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19067
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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Mark Garrett Cooper, Love Rules: Silent Hollywood and the Rise of the Managerial Class, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003)
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2004-10-01
2022-11-21
2004-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Tom Gunning
2004/10/01
2036-461X
5
en
Mark Garrett Cooper, Love Rules: Silent Hollywood and the Rise of the Managerial Class, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003)
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/19067/16826
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transpositions engender in cultural meanings.
Whatever the heady mix of a difficult person-           Love Rules offers a rather unique contribu-
ality (he was married five times) and of cloudy      tion to current American film history. This
metaphysics (Northern Protestant attracted to        work poses a rather unique situation, uncom-
Buddhism), Wegener’s enabling role in the            mon in our somewhat young field of film his-
arts of his time and his curiosity for the tech-     tory, of a work whose thesis I feel is ultimately
nical media which brought so many other cre-         wrong, but whose clarity in stating this thesis,
ative forces into the films, ensure that his         depth of research in arguing it, and careful
work contributes to a modernity in many              analysis of film form as part of its argument
ways just as radical as Expressionist storm-         makes it a book which would be dismissed by
and-stress, while cautioning us from conflat-        our field only at the peril of ignoring one of the
ing his philosophy with the “reactionary mod-        more serious and ambitious forays into
ernism” of the late twenties and early thirties.     American film history made in the last decade.
   It would be pleasing to think that Paul              Recent works on American film history
Wegener frühe Moderne im Film could find a           have shown a certain modesty and mostly
publisher able and willing to produce also an        have maintained a clear separation between
English (or French or Italian) edition. While        stylistic evolution and the social uses of film
waiting for such an eventuality, funds should        as a medium. Thus we have on the one hand
be found to translate at least the chapter on Der    laudable works like Charlie Keil’s recent
Golem, for it is difficult to think of the work of   American Cinema in Transition that provides
many other scholars working in the field, per-       an excellent and nearly quantifiable survey of
haps with the exception of Yuri Tsivian, who         the changes in narrational style during the
like Heide Schönemann combine an extensive           period from about 1907 to 1913. On the social
knowledge of art history and cultural studies        front, the continued feminist concern with
with such a fine eye for filmic images and their     film history, including such fine works as
multiple reverberations.                             Shelly Stamp’s Movie Struck Girls, has inves-
                                                     tigated not only issues of representation, but
                                                     also film-going practices and uses of cinema
                                                     in the transformations of gender occurring at
SELECTED BY:                                         the same time as film radically altered its
ANDRE GAUDREAULT                                     social identity. But no one has offered the sort
                                                     of overview of cinema’s relation to society in a
Jacques Malthête, Laurent Mannoni sous la            manner which takes as seriously the evolu-
dir. de, Méliès, magie et cinéma (Paris: Musées,     tion of film form as Cooper does whose thesis
2002)*                                               gives film form a crucial role in shaping
                                                     American attitudes.
*   André Gaudreault apologizes for being unable        The book simultaneously describes
    to send his review.                              changes in American society in the late 1910s
                                                     and 1920s, which the author relates primarily
                                                     to the rise of the professional managerial
                                                     class, and the establishment of the Holly-
SELECTED BY: TOM GUNNING                             wood feature film which the author claims
                                                     achieved stability in this era through a partic-
Mark Garrett Cooper, Love Rules: Silent              ular visualization of a romance plot. The
Hollywood and the Rise of the Managerial             romance plot, which Cooper claims rules the
Class, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota         vast majority of American feature films, con-
Press, 2003)                                         sists not only of the traditional formula – sep-

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aration (or threat of separation) followed gen-     Revisiting his description of the romance sce-
erally by re-union of a white couple (Cooper        nario, one must introduce another key point
emphasizes the racial aspect of the romantic        of his analysis: the sense of what I would call
union) – but involves a very specific visuali-      an omniscient narrator in resolving the sepa-
zation of this drama based in cinematic edit-       ration of lovers and creating the place of safe-
ing and composition. Love is expressed in the       ty which fosters their love. Underlying the
American cinema in terms of lover’s glances         union/separation of lovers through eyeline
and longing looks, which are united by eye-         matches is what Cooper describes as a spatial
line match editing or simply off-screen looks.      problem – most literally the separation of the
Cooper sees the final re-union of lovers, after     lovers. However, the editing of the film brings
overcoming the obstacles that have separated        lovers together even when they remain spa-
them, not simply as a plot device, but as an        tially separate, as if the film’s style could “see”
essential visual resolution in which the            a resolution the couple cannot. Apparently
lovers are placed in a safe, well-lit uncluttered   the crux of Cooper’s argument rests on an
space, in which it is indicated their love will     analogy between this omniscient narrative
be safe and will be fostered. Cooper’s other        agency (an impersonal force which possesses
narrative deals with the rise of the manageri-      more knowledge then the characters or view-
al class and the transformations in American        er) and the new reliance of experts for social
society in the 1910s and 1920s, especially the      agenda and solutions. Thus Cooper claims:
new concept of the public sphere this entails.
Cooper provides a detailed discussion of the          Although the rise of public relations,
debate between Walter Lippman and John                market research, polling data, and sociol-
Dewey in the 1920s over the role of a new             ogy all clearly affected what it meant to
class of experts in transforming American             represent the “public,” these fields of
democracy from a direct expression of the             information arguably would not be able
people’s will into a society heavily dependent        to compete and collaborate in the ways
of a class of professionals both in setting           they do had cinema not first established
social agenda and proposing solutions to              as common sense the proposition that
social problems.                                      private individuals are incapable of repre-
  Cooper’s book asserts a relation between            senting their relationship to a larger
the romance scenario of the cinema and this           social whole (p. 106).
fundamental change in social values through
which a managerial class of professionally            But if the cinema did establish the proposi-
certified experts in a range of areas (medicine,    tion that “private individuals are incapable of
business organization, education, social sci-       representing their relationship to a larger
ence) gained unprecedented power over the           social whole,” how was this done? Cooper’s
daily life of citizens. It is here that Cooper’s    basis for this assertion is a narratological
book is most daring, and, in my opinion, runs       analysis that finds a sense of order in films
into the most difficulty. Cooper asserts the        larger than an individual character’s percep-
visual presentation of the romance scenario         tion. But can we move from this description of
(and hence its cinematic uniqueness) does not       a form of narration to a claim about the
simply represent the changes in American            nature of society? Even if the use of an omnis-
society, but plays a crucial, and apparently        cient narrator did indicate a desire for an
causal, role in bringing them about.                impersonal authority, does this order neces-
  This bonding together of film analysis and        sarily take the form of professional expertise?
social analysis marks a major contribution          More importantly, if the cinema actually
and charts the ambition of Cooper’s work.           tutored audiences to accept an expertise

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beyond themselves to manage their affairs,          a complex theory of social spectatorship. That
wouldn’t someone would have commented               Cooper does not supply this may call his the-
on it? No one ever made this analogy, not even      sis into question, but does one expect such a
commentators like Lippman or Dewey. This            theory from a scholar’s first published book?
lack of recognition of the true cause of a social   This important emerging scholar has raised
transformation needs to be explained. Was it        the issue of the relation between narrative
repressed?                                          form and social change with a new urgency
   This lack of commentary could indicate an        and in a new context – and he has raised the
unconscious ideological process, but then           stakes in the investigation of American film
Cooper needs to explain the model of the            history.
unconscious he is relying on. It could involve
other mediating factors, but Cooper doesn’t
explain what they might be. He rests his argu-
ment primarily on the formal analogy                SELECTED BY: FRANÇOIS JOST
between a narrative form with an impersonal
regulator and the adoption of experts dedicat-      Fernando Andacht, El Reality show: una per-
ed to impersonal professional roles. In other       spectiva analitica de la televisión (Buenos
words, there is no real causal argument here        Aires: Grupo editorial Norma/Enciclopedia
at the center of the text. This is the crucial      Latinoamericana de Sociocultura y Commu-
problem, indeed failing, of the book, but as        nicación, 2003)
much as it calls into question its central the-
sis, it does not lead me to dismiss it. Rather a       Depuis plusieurs années, parallèlement à
new project of research opens up: figuring out      mes recherches sur le début du cinéma, je
what aspects mediate between a public’s             consacre beaucoup de mon temps à travailler
response to a new narrative form that gains         sur la télévision. Invité à choisir un livre pour
unprecedented influence over a population           rédiger une note de lecture à l’intention de
and the types of transformations that society       CINEMA & Cie, je m’interroge: est-ce qu’une
undergoes at the same time.                         recension d’un livre sur la télévision a un rap-
   To my mind this attempt to relate film form      port quelconque avec le thème de notre
to social change remains a bit premature and        revue? Le plus simple serait sans doute de
ultimately unsuccessful, but nonetheless bril-      répondre non. Pourtant, je sens bien que ce
liant in its conception of what could be the        serait aussi trompeur que de répondre par l’af-
major issue of a serious cultural film history:     firmative. Que la télévision soit à des années-
how do cinema’s specific resources for narra-       Lumière (!) du cinéma, en tant qu’objet, n’em-
tion and fantasy construct a subject that           pêche que l’apparition de nouveaux formats
relates broadly to the transformations in           comme la priorité accordée à la catégorisation
modernity? Cooper establishes some impor-           générique obligent tout chercheur curieux (ce
tant issues for such an investigation and his       n’est pas un pléonasme) à interroger une fois
treatment of Lippmann and Dewey provides a          de plus la relation de l’image à la réalité et la
good entry to the issue. However, a more com-       relation du chercheur à sa méthode. C’est
plex conception of the way the effects of a         animé de ces interrogations, en tout cas, que
medium actually appear in society is needed,        je tiens d’une main le petit livre, récemment
one rooted in actual discourse and discussions      paru en Argentine, de Fernando Andacht, El
of the period, not simply in formal analogies.      Reality show, et de l’autre mon stylo (l’exerci-
I think Cooper relies too much on a concept of      ce est acrobatique…).
similarity between the forms of film and the           La première chose qui me frappe, de ce
forms of social organization. This work needs       point de vue, est l’étrange parallélisme entre

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