Allegories of Industry and the Limits of Reflexivity in Hollywood, 1992-2006 DISSERTATION

355 Pages·2014·1.96 MB·English

UC Irvine
UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Allegories of Industry and the Limits of Reflexivity in Hollywood, 1992-2006
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6xr6r3nd
Author
Watschke, Erik Allen
Publication Date
2014

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
IRVINE

Allegories of Industry and the Limits of Reflexivity in Hollywood, 1992-2006

DISSERTATION

submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in Visual Studies

by

Erik Watschke

Dissertation Committee:
Associate Professor Catherine L. Benamou, Chair
Associate Professor Kristen Hatch
Associate Professor Bliss Cua Lim

2014
© 2014 Erik Watschke
DEDICATION

To

my dad

who introduced me to the movies
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

LIST OF TABLES iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v

CURRICULUM VITAE vi

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vii

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER ONE: “He Made the Whole World Laugh and Cry”: 23
The Mythologization of the Film Artist in Chaplin

CHAPTER TWO: “Love Never Dies”: The Status of the Image and 65
Cinephilic Reaction in Bram Stoker's Dracula

CHAPTER THREE: “There Are No Boundaries”: The Status of Sound 109
and the Transnational in The English Patient

CHAPTER FOUR: “From the Creator of Being John Malkovich, Comes the 171
Story of the Creator of Being John Malkovich”: Adaptation.

CHAPTER FIVE: “Are You Watching Closely?”: The Status of Story in 223
The Prestige

CONCLUSION 277

BIBLIOGRAPHY 310

FILMOGRAPHY 324

APPENDIX: Industrial Chronology of the New New Hollywood 337

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LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 5.1 Narrative Structure of The Prestige 235
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank my committee chair, Professor Catherine Benamou, who encouraged me to
pursue a film historical project in the first place, and whose guidance and tireless support
helped transform and strengthen my study at every stage. I am also indebted to Professor
Bliss Cua Lim and Professor Kristen Hatch, who served on the committee and contributed
important advice and encouragement throughout my research and writing. At crucial early
stages, Professor Bert Winther-Tamaki and Professor Amy Powell contributed important
feedback regarding the conceptual framework of my project, and for this I am grateful.

My research would not have been possible without financial support from The School of
Humanities, University of California, Irvine, which granted me a Summer Dissertation
Fellowship at a critical point in my studies. I would also like to thank Valerie Sanchez and
UCI’s Institutional Review Board for assisting in the implementation of primary research
procedures. Over the years I have been greatly assisted in my studies by several key staff at
UCI who deserve recognition and my thanks: Film & Media Studies Department Manager
Peter Chang, Department Assistant Kelly Swanholm, and Visual Studies Graduate
Coordinators Madeline Mullens, Caroline Mcguire, Shauntay Larkins, and Clara Quijano.

Archival research could not have been completed without the help of the great librarians at
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library. I am much
obliged to Jenni McCormick at American Cinema Editors, and the staff at The American
Society of Cinematographers for assistance in gathering information and facilitating
primary research. I would also like to give special thanks to Tom C. McCarthy at Sony
Pictures and Marc Wanamaker of Bison Archives for graciously agreeing to be interviewed
about their work on the films studied.

Years of collegial support and encouragement have indebted me to my comrades in Visual
Studies and dear friends Christina Spiker, Vuslat Demirkoparan, Shahriar Fouladi, Kristen
Galvin, Cecilia Joulain, and Patrick Boyle. I am thankful for the support of my parents in this
endeavor. My father, Frank Watschke, was my original inspiration to become a scholar of
film, and my only regret is that I did not finish in time for him to see how far I have come.
My mother, Terry Watschke, has been my most ceaseless advocate from beginning to end,
and has continued to encourage me even from many miles away. Finally, I owe the greatest
debt of gratitude to Racquel M. Gonzales, who provided advice and criticism, aided in
research, generally challenged me to make my project better, and without whose support
and affinity I would not be where I am today.
v
CURRICULUM VITAE

Erik Watschke

EDUCATION

2014 Ph.D. in Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine

2010 M.A. in Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine

2007 B.A. in Studies in Cinema and Media Culture, University of Minnesota

ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT

2012- Adjunct Professor, Film Studies and Journalism, Irvine Valley College
Present

2012-13 Teaching Associate, Humanities Core, University of California, Irvine

2012 Teaching Associate, Film & Media Studies, University of California, Irvine

2007-11 Teaching Assistant, Film & Media Studies, University of California, Irvine

FIELD OF STUDY

Visual Studies, Film History

ACADEMIC PRESENTATIONS

2014 Paper, “There Are No Boundaries: A Crisis of Sound and the Transnational in
The English Patient,” presented at Film & History Annual Conference, Madison,
WI, October 31

2010 Paper, “Exilic Space in the City of Refuge,” presented at “Contingent
Communities,” Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature Conference,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, October 15
vi
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Allegories of Industry and the Limits of Reflexivity in Hollywood, 1992-2006

By

Erik Watschke

Doctor of Philosophy in Visual Studies

University of California, Irvine, 2014

Professor Catherine L. Benamou, Chair

This dissertation examines technological and paradigmatic changes to the American
Film Industry of the last twenty-five years through the lens of popular modes and methods
of reflexivity, as manifested in selected film texts. I argue for the historical importance of
this period, referred to as “The New New Hollywood,” in transforming issues of labor,
authorship, and audience within United States-based film production. This entails an
analysis of the way that discourses are narrated within Hollywood films themselves, along
with the rhetoric of trade organizations, film critics, and film studios. I do this through a
series of case studies of films and their promotional materials.
In the first three chapters respectively, I analyze Richard Attenborough's Chaplin
(1992) for its employment of literal reflexivity in the biopic genre, Francis Ford Coppola's
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) for its metaphorical reflexivity concerning digital imaging,
and Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996) as an independent-blockbuster whose
sound allegories comment on transnational filmmaking. In the last two chapters, I analyze
Spike Jonze's Adaptation (2002) as a film-à-clef that literally dramatizes screenwriting
conventions, and finally, Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (2006), whose allegorical
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reflexivity centers on the current state of cinematic illusionism.
Ultimately, I consider how these films and the rhetoric surrounding them
alternatively represent and mystify debates concerning independent and blockbuster film
forms, photochemical and digital technologies, and the work of narrative feature
filmmaking. The broader goal of this study is to historicize recent Hollywood forms that
arise between the early 1990s and mid-2000s, and suggest that the development of new,
specific definitions of “Hollywood” and “filmmaker” are necessary to an understanding of
contemporary globalized media industries. This is due to three key historical shifts that
characterize the period: changes in ancillary marketing strategies, transformation of formal
and narrative structures, and the digitization of the technical processes of cinema.
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