August 17, 2022 • 20 mins
While most works of cinema are produced for mass-entertainment and escapism, a peculiar minority have had a profound influence on our culture. Whether intentionally or not, some movies have brought social issues to light, changed laws, forwarded ideologies both good and bad, and altered the course of American history through their resounding impact on society.
Renowned Yale Film Professor Marc Lapadula is a playwright, screenwriter and an award-winning film producer. In addition to Yale, Marc has taught at Columbia University's Graduate Film School, and he created the screenwriting programs at both The University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The problem with movies in generals that everybody sort of
has low expectations of them. You know, what do you
want to do? I don't know nothing. I want to
go to a movie. I mean, so that's sort of
that's where we are right and we don't even plan
to go to and we just go. Something will be
playing their sixteen screens. We have to find something. The
Science of Happiness, appreciating modern painting, dilemmas of modern medicine,
(00:24):
Abraham Lincoln and the civil The artistic genius of Michel Angeli.
When intuition changed American mystory, Psychology of Religion. One Day University.
(00:44):
The most acclaimed and popular professors from top colleges. They're
best lectures, fascinating conversations. Hi, I'm Richard Davies. Let's learn.
And so this is sort of the climate today. This
is the digital age right where we just seem to
have so many choices. My name is Mark LaPadula. I
(01:07):
teach at Yale University in the Film and Media Studies program.
Today is films that changed America. There was something about
the films of yesteryear that I think it's really worth
and I tell my students to go back and re
examine them. What is our relationship with with movies? How
has that changed over years? You know, movies do tend
(01:29):
to reflect the time in which they're made, and the
best movies actually become mirrors of the world and help
us to better see the world we're sort of embroiled in.
Sometimes we don't see as clearly as we'd like to.
A movie can somehow, you know, open up a window
and it gives you a view and you then can
sort of better assess, you know, sort of what's going on.
(01:51):
Are there like abrupt or dramatic changes that have taken
place to the way we look at movies. I'm thinking
very much at how a lot of people consume movies,
not in movie theaters anymore, but on smaller screens and
sometimes very small screens. There's sort of been a diminishment
ever since the movie palaces started to close down. In
(02:12):
those days, you know, you wanted to get out of
your cold water flat in Brooklyn, you know, might have
been the Great Depression. In the nineteen thirties, about ninety
million tickets per week on average were sold. People just
wanted to escape. They wanted to go to a place
where there were comfortable seats to watch the movie, and
with the velvet draperies that would part and the curtains
that would open, they would just have an experience that
(02:35):
was it was a special event. They got dressed up
to go there. We don't really do that today at all. Right,
I mean, if you do see people in the movie theater,
if you even are in the movie theater, we kind
of look like we just rolled out of that. We're
still in at some sort of form of our pajamas.
So let's go back in time and talk about the
first film on your list, which is The Jazz Singer,
(02:57):
and that movie was the first talkie, right, Well, wasn't
really the first talkie. What is surprising to people when
they actually see The Jazz Singer. It's one of those
movies that you feel you know enough about I need
to see it. I know all about it. Um. It's
a silent film except that in six scenes it has
the miracle sound. Six scenes, not many. It is credited
(03:21):
with being the first feature length film to have sound,
but it's not the first full fledged talkie. In fact,
there were shorts that were made that we're talkinges even
before The Jazz Singer. This was the first feature film. Now,
what was it that prevented sound from coming into the mainstream.
The technology was difficult to get right. The synchronization amplification
(03:44):
issues were enormous. It took like two decades of wanting
these characters to be able to speak and be heard
until they could actually sink it properly. You're gonna see
in this scene from the long shot, Jolson's lips are
not matching the song, but once they go inside they do.
But what made The Jazz Singer so important is that, Yes,
it was Warner Brothers attempt to really bet the ranch
(04:07):
on this new technology, and if it had failed, that
studio would have gone under. But because it succeeded, it
didn't succeed, you know, in a blockbuster way. It was
a success, but it actually then it was like a
revolution in the way cinema would now, you know, strive
towards sing sound. So The Jazz Singer was an incredible
(04:28):
gamble and also a technological breakthrough. And it starred Al Jolson,
who was an extraordinary star. Tell us a little bit
about his impact. Al Joelson was somebody who actually was
a hero to Black America. He was a champion of
civil rights, whereas normally the orchestra was down in the pit,
(04:50):
and he had an all black orchestra because he's singing
jazz numbers. He wanted them on stage with him as equals.
He didn't want them in the pit. He actually spawned
certain the first play a drama ever written by an
African American that went to Broadway. It got there because
of Joelston and it was called Appearances. Interesting title. Joelson
(05:11):
was somebody who, with that voice being as great as
it was, stars in a movie that actually invents the
genre of the musical. I mean, obviously couldn't have musicals
up until this point. But because of this performance, you're thinking,
wait a minute, a new genre, not just a star
is born, a new genre is born. This was something
that was actually, I mean, this was a revolution this
(05:33):
film on so many levels. There's gonna have to be
a whole new way that people act now in movies.
So Al Jolson introduced jazz too many people. Oh absolutely
that you would have to say that. Now, this film
was not a sound movie in every venue that it
played in. It was only in the major metropolis is
that could actually afford the vitaphone technology. So it actually
(05:56):
was a silent movie for most. Most Americans probably did
see it in a silent form, except those that en
mass sawt in the major metropolis is But I mean
it caused the transition. As a result of this, now
stars now had to be able to deliver lines, and
(06:16):
this was something that actually cut short many careers. There
was also a strong Jewish theme in this film, was
that in any way controversial or considered avant garde or
outside the mainstream. We'll see looking back you think, wow.
You know, here's a movie about a young man who
doesn't want to be a canter, wants to hang out
(06:37):
in the clubs, sing jazz in black face, and audiences
embraced it. I mean mainstream audiences. People who had no
ties to the Jewish religion, had no familiarity even with
Jewish individuals, they actually identified with this this story because
America is all about right, coming from an old tradition,
(06:58):
coming to a new land, trying to find your own voice,
trying to find your own way. And it's going to necessary,
not necessarily be that you can do what you or
for the most part, rejecting over in Europe that brought
you here in the first place. You have to find
a new path, and so a new path like this
someone that like stood his ground and really said, I'm
going to devote everything to what I love. I'm gonna
follow my dream, the American dream. That was something that
(07:20):
audiences absolutely found easy to embrace. Let's move on to
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, which came
out just five years later Warner Brothers, same studio, and
technologically it's completely like a different generation. You look at
it and go wow. They certainly figured out ways of
(07:43):
telling stories and sinking sound with the visual in a
way that they hadn't before. We'll see that's so important.
The silent era was obviously story driven. When it became
a sound film, suddenly the movies became very a static
They didn't have that beautiful narrative thrust that the silent
(08:04):
films were well, that was what they were known for.
So what you're saying is by y two, what Changang
does so well is that it marries sound to the
tradition of actually telling a full fledged narrative with a
lot of scenes, with a lot of action, with a
lot of things going on. And I would really say
nineteen thirties where they kind of nailed it, and it's
it's shocking that they were able to just within three years.
(08:26):
When you think about it, go from we're not making
any movies with sink sound, suddenly most movies are now
in singing sound. It's it looks like modern cinema. So
this movie is about a World War One veteran, who,
like so many war events from overseas wars then and
up to the present day, has a really difficult time
(08:49):
adjusting to civilian life. Right. What's sad is that this
scene is one that played out so powerfully in ninety two,
and it's it's been something that audiences can relate to
it since, whether it's the Korean War veteran, the Vietnam
War veteran, the Persian Gulf War veteran, those veterans back
from Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, our combat veterans, they become
(09:11):
this lost generation. Once upon a time, these guys are
really valuable when there was a war to fight, but
now that the war is over, they're forgotten. Did this
movie lead to any political change or any social proach?
It did. Actually, people were so upset that a veteran
who was a decorated war veteran was so mistreated because
remember he's an innocent guy. Because the guy puts a
(09:32):
gun on and says empty the cash register, he becomes
an accomplice and as a result, during this hold up
that he had nothing to do with, he sentenced to
ten years of hard labor in the chain Gang. This
is a movie that caused such outrage when they saw
how these convicts were beaten, how they were abused. They
actually wrote in those days their congress men in the
(09:54):
thirties and they demand a change. Well, there was a
conference of writers in the night teen fifties and at
the podium was the German playwright Bertold Brett and a
hand went up after he gave his talk, and the
hand belonged to the Swiss dramatist Frederick dern Matt. He said,
Mr Brett, is it still possible to dramatize the modern world?
(10:19):
And Brett just looked out and he said, yes, but
only if the dramatist attempts to change it. I mean,
that is what has happened to so many of us
in the films that we hold the most dear. That
is the promise, you see, that is the greatest possible
promise of the cinema, and so there were laws that
(10:42):
went on the books as a results of this film
that was about real life. You know, art can reflect
real life, right, but then real life can now take
that reflection and do something that is actually beneficial to
the society large. Let's fast forward more than thirty years. Um,
I am a fugitive on a chain gang and talk
(11:02):
about a very different movie, The Graduate. I guess what's
really important about this film is that young people in
the sixties really wanted to have movies that would speak
to their generation, and there were very few being made
at this time. And here comes this young guy, Benjamin Braddock,
fresh out of college. He's not really sure what he
(11:24):
wants to do with his life. When he's asked at
his graduating party, what are you gonna do now, he says,
I think I'm just gonna go upstairs for a moment.
They go no, but with your life, your future, He goes, well,
that's kind of hard to deterver it at this time.
You know, it's such a big that's a big question.
But um, they had the opportunity to say, well, you know,
I want to sort of develop my own values. I
want to be someone who pursues my own dream again
(11:46):
goes back to the jazz singer um because all these
themes just constantly repeat themselves. They always just resurface. You
say in in the One Day University Lecturer, the graduate
changed America. Wow, there are movies that actually change movies.
So every one of these movies change movies. But it
(12:08):
also actually changed the society. This film is really single
handedly responsible for launching the sexual revolution in nine sixties.
It actually really stoked the flames of that young population.
And remember in nineteen over half this country was under
the age of eighteen. Over half the population of this
(12:29):
country under eighteen. This is really where the Hollywood studio system,
it was fragmenting all over the place, didn't make it
through the sixties. I mean, it really broke apart because
television was siphoning off so much revenue. But also they
were making movies that people really didn't want to see.
I mean they were still making movies in the mid
(12:50):
sixties where you know, Henry Fonda and I don't know,
like Doris Day and they got twelve kids. They go
to the Cape cod for the summer and no, this
is gonna be fun, and like two people saw it right,
because these kids were not looking for that kind of movie.
And what made it also important was nobody had ever
taken the music like rock and roll or pop music
(13:12):
like Simon and Garfunkel and actually hired them to do
the soundtrack. Mrs Robinson was written expressly for the film.
I remember being in the movie theater when this was
released and being stunned by the music. The music was
the biggest thing for me because Simon and Garfunkel were,
yes they were, they were making number one hits, but
(13:35):
they were on the singer songwriter, folky end of popular music.
And there it was as a soundtrack that never happened before, right,
and that actually paved the way for Easy Rider, which
is going to be like a rock concert. Before we
leave The Graduate. It was a film about the generation gap.
(13:55):
Other films too that preceded it were about the generation gap.
Ro Without a Cause is about the generation gap, because again,
what is the big fear, James Dean, what is the
big fear in The Graduate is that if I'm not careful,
I'm going to become my dad. I'll become my mom
and to that generation, kill me. Now, if that's gonna
(14:18):
be my future kill me now, I don't want to
live because oh my god. Whereas if you actually see
that might be. What is so different about the movies
today is kids today for the most part. I'm not
saying they aren't rebellious at times. Of course they are.
They you know, everybody's rebellious that it, but they're not
rebellious in the way that that generation was. I mean,
they just wanted to reject everything from this fashion, the values,
(14:41):
the music, you know, everything the politics they were because
I remember the Beatles made it. They were in their
teens when they were coming up, and they were making
major contributions to music in their early twenties and their
best work even after they broke up. They broke up,
they were still in their late twenties most of them.
(15:02):
Everything that the Beatles did, their contributions were that was
like under the age of thirty. That was an amazing
generation when you think of what what they what they
did in such a short period of time. The next movie,
the final movie, Jaws, directed by the great Steven Spielberg.
There's an extraordinary musical build up where just before the
(15:27):
first person is attacked by the shark. It really is
one of the most memorable moments in film. Well, you'll
say there are certain films where like in Psycho, Bernard
Herman's score all Strings steals the show, obviously John Williams
score and Jaws steals the show. Uh, people didn't want
(15:47):
to go to the beach. They were terrified to put
a tone in the water. And so when you think
about movies that affect behavior in a mass way, that
is pretty phenomenal. What makes him different Spielberg is that
he was the first generation of university trained filmmakers. He
people like Scorsese, later, Spike Lee, George Lucas, they're going
(16:11):
to have this kind of love of the cinema where
they actually know what has come before them, they've studied it.
You say in your one day university lecture that this
movie with with its happy ending, changed film Jaws is
very significant. I mean Steven Spielberg, you know, he's a
(16:32):
major talent. He has more talent in his little finger
the most filmmakers would ever have in their whole body
on a good day, on their best day. There's something
about how this guy knows how to tell a story
and then make it to his advantage. The shark malfunction
throughout the shoot. Then instead of like pulling his hair
out or letting it look fake, he actually said, well,
we'll hide the shark. And that hiding of the shark
(16:54):
was the master stroke because it build up even greater
suspense for when you finally do see it. No film
prior to in the history of cinema had ever grossed
a hundred million dollars at the box office, but Godfather, Wow,
it came close. Guess what this movie not only crossed
the hundred million dollar threshold, it will make in its
(17:14):
initial run domestically over two hundred and twenty million dollars. Wow,
is right. So it was so huge that they said, Okay,
we have got to figure out number one. We've got
to start endowing all these m f A programs, because
if this is what's coming out of these these colleges,
we gotta get the next Spielberg. We gotta we gotta
nurture the next generation of Spielberg's. And of course there
(17:37):
was Lucas too. Lucas made just as much money with
Star Wars and that franchise as Spielberg has made with
all of his franchises. So you create a franchise and
see That's what this was the birth of because you know,
Star Wars is a franchise, Jaws became a franchise. But
I will say this, all of those movies right happy endings,
they make a ton of money, not just for their
(18:00):
initial commercial release, but with all the ancillary products that
they actually generate, the towels, the lunch boxes, the video games,
the action figures, and so there's so much money to
be made. And what what happened with Spielberg and Lucas
Their success actually put the brakes on what was America's
(18:21):
true golden age of cinema. Let me ask you about
your one day university lecturers, what are some of the
or giving an example of a great question you've had
from the audience. Wow, the most profound question is why
aren't there movies today that actually changed American the way
these Obviously, you know you made a pretty good case
(18:43):
in the the thirties, We went to the sixties, went
into the seventies, and you know you could go into
the eighties. But where are they today? How do you
answer that question? The way you answer it is that
cinema used to have heft, It used to have prestige.
You used to be an event that you went to
and it was exciting to go to this darkened room
(19:04):
in this big theater and this huge screen lights up.
It can change the way I look at things. It
can change the way I feel about myself. We wanted
to be transformative. We wanted to be something that makes
us a different person, a better person. You walk out
of that, you walk out of that movie just energized.
But see today, I'm not really sure if that is
(19:25):
necessarily the case. Because we are seeing them on our
cell phones. We are watching them at home kind of
while we're doing the laundry, while we're ironing, while we're cooking.
We're not really paying attention. We're kind of hearing it,
sort of seeing it. Movies require us to really focus
because these directors that are really careful, they're putting stuff
all over this canvas, and we have to pay attention.
(19:50):
I'm Richard Davis. Thanks for listening. Sign up on our
website one day you dot com to become a member
and access over six hundred full length video lectures for
the world's finest professorsh
The problem with movies in generals that everybody sort of
has low expectations of them. You know, what do you
want to do? I don't know nothing. I want to
go to a movie. I mean, so that's sort of
that's where we are right and we don't even plan
to go to and we just go. Something will be
playing their sixteen screens. We have to find something. The
Science of Happiness, appreciating modern painting, dilemmas of modern medicine,
(00:24):
Abraham Lincoln and the civil The artistic genius of Michel Angeli.
When intuition changed American mystory, Psychology of Religion. One Day University.
(00:44):
The most acclaimed and popular professors from top colleges. They're
best lectures, fascinating conversations. Hi, I'm Richard Davies. Let's learn.
And so this is sort of the climate today. This
is the digital age right where we just seem to
have so many choices. My name is Mark LaPadula. I
(01:07):
teach at Yale University in the Film and Media Studies program.
Today is films that changed America. There was something about
the films of yesteryear that I think it's really worth
and I tell my students to go back and re
examine them. What is our relationship with with movies? How
has that changed over years? You know, movies do tend
(01:29):
to reflect the time in which they're made, and the
best movies actually become mirrors of the world and help
us to better see the world we're sort of embroiled in.
Sometimes we don't see as clearly as we'd like to.
A movie can somehow, you know, open up a window
and it gives you a view and you then can
sort of better assess, you know, sort of what's going on.
(01:51):
Are there like abrupt or dramatic changes that have taken
place to the way we look at movies. I'm thinking
very much at how a lot of people consume movies,
not in movie theaters anymore, but on smaller screens and
sometimes very small screens. There's sort of been a diminishment
ever since the movie palaces started to close down. In
(02:12):
those days, you know, you wanted to get out of
your cold water flat in Brooklyn, you know, might have
been the Great Depression. In the nineteen thirties, about ninety
million tickets per week on average were sold. People just
wanted to escape. They wanted to go to a place
where there were comfortable seats to watch the movie, and
with the velvet draperies that would part and the curtains
that would open, they would just have an experience that
(02:35):
was it was a special event. They got dressed up
to go there. We don't really do that today at all. Right,
I mean, if you do see people in the movie theater,
if you even are in the movie theater, we kind
of look like we just rolled out of that. We're
still in at some sort of form of our pajamas.
So let's go back in time and talk about the
first film on your list, which is The Jazz Singer,
(02:57):
and that movie was the first talkie, right, Well, wasn't
really the first talkie. What is surprising to people when
they actually see The Jazz Singer. It's one of those
movies that you feel you know enough about I need
to see it. I know all about it. Um. It's
a silent film except that in six scenes it has
the miracle sound. Six scenes, not many. It is credited
(03:21):
with being the first feature length film to have sound,
but it's not the first full fledged talkie. In fact,
there were shorts that were made that we're talkinges even
before The Jazz Singer. This was the first feature film. Now,
what was it that prevented sound from coming into the mainstream.
The technology was difficult to get right. The synchronization amplification
(03:44):
issues were enormous. It took like two decades of wanting
these characters to be able to speak and be heard
until they could actually sink it properly. You're gonna see
in this scene from the long shot, Jolson's lips are
not matching the song, but once they go inside they do.
But what made The Jazz Singer so important is that, Yes,
it was Warner Brothers attempt to really bet the ranch
(04:07):
on this new technology, and if it had failed, that
studio would have gone under. But because it succeeded, it
didn't succeed, you know, in a blockbuster way. It was
a success, but it actually then it was like a
revolution in the way cinema would now, you know, strive
towards sing sound. So The Jazz Singer was an incredible
(04:28):
gamble and also a technological breakthrough. And it starred Al Jolson,
who was an extraordinary star. Tell us a little bit
about his impact. Al Joelson was somebody who actually was
a hero to Black America. He was a champion of
civil rights, whereas normally the orchestra was down in the pit,
(04:50):
and he had an all black orchestra because he's singing
jazz numbers. He wanted them on stage with him as equals.
He didn't want them in the pit. He actually spawned
certain the first play a drama ever written by an
African American that went to Broadway. It got there because
of Joelston and it was called Appearances. Interesting title. Joelson
(05:11):
was somebody who, with that voice being as great as
it was, stars in a movie that actually invents the
genre of the musical. I mean, obviously couldn't have musicals
up until this point. But because of this performance, you're thinking,
wait a minute, a new genre, not just a star
is born, a new genre is born. This was something
that was actually, I mean, this was a revolution this
(05:33):
film on so many levels. There's gonna have to be
a whole new way that people act now in movies.
So Al Jolson introduced jazz too many people. Oh absolutely
that you would have to say that. Now, this film
was not a sound movie in every venue that it
played in. It was only in the major metropolis is
that could actually afford the vitaphone technology. So it actually
(05:56):
was a silent movie for most. Most Americans probably did
see it in a silent form, except those that en
mass sawt in the major metropolis is But I mean
it caused the transition. As a result of this, now
stars now had to be able to deliver lines, and
(06:16):
this was something that actually cut short many careers. There
was also a strong Jewish theme in this film, was
that in any way controversial or considered avant garde or
outside the mainstream. We'll see looking back you think, wow.
You know, here's a movie about a young man who
doesn't want to be a canter, wants to hang out
(06:37):
in the clubs, sing jazz in black face, and audiences
embraced it. I mean mainstream audiences. People who had no
ties to the Jewish religion, had no familiarity even with
Jewish individuals, they actually identified with this this story because
America is all about right, coming from an old tradition,
(06:58):
coming to a new land, trying to find your own voice,
trying to find your own way. And it's going to necessary,
not necessarily be that you can do what you or
for the most part, rejecting over in Europe that brought
you here in the first place. You have to find
a new path, and so a new path like this
someone that like stood his ground and really said, I'm
going to devote everything to what I love. I'm gonna
follow my dream, the American dream. That was something that
(07:20):
audiences absolutely found easy to embrace. Let's move on to
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, which came
out just five years later Warner Brothers, same studio, and
technologically it's completely like a different generation. You look at
it and go wow. They certainly figured out ways of
(07:43):
telling stories and sinking sound with the visual in a
way that they hadn't before. We'll see that's so important.
The silent era was obviously story driven. When it became
a sound film, suddenly the movies became very a static
They didn't have that beautiful narrative thrust that the silent
(08:04):
films were well, that was what they were known for.
So what you're saying is by y two, what Changang
does so well is that it marries sound to the
tradition of actually telling a full fledged narrative with a
lot of scenes, with a lot of action, with a
lot of things going on. And I would really say
nineteen thirties where they kind of nailed it, and it's
it's shocking that they were able to just within three years.
(08:26):
When you think about it, go from we're not making
any movies with sink sound, suddenly most movies are now
in singing sound. It's it looks like modern cinema. So
this movie is about a World War One veteran, who,
like so many war events from overseas wars then and
up to the present day, has a really difficult time
(08:49):
adjusting to civilian life. Right. What's sad is that this
scene is one that played out so powerfully in ninety two,
and it's it's been something that audiences can relate to
it since, whether it's the Korean War veteran, the Vietnam
War veteran, the Persian Gulf War veteran, those veterans back
from Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, our combat veterans, they become
(09:11):
this lost generation. Once upon a time, these guys are
really valuable when there was a war to fight, but
now that the war is over, they're forgotten. Did this
movie lead to any political change or any social proach?
It did. Actually, people were so upset that a veteran
who was a decorated war veteran was so mistreated because
remember he's an innocent guy. Because the guy puts a
(09:32):
gun on and says empty the cash register, he becomes
an accomplice and as a result, during this hold up
that he had nothing to do with, he sentenced to
ten years of hard labor in the chain Gang. This
is a movie that caused such outrage when they saw
how these convicts were beaten, how they were abused. They
actually wrote in those days their congress men in the
(09:54):
thirties and they demand a change. Well, there was a
conference of writers in the night teen fifties and at
the podium was the German playwright Bertold Brett and a
hand went up after he gave his talk, and the
hand belonged to the Swiss dramatist Frederick dern Matt. He said,
Mr Brett, is it still possible to dramatize the modern world?
(10:19):
And Brett just looked out and he said, yes, but
only if the dramatist attempts to change it. I mean,
that is what has happened to so many of us
in the films that we hold the most dear. That
is the promise, you see, that is the greatest possible
promise of the cinema, and so there were laws that
(10:42):
went on the books as a results of this film
that was about real life. You know, art can reflect
real life, right, but then real life can now take
that reflection and do something that is actually beneficial to
the society large. Let's fast forward more than thirty years. Um,
I am a fugitive on a chain gang and talk
(11:02):
about a very different movie, The Graduate. I guess what's
really important about this film is that young people in
the sixties really wanted to have movies that would speak
to their generation, and there were very few being made
at this time. And here comes this young guy, Benjamin Braddock,
fresh out of college. He's not really sure what he
(11:24):
wants to do with his life. When he's asked at
his graduating party, what are you gonna do now, he says,
I think I'm just gonna go upstairs for a moment.
They go no, but with your life, your future, He goes, well,
that's kind of hard to deterver it at this time.
You know, it's such a big that's a big question.
But um, they had the opportunity to say, well, you know,
I want to sort of develop my own values. I
want to be someone who pursues my own dream again
(11:46):
goes back to the jazz singer um because all these
themes just constantly repeat themselves. They always just resurface. You
say in in the One Day University Lecturer, the graduate
changed America. Wow, there are movies that actually change movies.
So every one of these movies change movies. But it
(12:08):
also actually changed the society. This film is really single
handedly responsible for launching the sexual revolution in nine sixties.
It actually really stoked the flames of that young population.
And remember in nineteen over half this country was under
the age of eighteen. Over half the population of this
(12:29):
country under eighteen. This is really where the Hollywood studio system,
it was fragmenting all over the place, didn't make it
through the sixties. I mean, it really broke apart because
television was siphoning off so much revenue. But also they
were making movies that people really didn't want to see.
I mean they were still making movies in the mid
(12:50):
sixties where you know, Henry Fonda and I don't know,
like Doris Day and they got twelve kids. They go
to the Cape cod for the summer and no, this
is gonna be fun, and like two people saw it right,
because these kids were not looking for that kind of movie.
And what made it also important was nobody had ever
taken the music like rock and roll or pop music
(13:12):
like Simon and Garfunkel and actually hired them to do
the soundtrack. Mrs Robinson was written expressly for the film.
I remember being in the movie theater when this was
released and being stunned by the music. The music was
the biggest thing for me because Simon and Garfunkel were,
yes they were, they were making number one hits, but
(13:35):
they were on the singer songwriter, folky end of popular music.
And there it was as a soundtrack that never happened before, right,
and that actually paved the way for Easy Rider, which
is going to be like a rock concert. Before we
leave The Graduate. It was a film about the generation gap.
(13:55):
Other films too that preceded it were about the generation gap.
Ro Without a Cause is about the generation gap, because again,
what is the big fear, James Dean, what is the
big fear in The Graduate is that if I'm not careful,
I'm going to become my dad. I'll become my mom
and to that generation, kill me. Now, if that's gonna
(14:18):
be my future kill me now, I don't want to
live because oh my god. Whereas if you actually see
that might be. What is so different about the movies
today is kids today for the most part. I'm not
saying they aren't rebellious at times. Of course they are.
They you know, everybody's rebellious that it, but they're not
rebellious in the way that that generation was. I mean,
they just wanted to reject everything from this fashion, the values,
(14:41):
the music, you know, everything the politics they were because
I remember the Beatles made it. They were in their
teens when they were coming up, and they were making
major contributions to music in their early twenties and their
best work even after they broke up. They broke up,
they were still in their late twenties most of them.
(15:02):
Everything that the Beatles did, their contributions were that was
like under the age of thirty. That was an amazing
generation when you think of what what they what they
did in such a short period of time. The next movie,
the final movie, Jaws, directed by the great Steven Spielberg.
There's an extraordinary musical build up where just before the
(15:27):
first person is attacked by the shark. It really is
one of the most memorable moments in film. Well, you'll
say there are certain films where like in Psycho, Bernard
Herman's score all Strings steals the show, obviously John Williams
score and Jaws steals the show. Uh, people didn't want
(15:47):
to go to the beach. They were terrified to put
a tone in the water. And so when you think
about movies that affect behavior in a mass way, that
is pretty phenomenal. What makes him different Spielberg is that
he was the first generation of university trained filmmakers. He
people like Scorsese, later, Spike Lee, George Lucas, they're going
(16:11):
to have this kind of love of the cinema where
they actually know what has come before them, they've studied it.
You say in your one day university lecture that this
movie with with its happy ending, changed film Jaws is
very significant. I mean Steven Spielberg, you know, he's a
(16:32):
major talent. He has more talent in his little finger
the most filmmakers would ever have in their whole body
on a good day, on their best day. There's something
about how this guy knows how to tell a story
and then make it to his advantage. The shark malfunction
throughout the shoot. Then instead of like pulling his hair
out or letting it look fake, he actually said, well,
we'll hide the shark. And that hiding of the shark
(16:54):
was the master stroke because it build up even greater
suspense for when you finally do see it. No film
prior to in the history of cinema had ever grossed
a hundred million dollars at the box office, but Godfather, Wow,
it came close. Guess what this movie not only crossed
the hundred million dollar threshold, it will make in its
(17:14):
initial run domestically over two hundred and twenty million dollars. Wow,
is right. So it was so huge that they said, Okay,
we have got to figure out number one. We've got
to start endowing all these m f A programs, because
if this is what's coming out of these these colleges,
we gotta get the next Spielberg. We gotta we gotta
nurture the next generation of Spielberg's. And of course there
(17:37):
was Lucas too. Lucas made just as much money with
Star Wars and that franchise as Spielberg has made with
all of his franchises. So you create a franchise and
see That's what this was the birth of because you know,
Star Wars is a franchise, Jaws became a franchise. But
I will say this, all of those movies right happy endings,
they make a ton of money, not just for their
(18:00):
initial commercial release, but with all the ancillary products that
they actually generate, the towels, the lunch boxes, the video games,
the action figures, and so there's so much money to
be made. And what what happened with Spielberg and Lucas
Their success actually put the brakes on what was America's
(18:21):
true golden age of cinema. Let me ask you about
your one day university lecturers, what are some of the
or giving an example of a great question you've had
from the audience. Wow, the most profound question is why
aren't there movies today that actually changed American the way
these Obviously, you know you made a pretty good case
(18:43):
in the the thirties, We went to the sixties, went
into the seventies, and you know you could go into
the eighties. But where are they today? How do you
answer that question? The way you answer it is that
cinema used to have heft, It used to have prestige.
You used to be an event that you went to
and it was exciting to go to this darkened room
(19:04):
in this big theater and this huge screen lights up.
It can change the way I look at things. It
can change the way I feel about myself. We wanted
to be transformative. We wanted to be something that makes
us a different person, a better person. You walk out
of that, you walk out of that movie just energized.
But see today, I'm not really sure if that is
(19:25):
necessarily the case. Because we are seeing them on our
cell phones. We are watching them at home kind of
while we're doing the laundry, while we're ironing, while we're cooking.
We're not really paying attention. We're kind of hearing it,
sort of seeing it. Movies require us to really focus
because these directors that are really careful, they're putting stuff
all over this canvas, and we have to pay attention.
(19:50):
I'm Richard Davis. Thanks for listening. Sign up on our
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