'The good earth and the still waters': new deal rhetoric in FDR's political speeches and M-G-M's captains courageous. Issue 3 (2nd July 2016)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- 'The good earth and the still waters': new deal rhetoric in FDR's political speeches and M-G-M's captains courageous. Issue 3 (2nd July 2016)
- Main Title:
- 'The good earth and the still waters': new deal rhetoric in FDR's political speeches and M-G-M's captains courageous
- Authors:
- Burgchardt, Carl R.
Diffrient, David Scott - Abstract:
- Abstract : This article seeks to demonstrate the underlying ideological similarities between President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Depression-era political rhetoric and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer'sCaptains Courageous (1937), an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's 1897 novel of the same title. Rather than claim a simple causal relationship between FDR's oratorical calls for socio-economic reform and M-G-M's cinematic tale of cooperative teamwork in the face of adversity, the authors make the more modest assertion that the president's mid-1930s discourse is echoed in, and mediated by, director Victor Fleming's contemporaneous production. The film, which on the surface displays the hallmarks of a conservative cultural production, actually functions as a pro-collectivist, pro-New Deal message about the perils of dishonest, unbridled competition. In addition, Captains Courageous is suffused with audiovisual signifiers that are unexpectedly in tune with the sound design and mise-en-scene of 'social realist' films of the period. In making their case, the authors not only provide a reading ofCaptains Courageous that goes against conventional wisdom, but also pose a critical intervention in the traditional historiography of Depression-era film production, which has often neglected to account for this and other (admittedly anomalous) instances of pro-Roosevelt sentiments issuing forth from a studio that famously supported the Republican Party.
- Is Part Of:
- Historical journal of film, radio and television. Volume 36:Issue 3(2016)
- Journal:
- Historical journal of film, radio and television
- Issue:
- Volume 36:Issue 3(2016)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 36, Issue 3 (2016)
- Year:
- 2016
- Volume:
- 36
- Issue:
- 3
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2016-0036-0003-0000
- Page Start:
- 305
- Page End:
- 330
- Publication Date:
- 2016-07-02
- Subjects:
- Motion pictures -- History -- Periodicals
Broadcasting -- History -- Periodicals
302.23409005 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/chjf20/current ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1080/01439685.2015.1111706 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0143-9685
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 4316.395000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 1507.xml