magnolia," Anderson's previous film, and yet "Punch-Drunk Love" has aged so much better than "Magnolia" (which does suffer a bit from presumptuousness). It's one of Anderson's best films, certainly Sandler's best, and is the best film in the class. The best was saved for last.
There isn't too much to complain about this course. I've already mentioned that some of the films are less than impressive, and some of Higgins' lectures get a bit too carried away when discussing color. But Higgins has a plethora of film knowledge, and his course is a recommendable course, one that will likely teach you a lot about movie making.
Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, who today are the two remaining Beatles, dash to a piano and have some fun with it. Even with his beard and long hair, Paul is still the "cute one" (though no one would imply that the other three were ever ugly). They're eventually joined by George Harrison and John Lennon to sing "Don't Let Me Down," before "Maxwell Silver's Hammer." George is still the quiet one; in five minutes, he's hardly uttered anything. Paul seems a bit bossy, which he reportedly had a reputation for being. They all sing a silly version of "Two Of Us" before "I've Got a Feeling," two of their least appreciated songs. This iconic documentary is "Let It Be," which presents for audiences the Beatles recording their album of the same name, and yet it seems to have been forever remembered as the film documenting the breakup of the most iconic, influential, and excellent group of musical individuals in practically all of human history.
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