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1. THE SILENT SCREEN, 1895–1927

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Costume, Makeup, and Hair
This chapter is in the book Costume, Makeup, and Hair
211THE SILENT SCREEN, 1895–1927DrakeStutesmanSilent film began in the midst of the tremendous noise of the nineteenth cen-tury transitioning into the twentieth. In 1895, cities and towns were crammed with opera houses, theaters, burlesque and vaudeville playhouses, music halls, saloons, circus tents, and minstrelsies. Audiences at this time were well used to the stage as a presence, a literal place in which the fourth wall was often breached as performers dazzled, excited, and provoked spectators and fed their Rabelai-sian appetites. Performers sang to their audiences—who sang back—or talked to them and made them laugh, cry, or catcall; they threw them acrobatic tricks, dirty double-entendres, and raunchy gestures; they enacted silly, poignant, polit-ical, or riveting dramas. This was the stage space that cinema entered, a space with a “here and now” made out of an intimacy full of power.By holding time in an eternal repetition, cinema created new perceptions for these audiences. By the mid-teens a breathing person could sit in a crowded movie house, intoxicated by a narrative that unrolled as a moving diorama, the fascinating actor now a gigantic face beaming gigantic feelings onto a mesmer-ized viewer. Cinema manufactured a literalness that, though two-dimensional and usually black and white, was all-enveloping. It embodied theatrical flesh and theatrical flash because cinema’s people never aged. But it also dimmed theater’s organic life into a ghostliness and made time into a present that was unreachable McLeanText_RUP2.indd 337/20/16 1:03 PM
© 2019 Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

211THE SILENT SCREEN, 1895–1927DrakeStutesmanSilent film began in the midst of the tremendous noise of the nineteenth cen-tury transitioning into the twentieth. In 1895, cities and towns were crammed with opera houses, theaters, burlesque and vaudeville playhouses, music halls, saloons, circus tents, and minstrelsies. Audiences at this time were well used to the stage as a presence, a literal place in which the fourth wall was often breached as performers dazzled, excited, and provoked spectators and fed their Rabelai-sian appetites. Performers sang to their audiences—who sang back—or talked to them and made them laugh, cry, or catcall; they threw them acrobatic tricks, dirty double-entendres, and raunchy gestures; they enacted silly, poignant, polit-ical, or riveting dramas. This was the stage space that cinema entered, a space with a “here and now” made out of an intimacy full of power.By holding time in an eternal repetition, cinema created new perceptions for these audiences. By the mid-teens a breathing person could sit in a crowded movie house, intoxicated by a narrative that unrolled as a moving diorama, the fascinating actor now a gigantic face beaming gigantic feelings onto a mesmer-ized viewer. Cinema manufactured a literalness that, though two-dimensional and usually black and white, was all-enveloping. It embodied theatrical flesh and theatrical flash because cinema’s people never aged. But it also dimmed theater’s organic life into a ghostliness and made time into a present that was unreachable McLeanText_RUP2.indd 337/20/16 1:03 PM
© 2019 Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. CONTENTS vii
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. Introduction 1
  5. 1. THE SILENT SCREEN, 1895–1927 21
  6. 2. CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD, 1928–1946 47
  7. 3. POSTWAR HOLLYWOOD, 1947–1967 75
  8. 4. THE AUTEUR RENAISSANCE, 1968–1980 99
  9. 5. THE NEW HOLLYWOOD, 1981–1999 122
  10. 6. THE MODERN ENTERTAINMENT MARKETPLACE, 2000–Present 149
  11. Academy Awards for Costume Design 175
  12. Academy Awards for Makeup and Hairstyling 179
  13. Notes 183
  14. Selected Bibliography 213
  15. Notes on Contributors 219
  16. Index 223
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https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813571539-003

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. CONTENTS vii
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. Introduction 1
  5. 1. THE SILENT SCREEN, 1895–1927 21
  6. 2. CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD, 1928–1946 47
  7. 3. POSTWAR HOLLYWOOD, 1947–1967 75
  8. 4. THE AUTEUR RENAISSANCE, 1968–1980 99
  9. 5. THE NEW HOLLYWOOD, 1981–1999 122
  10. 6. THE MODERN ENTERTAINMENT MARKETPLACE, 2000–Present 149
  11. Academy Awards for Costume Design 175
  12. Academy Awards for Makeup and Hairstyling 179
  13. Notes 183
  14. Selected Bibliography 213
  15. Notes on Contributors 219
  16. Index 223
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