AMST 3822 Chapter Notes - Chapter 17: Silent Film, Tragic Hero, Progressive Era
Document Summary
Film directors and writers realized that nothing pleases audiences more than deception, mayhem, and underdog characters who refuse to be trampled by institutions and laws. More frequently crime film plots are fictions that draw on widespread attitudes toward crime, victims, law, and punishment prevalent at the time of the films making. Earliest movies lasted only a few minutes. Too brief to develop characters or complex plots, but delighted audiences with ability to recreate events and conjure up magical illusions. In the us movies emerged during the progressive era 1890-1920 a time of intense social reform. First enduring type of crime film was the gangster movie. First gangster movie was the musketeers of pig alley, a one-reeler of less than. Robert warshow essay the gangster as tragic hero the imaginary city produces the gangster, he is what we want to be and are afraid we might become while the real city produces only criminals.
