Hollywood Hollywood Lighting from the Silent Era to Film Noir

352 Pages·2009·7.67 MB·English

by  Patrick Keating

Hollywood Lighting from the Silent Era to Film Noir
Film and Culture/John Belton, General Editor
Patrick Keating
Hollywood Lighting from the Silent Era to Film Noir
Columbia University Press New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
E-ISBN 978-0-231-52020-1
Copyright © 2010 Columbia University Press All rights reserved
cup.columbia.edu

The author and Columbia University Press gratefully acknowledge the support of two grants from
the Trinity University Department of Academic Affairs and the University Department of
Communication in the publication of this book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Keating, Patrick, 1970–
Hollywood lighting from the silent era to film noir / Patrick Keating.
p. c.m
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-14902-0 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-14903-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)—
ISBN 978-0-231-52020-1 (ebook) 1. Cinematography—Lighting. 2. Hollywood (Los Angeles,
Calif.)—History 1. Title.
2009015406

A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-
[email protected].

References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author
nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since
the manuscript was prepared.
For my mother
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Rhetoric of Light
Part I: Lighting in the Silent Period
1 Mechanics or Artists?
2 From the Portrait to the Close-Up
3 The Drama of Light
4 Organizing the Image
Part II: Classical Hollywood Lighting
5 Inventing the Observer
6 Conventions and Functions
7 The Art of Balance
Part III: Shifting Patterns of Shadow
8 The Promises and Problems of Technicolor
9 The Flow of the River
10 Film Noir and the Limits of Classicism

Conclusion: Epilogue

Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
When I was young, my parents, Maria and Dennis, bought me a
VHS tape of The Third Man. Little did they know that I would
watch the film repeatedly, subjecting the entire family, including
my sisters, Coleen and Amy, to hours and hours of zither music. It wasn’t
the zither music that fascinated me—it was the cinematography. Without
my family’s patience and support, I never would have learned to love the
art of lighting, and this book would not exist.
When I went to college, I already knew that I wanted to study film.
Once at Yale, taking challenging, thought-provoking classes with Scott
Bukatman, David Rodowick, and Angela Dalle Vacche, I began to think of
film as a socially significant form of cultural expression. After graduating, I
returned to my native Los Angeles and earned an M.F.A. in film
production from the University of Southern California. USC gave me the
opportunity to get behind the camera and study cinematography directly,
under the guidance of cinematographers Woody Omens and Judy Irola.
My thinking about film was further shaped by Ivan Passer, Bruce Block,
and Rick Jewell. I also collaborated with several talented peers, including
Jordan Hoffman, Dionne Bennett, Camille Landau, Michael Friedrich,
Wei-shan Noel Yang, Benjamin Friedman, Mark Skoner, Chris Komives,
and (outside USC) Daria Martin.
This book is based on the dissertation I wrote while at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison. I had the ideal advisor for the project, David
Bordwell, whose thorough knowledge of Hollywood film history is
matched by his infectious enthusiasm for the art of film. David’s work is a
constant reminder that film studies can be both intellectually ambitious
and enjoyable. I feel special gratitude toward Lea Jacobs and Vance
Kepley, who nurtured this project in its early stages and served on my
committee. Ben Singer shaped my thoughts about lighting in theater,
painting, and photography. In addition, I was fortunate to be surrounded
by great minds and great teachers, including Noël Carroll, Malcolm
Turvey, Kristin Thompson, Ben Brewster, J. J. Murphy, Kelley Conway,
Lester Hunt, and the late John Szarkowski.
In my teaching career I have received warm support from several
colleagues, and I want to thank in particular Jeff Smith, Scott Bukatman,
Kristi McKim, Bill Christ, and Jarrod Atchison. I also consider it a privilege
to have taught hundreds of smart, engaging students, who have taught
me much about the cinema.
I have discussed my ideas with many patient friends over the years. In
addition to those already mentioned, I am grateful for the support of
Vince Bohlinger, Jinhee Choi, Emily Cruse, Ben de Rubertis, Meraj Dhir,
Lisa Dombrowski, Haden Guest, Warren Kim, Dara Matseoane-
Peterssen, Mike Newman, Phil Sewell, Holly Willis, and Nancy Won. My
family always reminds me that there is more to life than work—thanks,
Kathleen, Mark, Aaron, Peter, Pat, Kristin, Hannah, Moira, Soren, and
Isabella.
It has been a joy to work with everyone at Columbia University Press,
especially John Belton, Jennifer Crewe, and Kerri Sullivan. James
Naremore and the anonymous reader provided careful and encouraging
responses to my manuscript. They caught several errors, and made
useful suggestions for improvement. Scott Higgins thoughtfully answered
questions about studying Technicolor, and Tom Kemper helped me to
improve the writing of several chapters.
This project was supported by various grant awards from UW-Madison.
An earlier version of the second chapter of this book, “From the Portrait
to the Close-Up,” received the Society of Cinema and Media Studies
student writing award and appeared in Cinema Journal. I developed
related thoughts about Hollywood cinema in articles published in Aura
and The Velvet Light Trap. At Trinity University, I received two grants to
help me cover the printing cost of the many illustrations included herein—
one from the Department of Academic Affairs, and another from the
Department of Communication. Thank you.
While living in Los Angeles and Madison, I took advantage of the local
film culture, watching classic films in 35mm whenever possible. I saw
many of the films discussed in this book on the big screen at UCLA and
the UW Cinematheque, which offer superb film series every year. I
conducted archival research at several institutions, watching Mary
Pickford films and other silents at the George Eastman House; viewing
several beautiful Technicolor films at the Academy Film Archive; studying
both silent and color films at the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and
Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress; examining rare
films at the UCLA Film and Television Archive; and watching Warner
Bros. classics at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Television Research.
In addition to film viewing, my research has drawn on documents housed
in the USC–Warner Bros. Archive, the USC Cinematic Arts Library, the
UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections, the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library, the Getty Research
Institute, the New York Public Library, and the Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Finally, my warmest thanks are given to Lisa Jasinski. Lisa supported
this project in so many ways—with her sense of humor, her emotional
encouragement, and her sharp editorial eye. She made this a better
book, and she makes me a better person.
Introduction: The Rhetoric of Light
My opinion of a well-photographed film is one where you look at it, and come out,
and forget that you’ve looked at a moving picture. You forget that you’ve seen any
photography. Then you’ve succeeded. If they all come out talking about “Oh, that
beautiful scenic thing here,” I think you’ve killed the picture.
–Arthur C. Miller, in The Art of the Cinematographer
Perhaps Arthur Miller did his job too well. Film is an art of
light, but the art of Hollywood lighting remains so subtle
that it usually escapes our attention. This is unfortunate,
because Miller and his peers did much to shape our experience of the
classical Hollywood cinema. Whether it is noticed or not, light can
sharpen our attention, shift our expectations, and shape our emotions. In
this study I propose to look closely at this art that was designed to go
unseen and unnoticed.
Three questions will guide this study. First, what were the major
lighting conventions in the Hollywood of the studio era? All film scholars
are familiar with Hollywood’s three-point lighting system, but this was only
one of the countless techniques that constituted the art of Hollywood
lighting. A richly detailed account of the various approaches to lighting
should add greatly to our understanding of Hollywood cinema. Second,
what functions did those different conventions perform? Even the most
unobtrusive image can accomplish a range of tasks, from storytelling to
glamour, from expressivity to realism. Third, how did the discourse of
lighting shape these multifunctional conventions? The discourse of
lighting is more than just a group of statements about arc lights and eye-
lights—it is also a set of limitations on what can be said about technology
and technique. These limitations made the use of certain lighting
strategies seem inevitable, and others inconceivable.
Convention, function, discourse—this study will explain the ways these
three areas of cinematographic rhetoric are connected. We can think of a
lighting convention as a recommendation about what to do given a
certain cinematic context. When photographing a jail scene, consider