Discuss and reflect upon issues presented during class lecture.
The issue that was presented during class was “Documentary Photography” and “Documentary film”. We looked at early history documentary pioneer work such as, “Russell Lee” “Dorothea Lange”, “Mary Ellen Mark” and “Pare Lorenz”. How their documentary works has influenced throughout the year and illustrated historical evidence of that period. Russell lee documented the great depression by photographing the event, which became an icon images to the audiences of great depression (financial crisis). This kind of event, lead people to not having works, which meant – not able to feed the people, leading them to war. War meant a good business for USA. Traditional documentary were often based on events that took place in that period, such as financial crisis, world war and etc.
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“One of the new genres of "documentary expression" that emerged during these years was documentary film” quoted by Huffman. Image can represent both positive and negative aspect to either encourage or discourage the audiences on issues that was reveal on the photograph. The images of people shown during the great depression era, this created a fact that America was about to collapse, which showed the actual reality of great depressions in America. (Nicole Huffman - New Frontiers in the American Documentary film 1930-1942). Huffman states that “Using the camera, artists could capture a worker 's revolt, a poor farmer and his family trying to survive on the overworked land and the impact of the machine on man and the land.” It defines that there was no other machine that was well-suited to capture the social realism movement (problems and hardships of everyday life). Huffman also states by quoting that using social documentary such as photograph could “show the things that had to be corrected" and encourage improvements in
Grant Wood was a Regionalist artist who continually endeavored to capture the idyllic beauty of America’s farmlands. In 1930 he had been roaming through his hometown in Iowa searching for inspiration when he stumbled upon a house that left him spellbound. From this encounter came America’s iconic American Gothic. Not long after Wood’s masterpiece was complete the once ideal countryside and the people who tended to it were overcome by despair and suffering as the Great Depression came to be. It was a time of economic distress that affected nearly every nation. America’s stock market crashed in 1929 and by 1933 millions of Americans were found without work and consequently without adequate food, shelter, and other necessities. In 1935, things took a turn for the worst as severe winds and dust storms destroyed the southern Great Plains in the event that became known as the Dust Bowl. Farmers, who had been able to fall back on their crops during past depressions, were hit especially hard. With no work or way or other source of income, many farms were foreclosed, leaving countless families hungry and homeless. Ben Shahn, a Lithuanian-born man who had a deep passion for social injustice, captures the well-known hopelessness of the Great Depression through his photograph Rural Rehabilitation Client. Shahn and Wood use their art to depict the desperation of everyday farmers in America due to the terrors and adverse repercussions that the Great Depression incited.
... a documentary film by definition must include visuals, but Ames aspires to explain how an emphasis on certain imagery can be used to persuade as well as inform.
... portrayed real events and real people who were beautiful in their own way. "These pictures impress one as real life of a vast section of the American people," commented one viewer of FSA photos exhibited in an April 1938 show called "How American People Live." This statement summarized the feelings of most Americans who viewed the photos. Because of their success, these photographs have become the visual representation of the Great Depression.
The Great Depression is when the film industry boomed with new types of movies like: gangster films and musicals. They were both born in the Great Depression. Most films show the hardships of the time period. Some of the films display this very well for example Modern Times staring Charlie Chaplin. One of the more well-known gangster films was The Public Enemy.. These films have very different views of the time period but still have things in common. This paper will compare Modern Times and The Public Enemy.
5 Light, Ken. Tremain, Kerry. Witness in our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000.
Movies in the Great Depression were outlets that the American people used to escape the daily hardships and struggles of their lives. Three genres emerged and flourished during this time period: comedy, musicals, and gangster films. Each genre depicted life in the Great Depression in different yet similar ways. While watching the movies, you can see that money played a large part in the plot. Justice and the law are also reoccurring themes. The treatment and depiction of women in these films is one aspect that is interesting to study and look at, as well. Women’s rights was still a hot button issue, and it is plain to see that by viewing such films as “Room Service”, “The Public Enemy”, and “Gold Diggers of 1937”.
When the economy crashed in 1929, the majority of all Americans lost their jobs, money, and hope. With this great turn in economic stability Americans faced the harsh reality of bankruptcy or homelessness. As a result, citizens in need filled every street corner. Dorothea Lange, a young photographer at the time, found inspiration in the sad eyes of the needy. Through photos such as “Migrant Mother”, Lange captured the desperate sentiment of the decade that no words could demonstrate so clearly. Born on May 26, 1895, Dorothea Lange grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey. As a child of education advocates, Lange attended school, but never with much interest. After completing her academic education, Lange studied art form at Columbia University in 1917. Years later, she apprenticed with numerous well known photographers and eventually opened her first photography studio in California. Before photographing depression-era pieces, Lange focused on Native American culture. Howev...
The author does a good job of illustrating that the Great Depression was meant to have a light at the end of the tunnel. However, his writing is weakened by the presence of generalization and overuse of common knowledge. The author’s question would simply be: “how did the cultural shift (film, writings, art, and music) unknowingly change America’s perspective and outlook towards the Depression?” Dickstein was able to answer this clearly in the conclusion. He claims that during this economic crisis Franklin D Roosevelt wanted to promote “courage to face up to the social crisis, empathy for the sufferings of others, a break with past thinking about how we ought to live” (Dickstein 524). Dickstein believes that the films helped instill those attributes unknowingly in the American people. The most effective example referenced by Dickstein is The Wizard of Oz. The qualities that the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and Scarecrow demanded (a heart, courage, and a brain) were qualities that Americans needed to get through the eras economic crisis. The characters in the film undergo various trials as they follow the Yellow Brick Road to Emerald City; from the road of the Great Depression to the Promised Land. It was the explanation as to why the last few years of the 1930s were strangely optimistic. The author’s evidence at first felt some things were unaddressed, but as the book came to an end, it felt complete. The author’s conclusions makes sense because it connects to readers in the present. As he referenced The Wizard of Oz, he was able to show how Americans were able to find those optimistic traits in themselves. It’s by working together and using their own strengths to find their way home that encouraged people to keep their heads up. This will convince the reader because media in today’s society has the same effect on influencing people, whether it be
Never the less, films of the Great Depression provided people hope and reassurance in that this too shall pass. Watching films from the Great Depression era today, we can see how people survived and made a living
The mass media carries with it unparalleled opportunities to impart information, but also opportunities to deceive the public, by misrepresenting an event. While usually thought of as falsifying or stretching facts and figures, manipulation can just as easily be done in the use of photography and images. These manipulations may be even more serious – and subtle – than written manipulations, since they may not be discovered for years, if ever, and can have an indelible and lasting impact on the viewer, as it is often said, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. One of the most significant images of Twentieth Century America was the photograph of a migrant mother holding her child. The photograph was taken during the Great Depression by photographer Dorothea Lange, and has remained an enduring symbol of the hardship and struggle faced by many families during the Depression Era. This image was also an example of the manipulation of photography, however, for it used two major forms of manipulation that remain a problem in journalistic photography.
“For those born after the 1930’s, the Great Depression is something that can be visualized only though photography and film. Certain images have come to define our view of that uncertain time: an anxious migrant mother with her three small children; a farmer and his sons struggling through a dust storm; a family of sharecroppers gathered outside their Spartan home” (This Great Nation Will Endure). Today’s mass media focuses on the harsh, extreme images of the Great Depression and fails to portray the happy, positive aspects of American life during the 1930’s.
...Depression, artists and authors took inspiration from their daily lives. Creating art that focused on the despair and chaos of the depression, many representations of social issues can be seen in the different types of art. Although the thirties was a weary time for most, this did not stop it from having some fun. The popular music at the time included the ‘big band sound’. Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Dorsey and Benny Goodman were popular crooners, to name a few. In cinema, “King Kong” was released (one of the original horror/adventure films). It was a huge hit because of the special effects included in the movie. Filmed in colour, “The Wizard of Oz” was another popular movie at the time, and is now a classic. There were good things in the 1930’s, such as culture, music and art, but the Depression brought the social conditions plummeting down (overall).
Entertainment has traveled from burlesque and vaudeville to high tech filmmaking, and this is the physical existence of our century. The Era of Silent Film in the early 1900s had such geniuses as Charlie Chaplin who paved the road to the time of the "talkies" and to development of sound. If not for him and some other "greats" along the way, where would our film culture be today? Much of the history of our nation seems to be held as digital recordings through visuals. In this respect it is interwoven with the current era of computer information because we want to preserve and record the history of the present as well as at the turn of the millennium.
long shots. high-angle shots, and a lot of fun. spherical camera lens. These particular devices provide a glimpse at the realities of the oppression, poverty and despair of many of the American people during this time. From the start of the film it is apparent what time frame it is taking place in and the differences in the social stratification through the lack of colors.
Schwartz, Donna. “Objective Representation: Photographs as Facts.” Picturing the Past: Media History & Photography. Ed. Bonnie Brennen, Hanno Hardt. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999. 158-181.