U.S. Intellectual History

Apologies to all for my belated response to these ...

2012-05-21T16:30:51.937-05:00

Apologies to all for my belated response to these thoughtful and incisive comments. Let me take 'em in order...

Eric, your comment about how higher ed reinforces inequalities is well taken. While the change at Stanford means that their traditional PhDs will face less competition for jobs from members of their own cohort, as some self-select for the "alt-ac" degree, the ultimate effect might be to make a traditional Stanford PhD even more prestigious. The "value differential" in a two-tier degree system at Stanford is affordable for Stanford students. That is, even with an alt-ac degree, a newly minted Stanford PhD could still participate in the prestige economy of higher ed. If other institutions emulate this plan, their students won't have so many options.

Cam, thanks for the link. I had seen that article, and it seems to me that this Stanford plan is almost designed with Silicon Valley in mind. I suppose the proposal could be seen as a sort of "trojan horse" strategy for insuring that the humanities have a future by finding a way to strategically embed humanists in the ranks of the info-entrepreneurial elite. But the anti-viral programs of the Grid are not to be underestimated.

Brian, I agree on the tone of the document. It is framed -- sincerely, as I suggested above -- as a way of helping students. But it reads like a Taylorist manifesto. Instead of being on the cutting edge, it's almost as if Stanford is one of the last Ivory Towers to fall to the engines of Efficiency and Progress.

Ray, I'm guessing that the humanities at Stanford don't have to look longingly at the wealth of Silicon Valley; I'm guessing they get plenty of it, directly or indirectly. But you may be right -- this may be a bid for some "innovation" funding. I saw that the chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation was named to the Stanford Board of Trustees this week. So "education reform" might be on the agenda of the university as a whole, and might explain the techno-biz jargon of the document, with its talk of "relevance."

James, I am pondering a follow-up post based on your comment. For now, all I can say is, "Amen."

Once you get into the habit of defending the Human...

2012-05-20T18:16:39.109-05:00

Once you get into the habit of defending the Humanities by inventing some way that they'll grow the GNP you've given up the game. At this point we've obviously given up the project of creating a human world that is something better and different than what goes on in the marketplace. Indeed, we seem to be determined that every aspect of the world will become part of an endless struggle for wealth and power since, apparently, there aren't any other credible values in this Darwinian tide pool of a society. The curious thing is, there is no practical necessity at work to justify our project of becoming barbarians. We're choosing it.

This is a fascinating subject! What is most impor...

2012-05-20T10:10:52.836-05:00

This is a fascinating subject! What is most important I think is teasing out how these travels were not only emancipatory but also illuminated racial hierarchies for the travelers, through the networks they built as well as the experiences they had. An important element to take into account is of course the economic status of these subjects and how that shaped their visions of travel.

Thanks to you all for your comments. I guess we s...

2012-05-20T07:50:18.982-05:00

Thanks to you all for your comments. I guess we should be thankful that no one has tried to do a remake of Notorious. Am I correct about that?

I find the idea of relevance at once limited but p...

2012-05-20T07:46:50.958-05:00

I find the idea of relevance at once limited but powerful. I can imagine the administrators and probably a few faculty at Stanford looking longingly at the wealth and, in a many ways, creativity of the Silicon Valley and wonder what the relationship of the humanities is to this dynamo. At the same time, I imagine many of us can remembers humanities faculty, either as teachers or mentors, who had such excellent critical radar that they demonstrated how to detect weaknesses in any kind of arguments. So the relevance of reading a poem to developing an IT start up is not immediately apparent unless you consider how few people can do either all that well. As Cam notes above, the Stanford question has broad implications for the future of that university as a whole, and probably for all elite universities that feel compelled to plug into the e-world.

I find the whole "production line" menta...

2012-05-20T00:25:38.390-05:00

I find the whole "production line" mentality in educational matters problematic. The Stanford proposal reads like a business memo detailing the new business strategy being disseminated to the various business divisions justifying the new speed up of the product line.

As for the "relevancy" argument, it seems that this document returns us to the same themes that were discussed in your earlier post, "Professing History: Not for the Faint of Heart." It also reminds me of the debate among economists and "very serious people" about the causes of unemployment in the wider society. Is it structural, meaning that American workers lack the skills to be employed? Or is it a lack of demand, and the economy is in need of further stimulus. What does the fact that only 50% of the class of 2011 have acquired full time employment say about the relevancy of a college degree?

I hadn't read the Kael essay, and you're m...

2012-05-19T11:55:23.205-05:00

I hadn't read the Kael essay, and you're making me think about her argument (I don't know yet whether I concur or not!). Nice essay; I like the personal touch about you and your father. It's true that the ending is masterful; it really makes one feel a lot less happy about Bergman's escape since Rains is so very sympathetic.

Worth noting that the discussion of Stanford's...

2012-05-19T10:38:20.565-05:00

Worth noting that the discussion of Stanford's graduate programs is playing out amid a broader debate over the utility of liberal education for its undergraduates. A recent New Yorker article does a good job explaining some of the faculty fissures that you observe.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/30/120430fa_fact_auletta

For what little it's worth, I feel exactly the...

2012-05-19T07:59:55.292-05:00

For what little it's worth, I feel exactly the same way about Notorious...and Cary Grant. And I've long thought Ingrid Bergman one of the most beautiful and intelligent actors to have ever graced the screen. I'm astounded that apparently so few people have even seen these movies today (we get 'basic cable,' so we view them when we can on TCM). Several Hitchcock films, including Rear Window, rank among the absolute best of all time (Lawrence of Arabia, 'orientalism' be damned, is right up there), although I would not include The Birds among his best. Contemporary films are vastly disappointing by comparison.

your discussion is thoughtful and useful. i'm...

2012-05-19T07:16:34.968-05:00

your discussion is thoughtful and useful.

i'm sure this has been said elsewhere, but it does seem to me important to point out that squeezing the TTD, while good in many ways, also has the effect of transferring substantial burdens onto the students themselves--like you say, learn the language before you apply, on your own dime--which will partly, it seems to me likely, reinforce preexisting structures of privileged. maybe this isn't much in the face of the growing consensus (! - Anthony Grafton at the very least doesn't contest the claim in a recent NYRB piece) that american higher education in general sharpens inequality rather than combating it.

i suppose in the end, looking at things from entirely within academia, it seems to me clear that the problem is over-production of phds caused by bad incentive-structures. departments want to have a doctoral program if they possibly can, since other resources and institutional prestige come with this. the IHE piece said academia was a guilt rather than shame culture--this is true for students, maybe, but not for professors. who wants the shame of admitting that you have no business granting phds to people who will never get jobs?

Supposedly when Warner Bros was planning a bio fil...

2012-05-18T16:23:12.085-05:00

Supposedly when Warner Bros was planning a bio film of Cole Porter, they asked the still-living composer who he wanted to be portrayed by onscreen; to which Porter flippantly answered, "Cary Grant." The studio took him at his word, hence 'Night and Day,' starring ... Sometimes you do get your fantasy fulfilled!

It wasn't just a 3 year run, or even a 6 year ...

2012-05-17T21:44:50.177-05:00

It wasn't just a 3 year run, or even a 6 year run. They made 11 feature films together from 49th Parallel (1941) to The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). Each of them is still regarded as a major work and most are available on DVD, Blu-ray etc and are still often screened in theatres around the world. That's not a bad record 60+ years after the films were made, especially as there was a world war going on. But that wasn't all they did. They also made various short films, wrote a few books, produced a few plays and did various other things. Most of those films were from original stories by Pressburger and was then, in the words of the famous credit, "Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger".

They had a regular team of people they worked with under the banner of The Archers, people were queuing up to work with them and they could pick the best of the bunch. Powell did his own casting having seen almost every film made and every stage play he knew what each actor was capable of.

They worked as an artistic co-operative. Everyone contributed to the best of their ability and if anyone, cast or crew, had a suggestion, it was discussed and if the idea was accepted, Emeric was always on hand to fit the idea seamlessly into the film. You can check the "final shooting script" for a lot of their films and they vary quite a lot from what we see on screen.

Many of their films are major works of art that still influence film-makers and other artists and still often appear in people's lists of favourite films. But as a total body of work, it's hard to find anyopne who came close to it.

Steve

It is possible to create great cinematic art witho...

2012-05-17T21:31:40.755-05:00

It is possible to create great cinematic art without caring about reaching a vast public. But it's hard to do it twice. If you get the funding for your first artistic film and don't make a profit, it's harder to get the funding for another one.

What Powell & Pressburger managed was to make intelligent, artistic films, that also appealed to the public. They were well aware that film-making is primarily a commercial venture. The critics might not have understood them and the films might not have been what the critics wanted to see, but the public liked them all well enough. All of their feature films from 49th Parallel (1941) to The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), that's 11 major feature films in 11 years, made a profit.

Martin Scorsese once described Powell & Pressburger as "experimental film-makers working inside a totally commercial system".

Hitchcock, Welles and many others went for the backing of the big American studios. They benefited from that with the resources to make their films and the publicity & distribution. But they had to accept the restrictions placed on them for most of the films they made under that system.

P&P resisted the urge and remained independent. They accepted the funding and the facilities offered by organisations like Rank's. But their backers had no say in the subject and absolutely no control over the content of their films. See The Archers Manifesto (http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Manifesto.html)

Steve

Terrific post linking 50s culture with Hitchcock&#...

2012-05-17T11:16:29.839-05:00

Terrific post linking 50s culture with Hitchcock's voyeurism in this film. I would disagree with Lary May that an "orderly universe" ultimately prevailed in his films. Just the final shot from Rear Window, showing Grace Kelly picking up Vogue magazine and trying to hide it from Jeff, indicates a sense of discomfort and dissatisfaction; it always struck me as Hitch's way of saying that this relationship would not be a happy one. Once we get into the late 50s-early 60s films, endings (eg, Psycho, Vertigo) usually lack closure, leaving characters' fates open to us and a sense of underlying irrationality in the world at large.

@Tinky: Thanks for the comment. As I noted in the ...

2012-05-17T11:07:12.710-05:00

@Tinky: Thanks for the comment. As I noted in the piece above, Hitchcock had obtained citizenship right around the release of Rear Window. Of course citizenship never makes one a native, so there's that. ...I want to reiterate that I don't know whether he's been excluded from well done social and cultural histories on the period. It's just that I can't recall any where his work is cited as symbolic or as a metaphor for any particular year or period. ...I just remembered, in typing this comment, that I meant to look into Stephen Whitfield's Culture of the Cold War. ...Just did that: Whitfield apparently doesn't cite Hitchcock or Rear Window.

@Paul: Good question! I don't know. ...Let me...

2012-05-17T11:00:23.161-05:00

@Paul: Good question! I don't know. ...Let me research for a minute. ...I'm back: If I've read properly (and quickly) in Patrick McGilligan's Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light, it appears that Hitchcock himself was left alone by HUAC. - TL

I think you're right that Hitchcock films are ...

2012-05-17T10:29:27.829-05:00

I think you're right that Hitchcock films are almost always relatable to their period, and you argue well for this one; I like the "frames of reference" notion.

Perhaps Hitchcock wasn't included in cultural/social histories because he was so successful at framing (if I may use your term!) himself and his films as sui generis, as spectacles from the mind of one "master of suspense" rather than as pieces of popular culture.

And perhaps because we're a chauvinistic nation(and because of genre)we didn't see this Brit as making mainstream, truly American movies like a Capra or a Ford....

Interesting post Tim- Your observation about the f...

2012-05-17T10:26:26.570-05:00

Interesting post Tim- Your observation about the framed views of the characters is convincing and I would only add that it seems to me that Jefferie's is viewing these characters from a even narrower lens, his telescopic camera, which makes his analysis more intrusive and myopic. Of course, knowing that Burr's character did commit the murder removes the fuzzy edges and confirms that Americans need to be wary of commies/murders in their midst.
Was Hitchcock involved in the inquiries of the House on unamerican activities committee investigations?

Zach, Thank you so much for your note! I actually...

2012-05-16T21:49:46.508-05:00

Zach,

Thank you so much for your note! I actually have Nico Slate's book sitting on my desk. It is waiting till I get back to Chapter 4, which is about Juliette Derricotte's trip around the world (her destination was India). For this chapter, I really want to focus on African Americans traveling to Europe for pleasure. It's a small subset of people, but it did happen.

Looking forward to your review!
--Lauren

Alas, I can't view videos with my internet spe...

2012-05-16T09:35:51.789-05:00

Alas, I can't view videos with my internet speed, and I'm not familiar with Zizek. I AM familiar with film history, however, and with reality and fiction. I wouldn't say that the interpretation you seem to describe is standard, but one of Hitchcock's joys is that (perhaps because of his subject matter) he invites multiple interpretations. So let's welcome Mr. Zizek to the conversation....

Lauren, you've likely come across a new title,...

2012-05-16T09:24:42.025-05:00

Lauren, you've likely come across a new title, Colored Cosmopolitanism by Nico Slate, which came out earlier this year and features extensively the travels of Black Americans in South Asia, mainly focusing on the first 60 or so yeas of the 20th century. (Among other things, of course.) I don't know if this is outside of your purview, either geographically or because most of the travelers in the study had usually gone for work of some kind -- missionaries, soldiers, journalists, diplomats, musicians (Penny Von Eschen's Satchmo Blows Up the World will come to mind, but also check out Naresh Fernandes's book and blog, Taj Mahal Foxtrot, which is about Indian jazz), social workers, academics, and so on. Slate uses accounts from these travelers' own memoirs and letters, as well as items from the Black and Indian media, and military or otherwise state-related reports. Slate's book focuses on the interconnections that Blacks and South Asians fostered between each other and the respective freedom struggles, and argues that these connections reflected a cosmopolitanism of theirs, one rooted in part in "colored" solidarity. Of course, there are accounts in the book such as those you mention, in which people decidedly rejected the cosmopolitanism he describes, but he shows sufficient and compelling evidence. The book has some little problems, and it largely picks up the trail left by Gerald Horne (End of Empires), but I think it could be of interest to your work. I should have a review out soon, which I can send to ya.

Thanks, Kurt. Zizek has a way of pissing off peopl...

2012-05-16T06:19:47.646-05:00

Thanks, Kurt. Zizek has a way of pissing off people in all kinds of fields. I find this hilarious. So I'll definitely check out the Bordwell screeds.

In relation to whether Zizek on Hitchcock is "...

2012-05-16T02:28:54.021-05:00

In relation to whether Zizek on Hitchcock is "standard": this is a can of worms!

Zizek's status in film studies is, as I understand it, extremely controversial. David Bordwell, in many ways the dean of US film studies, has publicly voiced his extreme antipathy for Zizek as a scholar and human being for many years. The ZIzek/Bordwell wars stand as an allegory of a wider rift within film and media studies regarding the salience of psychoanalytic theory, and the powerful domestic reaction against the structuralist/Lacanian tendencies of 1970s-era film studies and the journal Screen.

Thus, while I can't speak specifically to how Hitchcock is studied these days, I would be very surprised if Zizek's reading was even close to standard, outside of philosophy lectures.

I am a Zizek fan, but I understand why film scholars, especially those oriented towards film history and political economy, find his approach maddening. I have also found Bordwell's anti-Zizek screeds to be very entertaining (if much more hostile to the value of speculative theory than makes sense to me). I encourage interested readers to seek them out online.

Nicely put, GOM! The only thing I'd add is th...

2012-05-15T22:00:29.594-05:00

Nicely put, GOM!

The only thing I'd add is that Powell, much more than Hitchcock, accentuated in his career and his autobiography the collaborative nature of cinema even as he presented himself as an independent artist. His account of his first experience with filmmaking -- doing odd jobs for Rex Ingram's MGM silent unit in the South of France--emphasizes the collaborative aspect of the endeavor. And his relationship with Pressburger was, of course, one of the most famous collaborations in film history. Powell also stresses that The Archers included a much larger team of cinematographers, art directors, etc. Jack Cardiff was as much an Archer as Michael Powell. Of course this dual sense of the importance of the individual artist and the centrality of collaboration (and the tensions between them) is also a major theme of The Red Shoes.

I haven't read the Spoto book, but according t...

2012-05-15T21:54:10.839-05:00

I haven't read the Spoto book, but according to (Michael) Powell, he and Hitchcock got to know each other early in Hitchcock's career when Powell was a stills director. So it's perhaps not surprising that he doesn't get a mention in a bio of Hitchcock. By the time Powell's career took off in the late 1930s, Hitch was in Hollywood. Powell stayed in England until very late in his career when he worked for awhile in Australia.

And, yes, Tim, you're in for a treat...or really over a dozen treats! In addition to the great Powell and Pressburger movies--49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and The Tales of Hoffmann--there are some very good P&P flix (The Small Back Room, One of Our Aircraft is Missing, and Gone to Earth) and at least three great solo Michael Powell efforts (The Edge of the World, The Thief of Baghdad (the Technicolor 1940 version which he co-directed), and Peeping Tom), as well as some just slightly less good P&P films that are certainly worth seeing if they happen to cross your path (Blackmail, Contraband, and The Battle of the River Plate). I'd start with Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going (a great date film), or The Red Shoes and progress from there. These are not only great films, they are, at least IMO, just extraordinarily fun to watch. About the only one that's "difficult" is Tales of Hoffmann. Time to revise your Netflix queue!