FILM 2200 Lecture 2: FILM 2200 Week 2 Reading.docx
Document Summary
Summarized points from reading: ben singer, modernity, hyperstimulus, and the rise of popular. Sensationalism, cinema and the invention of modern life, ed. Leo charney, vanessa schwartz (university of california press, 1995), 72-99. Modernity: ideological shelterlessness all norms & values open to question. Social changes (at end of 19th century) rapid industrialization, urbanization, and population growth; new tech and transport; saturation of advances capitalism explosion of a mass consumer culture . Social observers around turn of century fixated on idea that modernity brought nervous stimulation and bodily peril. Michael david: modernity = defined by hyperstimulus . Many scrutinized and feared the chaotic modernist city environments; lots of propaganda. Modern life dangers: (1)factory machinery (2)tenement life (3)falling from heights workplace, suicides. Commercial amusement - sensationalism mainly in stage melodrama rise of cinema climaxed the trend vivid, powerful sensation modernity found in subject matter of cine-feuilleton (soaps) & film"s power to convey speed, simultaneity, visual load and visceral shock.
