Chapter 37 Chapter 6 Art 1914-1945 2

2 In a way, the arts of East and West thus come together.Because the direction of the 20th century is becoming more and more clear that this is the century of ordinary people, and it will be monopolized by art created by ordinary people themselves and art created for ordinary people.The invention of two related tools has enabled the unprecedented presentation and recording of the world of ordinary people, namely reportage and the camera.In fact, neither of them is new (see Chapter 15 of "The Age of Capital" and Chapter 9 of "The Age of Empire"), but they both entered the golden age of self-consciousness after 1914.Writers, at this time, not only regarded themselves as recorders or reporters (especially in the United States), but also began to write articles for newspapers in person, and some even went to sea in person, or became newspaper reporters at one time, such as Hemingway and Dreiser (Theodore Dreiser, 1871- 1945), Sinclair Lewis and others. It was included in the French dictionary for the first time in 1929, and the term "reportage" was listed in English lyrics in 1931. In the 1920s, it became a recognized literary and visual expression type with a sense of social criticism. The greatest influence came from the Russian revolutionary avant-garde.The latter, holding high the banner of reality, fought against popular entertainment condemned by the European left as the opium of the people.Egon Erwin Kisch, a journalist of the Czech Communist Party, became famous for his "Der rasende Reporter" (Der rasende Reporter, 1925), which became popular in Central Europe because of him - "Rush Reporter", which is his series of The title of the first article in the report.Reporting works are also widely spread in the Western avant-garde circles, the main channel is through movies.Its origins are clearly found in the "USA" trilogy by John Dos Passos (1896-1970) (the writer's left-leaning period).In the article, the "Newsreel" (Newsreel) and "The Camera Eye" (the Camera Eye) - alluding to the avant-garde documentary filmmaker Dziga Vertov - are interspersed with each other to form the storyline.In the hands of the avant-garde left, "documentary" became a conscious movement.By the 1930s, even the die-hard practical faction in the newspaper and magazine industry could gain higher intellectual and creative prestige with this type of work.They supplement the clips in the movie film—usually serving as insignificant fillers—and upgrade them to a more powerful documentary like the "March of Time" (March of Time), and borrow technological innovations from avant-garde photography, such as The method pioneered by the Communist Party AIZ in the 1920s ushered in a golden age for pictorial magazines: Life magazine in the US, Picture Post in the UK, Vu in France, etc. yes.However, outside the Anglo-Saxon countries, this style did not become popular until after World War II.

The rise of "photojournalism" is due to the following reasons.First, those photographers who discovered the medium of photographic technology (even including some women); "Life); thirdly, the improvement and advancement of technology, the new mini camera can easily capture those natural postures that are not deliberately posed, such as the Leica camera (Leica) launched in 1924.But one of the most important factors is the popularity of movies around the world.Men and women know that real life can be seen through the lens of photography.At the time, print distribution, while also increasing (now interlaced with gravure prints on the tabloids), was overshadowed by the film hordes.The era of catastrophe is the era when the movie big screen ruled the roost.By the end of the 1930s, for every newspaper bought in Britain, two people bought a movie ticket (Stevenson, pp. 396, 403).In fact, as the recession deepened and the world was swept away by the hordes of war, Western cinema audiences were at an all-time high.

In this world of newcomers to the visual medium, avant-garde and popular art mingle and feed each other.In the old western countries, the educational class and some elite ideas even penetrated into the field of popular movies, so there were German silent movies in the Weimar era, French sound movies in the 1930s, and once the fascist ideas that swept away their talents were swept away. After that, the Italian film industry created a golden age respectively.Among them, I am afraid that the French films with populist style in the 1930s can best combine the intellectuals' needs for culture with the general public's needs for entertainment.These are the only ones that, in high taste, do not lose sight of the importance of the plot—especially the themes of “love” and “sin”—and are the only ones that express a “good joke.”And usually once the avant-garde (regardless of politics or art) is allowed to do its own thing completely - such as documentary pop and agitation art (agitprop art) - their works rarely affect the public, and can only be limited to a very small number of small circles Appreciate.

However, the significance of popular art during this period was not due to the involvement of the avant-garde line.The most memorable thing is that popular art has increasingly achieved undeniable cultural dominance, even though, as we have seen before, outside the United States, popular art at that time still could not escape the supervision and control of educational class tastes Therefore, the form of art (or should I say entertainment) that has gained a dominant position is aimed at the broadest masses, not the growing middle class, or the lower classes whose tastes are still in the conservative stage.These tastes still held a monopoly on the European "boulevard" or "West End" stage, or any other performing country of comparable taste - at least until Hitler drove away the makers of these products , but their interests are no longer important.One of the most interesting trends in this mid-grade fun area is one of those genres that is starting to take off at this time.This is the theme of detective reasoning, which showed some signs of activity as early as 1914, but it was completely unpredictable that it would become popular in the future. Now it is launching one after another.This new literary genre, largely British in flavor - may owe its credit to A. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, whose masterful detective became a household name in the 1890s ——But the more surprising fact is that this type has a strong female and scholarly color.Its founding pioneer, the works of Agatha Christie (1891-1976), are still bestsellers today.The various international editions of detective novels are also deeply influenced by the model created by the United Kingdom, that is, they all treat murder mysteries as polite games in the living room, which require some wisdom to solve.It's like an advanced crossword puzzle, relying on a few mysterious clues to find the answer-this is the exclusive specialty of the UK.This genre of literature is best viewed from the point of view of an appeal to an existing social order that is threatened but not yet completely destroyed.Murder, which takes center stage here, is pretty much the only event that prompts the detectives to act.It invades an otherwise well-ordered world—the venue of a club, or some common professional setting—and then peels away, following the trail to find the rotten apple and make sure the rest of the barrel is intact.Therefore, through the detective's rational approach, the problem is solved, and the small world is restored to order again; and the detective himself (mostly male), also represents the small larger world.Therefore, the protagonist must be a "private" detective, unless the detective himself (unlike most of his colleagues) is also a member of the upper middle class.It's a deeply conservative—albeit fairly self-affirming—genre, unlike the spookier spy novels that emerged at the time.The latter, also mostly from England, became very popular in the second half of this century, and their authors were also of mediocre literary level, usually finding suitable positions in the secret service agencies of their own countries.

As early as 1914, mass media with a modern flavor had become a matter of course in many Western countries.But their astonishing development in the age of catastrophe is still breathtaking.The number of American newspaper circulations increased faster than the population, doubling dramatically between 1920 and 1950.By that period there were between 300 and 350 newspapers per 1,000 men, women and children in a typical "developed" country, and even more newspaper consumption by the Nordic and Austrian nationals.As for the urbanized citizens of the British Empire, it is indeed astonishing that every 1,000 people in the UK buy and read as many as 600 newspapers, perhaps more because British newspapers are published nationwide rather than localized (UN Statistical Yearbook 1948).The newspaper industry is aimed at the literate class, but in countries where basic education is popularized, it also uses pictures and cartoons as much as possible (cartoons were not yet favored by intellectuals at the time), and develops a special news term: exaggerated and bright, Do your best to grab readers' attention and pretend to be popular.The number of syllables should be reduced as far as possible, etc., to meet the needs of ordinary people with low literacy.This style has a great influence on literature.On the other hand, movies require very little literacy for their audiences. After it learned to speak in the late 1920s, audiences in English-speaking countries did not need to know any words.

What's more, movies are not like newspapers, which in most parts of the world are of interest only to a small elite.As soon as cinema started, it appeared almost as an international mass media.Silent films, and their tried and tested film symbols that can cross different cultures, may have become an international common language.Their downfall is likely to be a major reason for the common use of English in the world and the development of the international pidgin in the late 20th century.Because in the golden age of Hollywood, almost all movies came from the United States-with the exception of Japan, whose large-scale production output is almost on par with the United States.As for the rest of the world on the eve of WWII Hollywood was producing nearly as many films as they put together, even including India (India was already producing 170 films a year and its audience was almost equal to that of Japan and very close to that of the United States) . During 1937, Hollywood produced 567 films, a rate equal to more than 10 a week.The difference between the monopoly productivity of capitalism and the bureaucratization of socialism is that the former produced 567 films a year, while the Soviet Union could only claim to produce 41 films in 1938.However, based on obvious language factors, this anomalous phenomenon in which one family dominates the world cannot last for long.In any case, it really couldn't survive the dissolution of the "studio system".Hollywood's studio work reached its peak at this time, producing beautiful dreams like a machine, but disappeared in an instant after World War II.

The third item of mass media: radio broadcasting, is a brand new contemporary invention.Unlike the former two, it was purely based on the private ownership of precision equipment at that time, so it was basically limited to relatively prosperous "developed" countries.The number of radios in Italy did not exceed the number of cars until 1931 (Isola 1990).On the eve of World War II, the countries and regions with the highest proportion of radios included the United States, Scandinavia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.In these countries, the ownership of radios has grown at such an alarming rate that even the poor can afford them. Of the 9 million radios in Britain in 1939, half were owned by ordinary people earning between £2.50 and £4 a week - this is considered ordinary income - and another 2 million had less. is low (Briggs, II, p. 254).So perhaps it should come as no surprise that during the years of the Great Depression, radio audiences multiplied by unprecedented proportions.Because radio broadcasting changed the content of the lives of the poor, especially poor women living in their homes, more than ever before.The radio brought the outside world into their rooms, and the loneliest of people were never quite alone.Everything that can be spoken, sung, acted, and everything that can convey expression through sound is now at their fingertips.This novel media, which was unknown at the end of the First World War, had won the favor of tens of millions of families in the United States in the year of the stock market crash. By 1939, it had reached 27 million. In 1950, More than 40 million households.This amazing development trend is really amazing!

But radio broadcasting, unlike cinema and the reformed mass press, did not substantially alter the human perspective on reality.It does not create new ways of seeing, nor does it establish new relationships between sensory impressions and rational ideas (see The Age of Empires. It is only a medium, not the Millions of listeners spoke at the same time, and each listener felt that it was speaking to himself alone. So the radio became a powerful channel for public information; rulers and salesmen soon found it to be good propaganda Advertising tool. By the early 1930s, even the President of the United States and the King of England were realizing the potential of their "fireside chat" on the radio and the Christmas radio talk (1932 and 1933, respectively). During World War II, due to the urgent need for news, radio was more established and became a generation of political tools and a major information medium. The number of radios in countries on the European continent increased significantly, and sometimes even jumped by multiples or more. Only some were affected by the war. Countries with significant sacrifices are exceptions (Briggs, III, Appendix). As for countries outside Europe, the increase is even more dramatic. However, the commercial use of air channels in the United States has been controlled from the beginning, and progress elsewhere has not been as smooth as in the United States. Because According to tradition, the government is naturally reluctant to give up a medium that has such a strong influence on the people. The British National Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has always maintained its status as a public monopoly. At the same time, any commercial broadcasting Where it is broadcast, its operating units must show due respect to official opinions.

The innovations of radio culture are extremely difficult to recognize in today's eyes, because many of the innovative projects led by it have become a fixed part of our daily life-such as sports reviews, news reports, celebrity interviews, serial dramas, As well as any show aired in episodes.Among its many effects, the most significant and profound is the simultaneous privatization and immobilization of the lives of all people according to a strictly prescribed timetable.From then on, our work and leisure are all firmly controlled by this schedule.Strangely enough, however, this medium of communication—and later television, and then the video recorder—although centered primarily on the individual and the family, also created its own public space.So for the first time in history, when strangers who did not know each other met, they all knew nine out of ten that the other party probably also listened to the broadcast of the big game and the most popular comedy last night. Programs, Churchill's speeches, and news reports.

The art that has been most influenced by radio broadcasting is music, because it is completely free from the limitations of the sound itself and the mechanical transmission of the original sound.Music is the last art to break free from the human body's confinement to oral communication. As early as 1914, with the invention of the phonograph, it entered a new era of mechanical reproduction, but it was still beyond the reach of most people at that time.By the interwar years, the phonograph and the record had finally reached the masses, but the near-collapse of the market for "race records" (i.e., the typical music of the poor during the Great Depression in America) attested to the fragility of this expansionary boom.The technical quality of the record itself, though greatly improved around 1930, was still limited, one of which was length.What's more, the type of its patterns also depends on the market to determine its fate.But radio broadcasting, for the first time, allowed music to be broadcast without borders and could be heard over long distances.And the playing time at one time can exceed 5 minutes without any interruption.In theory, there is no limit to the number of its listeners.As a result, the music of a few people became popular (including classical music), and radio broadcasting became the most important means of sales of records, and it still is today.But the radio did not change the face of music—its influence on music was clearly less than that of the stage and the movies (the latter also began to learn to reproduce music in the film)—but without the advent of radio, music played a role in modern life. Its role, including its background status as an auditory wallpaper in daily work and rest, is certainly unimaginable, and perhaps impossible at all.

Therefore, the few major forces that monopolize popular popular art: newspapers, photography, movies, records, and radio broadcasting are basically the result of the development of technology and industry.Since the latter part of the nineteenth century, however, a certain independent and authentic creative spirit has also begun to emerge visibly in the popular entertainment corners of some large cities (see The Age of Empires).Entering the 20th century, this source of creative inspiration has not been exhausted at all. With the media revolution, it has been raised to a higher level, far exceeding the original environment from which it originated.So Argentine tango (tango) officially debuted, especially expanded from dance to music, and reached the peak of achievement and influence in the 1920s and 1930s.When the tango superstar Carlos Gardel (Carlos Gardel, 1890-1935) unfortunately died in a plane crash in 1935, all Latin America mourned for him, and because of the role of records, he will live forever in the music world.Samba is to Brazil what tango is to Argentina, a product of the popularization of the Rio carnival in the 1920s.However, among all new music forms, the most impressive and far-reaching one is the development of jazz in the United States, which was mainly formed by the impact of the migration of southern blacks to the Midwest and the big cities of the Northeast: professional entertainers (many Black) unique artistic music. However, these forces of popular innovation and development often have their limits outside the homeland; and compared with the revolutionary changes produced in the second half of this century, the situation at that time was not as good as it was.Because entering the second 50 years of the 20th century, as evidenced by the most obvious example, a term directly inherited from American black blues music - rock - has become the common language of global youth culture in one fell swoop.But going back to the first half of the 20th century, the creativity of mass media and popularity—except for movies—although far less lively than the later second half (discussed later), its quality is already staggering, especially Mostly the United States.At this time, the United States has begun to dominate these industries and has an unchallenged advantage.The reason for this is naturally due to its superior economic advantages, investment in business and democracy, and the significant impact of Roosevelt's populist policies after the Great Depression.In the field of popular culture, the United States is the world, or it can only be reduced to the status of local countryside.In these entertainment industries, no other country or region has developed a model that can achieve such revered international momentum-however, some countries do have quite wide regional influences (such as Egyptian music in the Islamic world); From time to time, exotic styles enter the mainstream of international commercial popular culture, causing temporary popularity (such as Latin American dance music).The only special exception is sports.On this side of the stage of popular culture - whoever watched the Brazilian football team in its heyday can deny that sport is also an art? ——The influence of the United States has always been limited to within the dominance of Washington politics.Just as cricket is a popular sport only where the Union Jack of the British Empire once flew; similarly, baseball has always had little influence in places other than the landing of the United States Marine Corps.The only sport that truly has a worldwide status is football.With the footprint of the British economy, this competitive product was brought to the world wherever it went, from the Arctic ice area to the equatorial tropics, bringing fans many teams named after British companies or overseas British people. — Such as the Sao Paulo Athletic Club.This simple but extremely elegant sport has no complicated rules and equipment, and can be practiced on any size-appropriate and roughly flat open field.The reason why it has traveled all over the world is entirely due to its merits as a sport itself.With the opening of the first World Cup in 1930 (Uruguay won the championship), football has indeed become a truly international sport. But by our contemporary standards, the mass movement at this time, although internationalized, was still quite primitive.Their practitioners have not yet been swallowed by the giant beak of the capitalist economy.Great sports stars, such as tennis stars, are still amateurs (that is, still have the traditional bourgeois status).Even as a professional athlete, the income is not much higher than that of ordinary skilled workers, such as the British football industry.As for the method of appreciation, it still has to be watched face-to-face, because even the radio broadcast can only convey the tense atmosphere of the game through the decibels of the announcer's voice.The age of television, and the astronomically high salaries of athletes, were a few years away from the days when movie stars were worth as much.However, as we will see later (chapters 9-11), it is not too far away.