Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

to be the most important art form—specifically because
of its ability to attract and speak to the proletariat. As a
consequence, Soviet cinema focused directly on drawing
audiences out of ‘‘false consciousness’’ in order to make
them class conscious, and to energize the socialist revolution.
Filmmaker Dziga Vertov’s (1896–1954) concept
of the kino-eye theorized how the technology and aesthetics
of cinema could expand human perception and
consciousness. Director Sergei Eisenstein’s (1898–1948)
ideas of dialectical montage were also founded on
attempting to broaden the mind’s comprehension of the
social order instead of simply acquiescing to the ideological
precepts of either monarchy’s ‘‘divine right’’ or the
demands of capitalism. Unlike the typical Horatio Alger
story that focused on individual heroes, Soviet films
tended to focus on group protagonists—the crew of
the Bronenosets Potyomkin (Battleship Potemkin, 1925),
or the villagers in Zemlya (Earth, 1930). Unfortunately,
by the 1930s, the regime of Josef Stalin (1924–1953)
mandated a shift from a cinema that consistently challenged
audiences to think for themselves to a cinema of
‘‘Socialist Realism’’ that championed the working class
but attempted to keep workers docile and obedient.
Although Soviet silent cinema was the most obvious
counter-argument to Hollywood’s celebration of capitalist
materialism, a number of German kammerspiel films
in the 1920s, such as Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh,
1924) and Die Freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street, 1925),
acknowledged the disparity between the haves and the
have-nots in a country dealing with rampant inflation
and poverty after World War I. The rest of Europe and
the United States was hit with economic hard times when
the Depression began as the decade came to a close. The
sudden collapse of stocks, credit, and jobs shook many
people’s faith in capitalism. Although the Hollywood
studios usually support the status quo that helps keep
them empowered, Hollywood films of the early 1930s
were at times shockingly critical of capitalism. Exposés
like Wild Boys of the Road (1933) and I Am a Fugitive
from a Chain Gang (1932) depicted the failure of the
American Dream, usually showing the system of law and
government working for big business and against the
common citizen. The rise of gangster films glorifying life
outside the law also had audiences empathizing with
rebellion against the establishment.
Such criticisms in Hollywood films waned by the
mid-1930s and the start of President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s New Deal (1933). A limited expansion of
socialist ideas (social security, farm subsidies, work programs)
created a new sense of optimism in the United
States, and Hollywood films capitulated by reviving the
Horatio Alger narrative. Most prominently, the films of
director Frank Capra (1897–1991)—notably Mr. Deeds
Goes to Town (1936), You Can’t Take It with You (1938),
Class
and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)—have become
iconic in their upholding of the American Dream. Even
the film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s (1902–1968)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940) shifted from a depiction
of the failure of American capitalism to a story that
glorified the determination of the American family.
Late 1930s Hollywood films were a return to escapist
fantasy—literally, in films like Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs (1937) and The Wizard of Oz (1939)—helping
audiences forget their woes. A similar pattern emerged in
Europe. Alexander Korda (1893–1956) produced highclass
costume epics in Britain. A ‘‘cinema of distraction,’’
with sophisticated ladies and their white telephones,
became prominent in Italian, German, and French
cinema. One of the few trends in 1930s European
cinema that regularly depicted the underclass was
French Poetic Realism, although many of these films
tended to tell stories with an air of romanticized fatalism
rather than incisive analysis.
Documentaries in the latter half of the Depression
also worked to support the opinion that the established
system could solve economic hardship without
needing a revolution. US documentaries such as The
Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and The River
(1938) acknowledge the crisis, but end with a rousing
tribute to American know-how. The British documentaries
of John Grierson’s (1898–1972) GPO Film
Unit also tended to support the strength and success
of the Empire and its industries in films like Song of
Ceylon (1934), Housing Problems (1935), and Night
Mail (1936). In their own way, Nazi German newsreels
and documentaries, such as Triumph des Willens
(Triumph of the Will, 1935), also asserted that national
strength would overcome economic suffering, even as
they also blamed such hardship on Jews and
communists.
To a certain extent, the outbreak of war throughout
Europe and Asia diminished the discussion of class issues,
as diverse strata came together to fight the enemy. Films
about the war in a number of countries often showed
characters from various backgrounds working side by side
in shared cause. Maiagaru Jonetsu (Soaring Passion, Japan,
1941), In Which We Serve (UK, 1942), and Bataan
(US, 1943) are representative of this trend. After the
war, though, awareness of economic disparity grew in
many countries. Italian filmmakers in particular began
documenting the hardships in recovering from the war
through a series of fictional films shot in an almostdocumentary
style that was soon referred to as neorealism.
Throughout the late 1940s and into the 1950s,
Italian neorealist films like Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle
Thieves, 1948) and Umberto D (1952) covered the struggles
of the disenfranchised. By emphasizing long takes,
long shots, and depth of focus, everything on-screen in a
SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM 305