pre-reading

Traditional world film history knows four examples of modernism from the 1920s. They are:

the French “impressionist”, or narrative, avant-garde,

Weimar German “expressionism”,

the Soviet “formalist” montage school,

and American slapstick comedy.

• European intellectuals were much more struck by American slapstick than they had been by the pre-war European films in the same tradition. This was, I think, because of the pace of the American films;

• American films could be aligned with the modernity of the New World – with urbanism, mechanism, dynamism, rhythm and speed.

• people who were making films in Europe at the time were consciously trying to use the medium of the cinema in order to create works of art. (before WW1)

basically the first half of the article lists all the different film movements at the time during the 1900s and decribes their features and who pinoneered each genre.

“In other words, even in a European country that was not self-consciously attempting to produce films for the “art cinema” market of the ’20s, there was still a substantial body of films that display what we would identify today as the effects of modernist sensibility.”

Traditional world film history identifies four examples of modernism from the 1920s:

1. French “impressionist”/narrative avant-garde

2. Weimar German “expressionism”

3. Soviet “formalist” montage school

4. American slapstick comedy

The first three were self-conscious "art" movements, while American slapstick was an anomaly. European intellectuals were particularly drawn to American slapstick due to its pace and alignment with New World modernity, seeing it as a formalized art of the surface rather than a product of a lone artist.

Pre-World War I Europe saw deliberate attempts to create "cinematic art," extending cinema's audience to the bourgeoisie through films like The Student of Prague ($1913$) and Ingeborg Holm ($1913$). These efforts produced serious works reflecting established aesthetic genres. In contrast, Hollywood in the 1920s lacked a credible art film movement, focusing on entertainment, and its slapstick comedy was appreciated by European critics for its "unconscious artistry."

While English films of the 1920s, like those by Alfred Hitchcock, exhibited clear modernist traits despite no recognized art movement, Australian cinema largely did not. Australian films of the period were resolutely populist, viewing "Art" as an English bourgeois domain. The Sentimental Bloke ($1919$) exemplified this, prioritizing "Australian-ness" and working-class appeal over high art.

The manifestation of modernism in Australian films of this era was closely tied to white Australia’s complex relationship with England and its efforts to forge a cultural identity based on populist, working-class origins. Overt modernism with clear aesthetic and intellectual aspirations found little space in the predominantly popular Australian film industry of the 1920s, only making a substantial impact later, in the late 1950s.

In Australia, from the early 1900s to 1957, cinema largely avoided aspiring to “high art”, primarily due to an Australian perception of cultural difference from Great Britain and a resolutely populist focus. The Sentimental Bloke ($1919$), a significant Australian film, intentionally appealed to a broad local audience, embracing working-class vulgarity and rejecting anything suggesting “Art,” which was seen as an English bourgeois domain. Although it contained modernist touches, these served its populist appeal. Australian cinema post-WWI allied with Hollywood’s “art-less” position, reproducing “pre-modern” cultural forms like moral melodrama and knockabout burlesque comedy, with genres like historical outlaw films and rural comedies being considered “old fashioned.”

Nonetheless, intimations of modernism appeared sporadically in Australian films of the decade:

• Environment ($1927$): Showed narrative formalism, symbolism, and moral equivocation from Victorian melodrama.

• The Kid Stakes ($1927$): Explicitly derived from a comic strip (“Fatty Finn”), demonstrating cross-media modernism and containing a self-referential sequence where the cartoonist interacts with his live-action creation.

• Robbery Under Arms ($1920$): Subordinated plot to photographic realism, creating a travelogue effect where narration took second place to visual imagery, reflecting the modernity of the film medium overpowering its literary source.

• The Spirit of Gallipoli ($1928$): An amateur film with a home-movie quality, fusing populism and modernism through its focus on postwar suburban life and direct evocation of everyday experience.

• Painted Daughters ($1925$): Considered the most overtly “modernistic” Australian film of the $1920s$, featuring highly formalized cinematic sequences, including an ironic title image, rhythmic intercutting, and an early Australian “avant-garde” sequence depicting alcohol-induced hallucinations.

Lacey Percival, cinematographer for Robbery Under Arms and Painted Daughters, is a potential candidate for Australia’s sole cinematic modernist, though Painted Daughters also had a Hollywood-experienced Scottish director. The fate of modernism in Australian films of this period was intimately tied to Australia’s conflicted relationship with England and its attempts to forge a cultural identity based on populist, working-class origins. Modernism, with its aesthetic and intellectual aspirations, found little overt place in the popular entertainment that characterized the Australian film industry of the period, only making a substantial impact later, in the late 1950s.