The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (Vintage) by Daniel J. Boorstin

Author:Daniel J. Boorstin [Boorstin, Daniel J.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780307819161
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

This advertisement was purporting to answer a story in the St. Louis newspapers which had said that Florence Lawrence, known to nickelodeon fans as the “Biograph girl” (she made films for the Biograph film company), had been killed in a streetcar accident. In his advertisement Carl Laemmle meant to imply that the newspaper story had been concocted by his competitors, the film trust, to prevent the public from learning that Miss Lawrence had left Biograph for Laemmle’s company and that in the future she would be lending her fame and face and figure to his productions. Actually Laemmle had planted the original newspaper story himself, for publicity purposes. The whole episode, including Laemmle’s advertised “reply,” was only his characteristic way of announcing that Miss Lawrence, then the most popular personality in films, was now his property.

This was not the only such stunt that the ingenious Laemmle used to discredit his competitors and to advertise his own products. It was true that the big General Film Company, sometimes disparagingly called “the trust,” for whom Miss Lawrence had worked, had refused to give out the names of actors. This was both because General Film were trying to standardize film manufacture (keeping it uncluttered by individual personalities) and because they foresaw that if individual actors became famous and known by name, the actors would command higher pay. Among some early movie companies this practice had become a strict rule. But the nickelodeon public insisted on individualizing their favorites, and gave them such names as the “Biograph girl,” the “little girl with the golden curls,” etc. Independent movie-makers like Laemmle, seeing a competitive advantage, and realizing that the public did not like its actors kept anonymous, then began strenuously publicizing their own actors. Incidentally, they were able to lure over to their own studios from the larger companies the actors and actresses who wanted both more publicity and more money. Geraldine Farrar (followed by Mary Garden) signed with Samuel Goldwyn at $10,000 a week. Movie stars became gilded idols. Their salaries soon were the biggest single item in a film budget.

The star system, as Richard Griffith and Arthur Mayer explain in their excellent pictorial history of the movies, was thus in a sense created by the public itself: by movie-goers who would not be satisfied by anonymous idols. They demanded that their idols be named—and be apotheosized by expensive publicity. In a word, that they be made into celebrities with the characteristics described in an earlier chapter. What movie-goers wanted in a star was not a strong character, but a definable, publicizable personality: a figure with some physical idiosyncrasy or personal mannerism which could become a nationally advertised trademark. Among these were John Bunny’s jovial bulk, Mary Pickford’s golden curls and winsome smile, Douglas Fairbanks’ waxed mustache and energetic leap, Maurice Costello’s urbanity, Charlie Chaplin’s bowed legs and cane, and Clara Kimball Young’s calf eyes. Acting ability and symmetry of face or figure became less important than the capacity to be made into a trademark.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.