Audiovisual Cultures episode 45 – Origins of the Film Star System with Dr Andrew Shail automated transcript

they say is audio visual cultures the podcast that examines aspects of arts and cultural production I'm Paula Dyer and I'm joined this time by film historian Andriy shield talking about his research on the emergence of the star system and early sentiment centering on French performer Mike slender most of this discussion was recorded in early twenty eighteen and there's a lot of redox at the end expanding dates and changes and why we held it back for so long thanks to you supporters of PTM dot com forward slash AP cultures and everyone engaging on social media that be more information on how to support the podcast and get in touch at the end for now I enjoy the discussion %HESITATION right we just bought hi Anthony okay so we have just walks it's call it documents even that's what is presented as cold long ownership of this one which means the man in the silk hat which was a film that Melinda made about half from Max and in ninety three and one that I've only recently got hold of because it was unavailable for awhile there was versions on YouTube that are quite low resolution comes into effect finally got hold of it and this is a documentary made by a daughter about a father who she never knew because he don't mind in fact he killed himself when she was six months old as we learned in one of the little extras for this documentary on this particular TV dish which is fine I believe it is human pilots we learned that this unit found out that her father had been a famous film star when she was ten years old from ninety who was a stadium and like many people at the time remember it's massive film stars of the nineteen tens and twenties I watched it knowing that more than this awareness of the offensive for half of his life was a mixture of patchy and actually incorrect because I'd read her book Max land that I think will pass muster and was my father and based on the published documents from during my son's life things like newspaper articles posters for his films I was able to tell that she had made some errors in that book and some of these errors cropped up again in the mind so can't we just watched we went into it knowing that this is the case this is something which of course affects me a little bit but in your case you're aware of that when people tell stories it's about twenty five percent fiction this person of interest that just making it up as a creative act even when what you're doing is presented the sensitive documentary and I suppose the way that this one was done it warrants we're making some of this up on its sleeve because in places it would use its a films from a lot later in Max's career as if they were documentary footage of something that happened early in his career in his real life the only ones quite revealing it's from the film that he made in nineteen fourteen I think where he made it back in border where he got up and made it using his own parents and sister and it was quite funny slapstick comedy but they use that to illustrate his youth and his teenage years it's quite clear that it's not actually a documentary footage so I think that's the model for what's going on in quite a lot this is this isn't necessarily accurate documentary follows seven points it did slap historical documents on screen so at one point for example to the point where she just very abruptly goes and then he killed himself there's lots of newspaper clippings I learned a few things about his time in America interestingly ready and she says I don't know why he killed himself he and his wife at the time did it together I don't know why he killed himself and I've never tried to find out so this is actually an admission at the end of okay so I know that these facts I've learned a lot about my father most of his films in the champion is found but actually the some things I don't want to know about so I think what we've watched is one part documentaries one part love power into summer comedies and another part playful invented history it's a story about more than to really wasn't in the store if I want my story about somebody who's found out some things about her own life all credit to her when she made this she made the decision to do several different versions speaking several different languages she spoke at least at the time very good English and so did the voiceover herself to be the English version that we just seen the DVD contains French version on television as well so presumably to the Italian one two this is somebody who even from the sixties became a bit of a minus seventeen fronts as somebody who was both my son and his daughter and he was championing the preservation and appreciation of his films market calling Max Linder but of course it's more probably pronounce Max I'm there the reason that we watch this is because I'm right at the ends now the huge research process of producing a book on why it is we have film stars and tools and muscle like an old question because sometimes because films have performers in them and some of them are more popular with the public at the numbers and some of them have their identities quite prominently used in public but that's not an inevitable aspects of all cultural industries some of our options Jeez get on quite well with either anonymity being the norm my go to example for this is you know when you've got a lot of confidence got a joke on the stick this is the person who writes those jerks ordinarily get that name credited on any packaging not because of their IT industries where the norm is anonymity for their industries well known as something gets credited but it's not the ident city of any of the creative personalities and specific category of creative us now my go to example for that is Disney films because Disney films almost universally the posters for don't advertise the identities of the voice artists and took many by %HESITATION if it's something that they're interested in sees the voice artists who've done these films even when his voice assist are quite famous because their identities these people that's not the model for the identity we ought to be associated with the product the model the Disney uses at least is that it's the identity off company that we ought to be associated with the products of the one name that persistently appears and it was of course the reasoning behind the post on Disney posters is that a full business the server is not inevitable but it did happen and a home for very specific reasons at a specific time in a specific place and what I found after well over a decade of back breaking shoveling and archives around the world is that the star system first emerged in France and it first emerged with Max Landis and the fact that a motion fronts had courted done wrecked insurance on its emergence in the United States in fact if both provided the model for some of the production companies in the US to follow in trying to break the stranglehold that a set of folder American phone companies at the time had of %HESITATION from production and distribution and it also represented an extra weapon in the armoury of my Sundays employer practice crash course often compactly which the American companies had full knowledge of the arrival of this new way of publicising films raising the identity of people performing in Americans had full knowledge of profit was about to start using this in the US so they had a motive to try and match it with our own home grown equivalents so it is quite complicated story to do with the attitude of American production companies to companies from Europe importing films into the US which is a mixture of actually relying on them to be able to make up full film programs but also trying to limit how large a percentage of if the phone market in the US any known U. S. production company constituted and so out of this set of international complex came the star system in the U. S. but the very simple reason why it first emerged in France and the date was something in the region of the fourth to the ninth of September nineteen oh nine the reason my first mission farms was very simply that the perfect company they realize that members of the general public for treating Max and %HESITATION they were treating him as a production value in that they were treating him as an element their guns the making of the film the represented one of its virtues in their treating him as such even though they didn't know his name so they were capable of recognizing him from from to from in part because he's got quite distinctive just got really big on I called large forehead it tends to where is has slipped back so there's very little hand and it is so it's just a really big forehead big why are as thick black mustache and quantum mischievous grins and the fact that it was actually quite good comedy performers well all these things are making it so that audiences were capable of recognizing him from from deferment seemingly actually seeking out homes that had him in them even though his name wasn't being used and published and the reason my path from the sound was because for about eight month period before September nineteen oh nine months in one eight nine or ten month period landers stopped working for them %HESITATION working for them for a few years at that point and of course casual basis we start working for them to trying after broke out making his name on the stage and he didn't and so we came back to the room and start working for them again and within the first few weeks of land there working for them it became apparent that audiences will recognize in him in spite of the fact that he hadn't been appearing in films for them for something like eight or nine months said the blatant evidence that the company obtained about point was disco so recognizable that he was being recognized for films that people have seen a year are I set up a new one Hey we've been observing the basic principle over the course of the last few years that we've been employing anyone on even a semi permanent basis but we don't publicize their names because we run the risk of turning individuals into production values of investing and publicity about them that by turning them into production values and the things that have economic value in excess of the value of that labor and if we do this anyone whose name we've built up with the public can at the next time the contract expires in contrast to this point where short term next on the contract expires they can just leave and go somewhere else and so there was this fear of harming one's competitors there's this general principle of anonymity what I have with my face with my excellent that they realized Hey even though we have this existing policy of anonymity Max has become production value for the audiences anyway %HESITATION that particular point they just son Max and three year I think some people they want if we build them up as a production value innocent and this year he then leaves yeah he'll take that value to somebody else but during that year the exploitation that we can achieve all of his identity if we do publicizes nine may very well far outweigh any losses we might make in the long time on this so let's just do it let's go in with all guns blazing as of the start of the publicity campaign where they produce posters that named him and they produce display cards for cinema foyers or lobby display because that name ten they issued his name to the trade press relations thank to the popular prices were they went all into erecting a public profile for him said that his name would be known amongst the general public so they've been able to associate it with his face and his mannerisms as well can't quite distinctive set of company mannerisms and so that they could capitalize on what was clearly a talented performer who is going to be with them for nearly a year that point once a company has decided to do that you then get a situation of other companies in the industry having together do we follow strict because now we have faith and I think was the senior phone company in the entire world at this point they were out producing it in the most prolific at the American companies competitors have to go okay I think decides to do this do we maintain our relatively risk averse prince Philip of anonymity what do we take the risk of a path it's just taken a possibly a reference %HESITATION cells that are just as profitable for us that's nice lenders and interestingly it did take a few years for almost the entire European film production industry had converted to using at least one name to perform a company by the end of nineteen that everyone had begun to do it in Europe and North America by nineteen fifty so it did take some time but basically between the point when they started this campaign for Max and %HESITATION in September nineteen oh nine and I think it's April nineteen thirty one the last company finally says okay we're going to do this the European and north American film industries the choir star system is quite a radical thing to do to go from an industry which doesn't use the name of the people who are the most prominent aspect of the product because of the people who are visible in every product not talking about the names of the produces a screamer I got from a situation where that's not down to a situation where publicly discredited but extreme publicity for films and films is now the industry habit and given how very specific circumstances that led to the Mecklenburg published a campaign where that's not something which was inevitable interested would do at that time perhaps it was highly likely that the industry would do it after a certain point Wednesday became stable enough for new people regularly performing for films when camera distances were close enough to make their faces recognizable from one phone to another when contracts are relatively long ten we have all these precipitating factors but it wasn't necessarily inevitable that when the %HESITATION came around in short order star system but it seems that a sense of %HESITATION likely circumstances needs to happen in addition to about to precipitate the first of these campaigns the with Max on there and so it's conceivable that a tiny adjustment in events one example could be the guy who Mike slander was understudy for the play that he was that it was at the Catholic diferente powers and place because of what the king because he was understudying in this play in nineteen oh nine his name is Max deity if Mike's daily has actually been less healthy during that time my son that he was in studying and would probably have had more opportunities to play the principal role in the fight that daily tied and therefore may well have made his name as a theatre performance and may well not have ever gone back to perfect meaning that probably would never found evidence that he was recognizable with audiences and therefore would never have had the prompts to launch a star system if that happened just a slight improvement in the health of one person perhaps the star system would have emerged in say Denmark in nineteen left for the star system of of most of the US ninety twelve so it's not a matter of inevitability that's the main thing that I've been asked is that this may be enabling the story that but for one of the things that's been stressed in the past few years about the first World War which we kind of the centenary commemorations of is that the start of the war was the result of any really really unlikely sensors FS so it wasn't simply that there were these two groups of opposed world powers that was very good at not going to war and then have the usual operative methods for not coming to war removed from them by the unusual circumstances of the summer of nineteen fourteen it wasn't just that it was things like when governor prince it kills fronts further he actually tried to do it earlier that day by throwing a bomb into his car and he failed and he was drowning his sorrows in a nearby cafe having escaped from the scene the whole thing and then completely by surprise the car carrying Ferdinand in his one on its way back from the event that France would not have been attending that day the card carrying members drove down the street that the cafe that uses you know was on and even that wasn't enough to mean that prince it would kill transfers and what seems to have made it so that he basically had the opportunity how did you wanna place was that the driver of the car wasn't a very good drive and managed to store car immediately outside the cafe and so all you would need to do to resume that sort of the first World War didn't start when it started it would be just to go back in time and help somebody with learning to drive so it's the same thing just tiny little unlikely event that could have been avoided by only accidents if they're going he wasn't very good at driving that morning had slipped while walking down the stairs and injured himself perhaps another driver would've been found who is a better driver I wanted to point this out that something similar is going on with the motives of the star system it's not inevitable it may be likely to happen at some point but it's not likely to happen after a certain point in fact the reason why things happen at some point so because of coincidences very unlikely in very small effects so what's the book in a nutshell well I wanted to point out is that I spent half the book to do this when we get some stuff was the first film styles that we care of people who %HESITATION at the time in a consistent decline or at least have been in the past that career leading up to when they start companies thought they've been consistently plan series count these are characters where it's the same character appearing from film to film but each film is a discrete narrative assisting from cereals whereas a single narrative broken up into several from and so when my son that's when his policy campaign first started he had been cobbling together a character that was informally known as Max at the time this county with Ben and Max in into totals and some of the phones it is by the name Max and the titles of the films that started a little later after he was coming that together and then his counterparts in the US Florence Lawrence whose five very small margin the first U. S. film stuff hello I have to admit that like many US some stuff here is actually born in Canada she had been playing service canticle Mrs Jones in that period shortly before her first stop investing campaign started and so it seems to be the case that not only did lots of very unlikely things have to happen to get star system but you also need to have something in place already which is a bit like a star system but which uses fictional characters rather than real people we have the recurring appearance of a fictional character from phone to phone back recognize ability of a fictional person perhaps to costume through mannerisms to the type of nurses they get involved in that seems to need to also be in place and so the shift of the time's up shift between one system and service cuts as we but critics in nineteen oh nine the industry in both Europe and North America and adopted the practice of making service kinds of films in the late nineteen oh eight and then you know it's not mine so by mid to late nights and Monday what for over the place so it seems that what needs to happen was a system that was a bit like a star system but which didn't use real people but she's fictional people instead plant needs come place and then there's the slightest of shift into having something similar to it but which used real people it might seem like a huge momentous change I want to document why it is between blocks away from my two thirty in the industry did basically re orient itself was to relaunch its marketing practices may seem like a huge moment to change but looking at it stage by stage it's a sense of very minor transitions I'm not I suppose is the take home message of the anti but significant changes do occur %HESITATION industries benefiting but the amounts as a result of at the time will probably look like in significant transition which is one no one leaves any record of this pair going Hey his diary entry I just decided to launch the first started building publicity campaign for someone and one of the largest in particular is that with the first decisions losses starting building publicity campaign in the US the guy who decided to do it was caught live life because he may have directly copied what path they were doing was Max line there when he launched this campaign Florence Lawrence he seems to have actually had a motive not to mention that to anyone because if you ever produced on account of it he wanted to look back and go Hey look I invented this in our system the night following going after a trip to Europe in the summer of nineteen oh nine well I noticed a few things about publicity for stars in front with about this CarMax I basically copied the system when I go back to the US in the finals October November nineteen oh nine so it's in a rampage through a lot of evidence based cities where the evidence in some places is missing because this is from I haven't had a hundred years ago and lots of stuff just doesn't get tapped when stuff does get capped it gets damaged by floods and so there's a tradition on archives this loss of gaps and holdings of newspapers and magazines say for example but there's also partial puzzles have because people kept secrets they didn't write stuff down they deliberately misinform forty four we have to do is put something like seven or eight partial puzzles one on top of the other and it's only when you do that that you can see this seems to be the most likely transvestite must admit the whole thing is a story of no this definitely happened but this is the most likely sentiments given what we can show to feature I'm very big on what we can search feature as well because that saves the district the column line mates from the US to Europe in the summer months and nine on the trip that he made twenty returned in November nine seven nine I think it's actually like to attend but my stomach this trip is mentioned in trade papers but actually also that's not good enough I went and I found the passenger manifest for the ship but he settled on returning from South I'm ten I think too many oaks possible take a really difficult to find because the Ellis Island projective digitize these manifests for well over a century and so I can show the exact item which your wife back in the US a lot of cool stuff because of what exactly it is it's written down somewhere you have to buy the book it will be published all being well five inside if this year or next year we know what academic publishers can be fine okay she okay %HESITATION so we first worked with accurate publishes who surprised us with hi speed but none the less it's going to have someone like ninety images and because book about %HESITATION cinema books about SMI which don't have any images and we must I think I actually look at the offer must not suspect them we must suppose the publishers went no no you can't have a book that would be silly hi there her and this expensive unless was some publishers there is they get all you wanna do you want to write this book about history or any sort of visual culture history right okay so yeah love to put some images in your books so we'll give you three for free if you would have more than three you have to pay us a hundred pounds per image and bug but they've been working on a new color yeah and so they they you know net result people write these books about visual culture which has no images are the number one next images and then I have to pay the publisher a bit of money for these images and but I think it's going to make a difference because these images that not just Hey here's a drawing of Max Linda from the post of these images are this poster exists in this archive I I was I was this film which came out on this day because I can check from this trade paper as you can see from the poster it mentions Max Landis night for example H. and M. as a punch that evidence I've never the boss to set something I've written as required reading for anything because I've known people who do that and who there was every single model that they teach them if need to read this thing I've written as an example of a piece of work which is hungry for evidence and which goes looking for it and places where you might not expect to find it I think this might actually be useful for that sort of tension in the future I'm going to blow my trumpet that much it might be inspiring as an example of how much evidence it is important to get to make a historic okay that's good to be tenacious about finding that evidence and distillation making fake assumptions about things making educated guesses that you can't substantiate ninety way in some cases my evidence is in French I see a couple places notices in German and my translations of it %HESITATION the translations of a non native speaker it's a place I got the help of some colleagues of mine who speak French than me in some places %HESITATION Accenture TCS to something nicer speaker of Germans I've got help on these corruption cases my translation is it going to look not going to look cavalier I'm just going to look remarkably fun creative that's one of things about translating is that if you translate this affection for example and you translate a sentence literally a concern rated funky and so there's often a lot of license in translations you completely rephrase things in order to get the sense over yeah but my frustrations are clunky completely this role translation but I think the evidence is that it's in French it would be silly of me not to use it because it's not in my native language the city of me to tell a story about whether star system comes from and not taking out the fact that it started in fronts in fact when I first started to make this discovery yes put together for a few scraps of evidence I did think right so I don't need to spend a lot more time researching this French story and I need to spend a huge amount of time taking a bunch of stuff I've already written and just taking it completely misses after rebuilt this often but from the ground up with an animal or social it's gonna take a lot of time with her but then I thought yeah because I'm doing this is gonna be going to France is going to mean me doing my absolute worst trying to communicate with the people who run the first socon Stein is used in France and lots of sorry can we do this in English this because most of the rest but with significant injuries from those of me apologizing for speaking radio for French but none the less it was rewarding a big lesson of this is that if you want to do the history of an industry in a very brief period in history of an industry they tend to be international industries and so looking at these interactions between companies in different nations is almost inevitably going to be a part for give it a crack and you will get interesting results even if it means lots of depending upon the kindness of people who speak languages better than you do I can't speak highly enough of the Cinematheque francaise people their most embarrassing me generous with time they'll give me when I went to go and study some French trade papers filed by stills as well and then the people at the front desk young children to do pottery you have to pass out because they were really great as well they didn't seem to want to help me do research in one of our come in a position of taking an account which already exists for the star system of most in the US at least find a doctor which is a code of it who published this nineteen ninety dollars in nineteen ninety six I think he was only forty I'm more than confident that had he lived any further he would have produced second third editions of this perk which increases evidence base how does this story maybe even amend some parts I'm coming to this and the sense of going a lot of people regard rich decorative as work as being the last word on this potentially Woodbridge decorative himself now say this wouldn't he be quite encouraged about somebody coming along and saying let's at least widen our scope a little bit to see if what happened in the US might have actually been part of a larger story whether because on TV kind of sweat and I even found a small network in restorative this book where he says the one with the star system contains both elements of discourse in other words if you can only practice he's going to focus on his back almost exclusively on this because I'm not on economic practice and so what I can do my work is to focus on a contract so that what I do is provide something which should hopefully act as a complement to this book although I must also admit to having revisited every single one of the sources that you used and having found a couple of errors in this book as well I was which are completely understandable given that he was working in the predisposition of everything well that's the thing itself here research has been facilitated by advancing technologies and easier access to all of the data yeah I mean the media history digital library is amazing it doesn't have digitized copies of all of the trade and popular publications that I need to use from this period but the fact that it's got the stars copies of moving picture wealth and Nickelodeon and variety and from France it's got some distance companies of summation of those have been starts hello how to pop around the world because I love to do this I've been up to access things that would pre digital era have necessitated a lot more popping back and forth across the Atlantic if you know anything if you research and go phone and found a new lead and in those two countries separately I now need to go back to the archive I spent the weekend when I was in another country and have no time I need to go back there just to check on VH1 article on a page that didn't look up when I was there of course if it wasn't digitize the also that would just be I just can't do that there's just no money the system time it would be ridiculous to cross the Atlantic for example to go and read one article that said that trade is held on a one off because there's been lots of lots of time in order to get back to moving pictures well known look up something happened in that month so the fact that a lot of the digitized has been absolutely essential and it's not that I've been able to put together an evidence base for this which is something like four times the size of the one of which is the code of that and it tends to be the case that when you put together a bigger picture what you thought was the whole story when you have the smaller picture actually turns out to be just an episode in the larger story which connects to be quite different from three the original version of the story what did start out as intends to trying to advance to the quarter of this picture has become a testing of it analysts turns up in some regards affect to amend the policy as well it's not an enviable position because he wants to be pointing out amendments to %HESITATION an account when the person who originally part of the account come come back and go I think you might be mistaken although any time I've put stuff in print which is challenged somebody else's work what's happened is they got in touch and we felt very productive conversations I've never actually had a fantastic I would imagine if it's a decorative was still alive he would actually go that's correct %HESITATION he could very well find himself I think even I can ice over this a lot of the past few years and we've talked about it quite a bit probably the sensitivity of him having died so young as well perhaps this out why he's being even more revered than he might've thing provisioning process hello also Thursday %HESITATION I met contemporary person I'm a contemporary person partly because of those financial constraints that you're mentioning I've never caught the mobility going to run the world sick at Davos when I entered a peach Tate was very home based everything was on my door staff based in Belfast and the furthest I went was probably London during my pet staying connected quite a bit of research sire and even that was beyond my means even with funding disappointed America for anything has something I've never done and may never date for local currently almost every research report done for this has been a minimum two birds one stone thing thank us for ten years ago now I had a high rent some sensitive research fellowships are like that I use that money to govern work at university of Texas in Iran's incentive for low fat and I was able to do a little research on it then well I was also doing some and she was researching the trip to Paris I looked at three different archives I was in Paris hi to better research allowance from my job to pay for that as well but of course it meant staying in the absolute cheapest price I could find because he's got a reserve sounds big enough to take it a power source for domestic crime the research into three days I think another thing about rich Dekada roof into the book is that I found and eventually published in a local newspaper which stated that he died of cancer so what I decided to do was to ask the publishers if they can give me a slightly higher royalty right say greeting on the conditions the condition I proposed that none of the royalties actually go to me on the condition of the royalties okay to cancer research UK and also ask them if they could put on the back cover of the book because I'd like people to know this so I'm not gonna get any royalties whatsoever from this book that's not to say that if I was to get royalties I would be getting huge amounts of money now huh K. academic a tiny percentages are given cancer research UK's going to be getting a small amount of money in my name events for they make it a point to point fifty and about ten years one of my readers report said that the book will make a splash in the landmark work of stuff studies that would be enough of a hundred dollars but I actually have a plan from now on to do this with all of my publications because income from publications doesn't really matter like up three books with how great for example because of a folkish AFI from prices stuff of Kobe my phone plastic with paragraph I've got an interesting collection called menstruation cultural history and that growth and as the collection good neurology emergency hunger sent me a thing every year and it's twenty five pounds perhaps for the reading books one is nice it's not like I rely on it for the prospect of getting more income for more books isn't that kind of thing hanker after cancer research UK appreciate mine complex other one because they'll be next month but you have to benefit from that moment I also figured that if you have managed to bring something that gets traction of popular audience and that thing involves criticisms of everything one of the things that anyone who tries to engage you in this class will do is I'll say that you wrote the book in order to make money out of criticizing the thing and if I can say no because I don't get any money from this book the money goes to charity then that will accomplish the VQ stuff I find it %HESITATION Shams that it's nine five days that you're worried about that kind of reaction not only naturally anybody would pay when it should be a celebration because you're putting so much new knowledge right there for any of us writing a pay cut to send she will retain and of course there are people who use their platforms to be maintained by other people but I think your concern about that isn't ready to injustice what you've actually done you find stuff for four decades over produced and expands on not you corrections what's needed to be corrected we haven't done this maliciously and having read to accept so that when you were writing it at certain age I come across that way we talked extensively about the tone when you have to deal directly with his work I would have agreed up until about two weeks ago when I read one of the region's reports on it and the reader said that my combative tone especially with decorative of need to be at work I did think how was it was kind of a US border fat gently framing what I was doing and all of the saying I don't disagree with ninety percent of what the divisions I still must come across as combative as partly because you're writing is very matter of fact and almost clinical there's nothing wrong with that but I think people with maybe receive that Coldplay but maybe that's a projection on your work rather than what's coming from UAE we don't know he says maybe this is someone who holds him in very high regard so is moving at defensive there could be a range of things going on there could be an emotional response KP this person has decided thefts Southlands familiarizing end three ships that get those passages again and see if we can soften the need for more the editor the presses specifically said this is one phrase I think you should replace it I was talking about a couple of days worth of small items but this is part of the S. yes well is this going to be a based in the back it's long yes but a hundred and forty five thousand words long which is present when you're hovering listing ID on your laptop hi so the intensity of what went in to putting those words together when you're dating without large documents there's going to be times when you're stressed %HESITATION thanks if we aren't coming I. E. as calmly as you would like them to say and the technical thing to manage writing epic is a really very difficult process there's times when I go back to mine check tax something check a reference work freshen up on something or whatever it is and I read a passage I think the driver I thought that's not me I would never write like that today so you're constantly learning as a writer it never really gets easier I don't think this is something I say to students but even if you go to one of the most senior people in the school is rising painful yes the say yes it is a reference to his painful Douglas Adams is my touchstone honest that was his life and it was the most painful thing in his life was to write on it Mrs batten broader this stuff over so he did so much of the process this year opinion stating yourself to sit down and it and it's very difficult thing today and then the other thing is something I think especially if your caring about what you're doing and he wanted to be the Bassick Mayfair perfectionist it's agonizing everything is organizing I was advising students to just be less precious about first off if it's not working they're trying on writes it and then realized it just set it aside and start a new file starting from scratch whenever I said I was thinking I might give them the best advice because my knee jerk reaction when I hear myself saying how could you possibly have to do that to your own writing I just because I am being precious about my life and I'm thinking can't think I've been writing recently because I have to just do that can I just say to the side of the file it would be so grateful when students come to AA and baths because their laptop has broken and they didn't back up their files and they've lost everything and you're saying you still go to your notes this is all fresh because you've just written that certification and the three day before the deadline although I know you're going to say fate and physically because I could no they were far from home to me %HESITATION publication I was working on I've got this book backed up on two separate yeah I discovered Dropbox most of my patients save my life I think there are eight drops of things in my first year that I lost because of a faulty %HESITATION arc flash I've had became corrupt is when it's your whole life is on hello thanks it's awful it's really heartbreaking the idea of writing again from scratch terrifies me because I'm a better editor than I am I'm a writer I'd rather have a lump of crap to mobiles and something beautiful and I think one of the phones and students as it could be said of a sconce when I say this really is the word a sconce in any situation other than how someone looks it would use its only thirty students always like to make a sconce when I say if you're having problems getting the ideas out go for a walk go talk to suffer but because getting the blood pumping by going for a walk or trying to articulate it verbally involved in writing these rules easier ways of doing things done writing I want to envision that kind of situation is somebody who's done all of the research they need to do is awfully confident about case they need to make it is even if they complain about the overall structure in which they can do to make that case it's going to be like a five step structure when I'm in that place when I've done the research not exactly what I can begin making in what the stages I adore just writing from scratch and it's painful but it's still really enjoyable situation there's been times when I started writing before I'm ready I think that's the worst thing is you can then get stuck with editing documentary %HESITATION that you've produced when you weren't ready I think that's a very good points and academia so pressured nine and with ration U. K. their research accident Sam mark there's more pressure than ever to be purchasing purchasing purchasing a house we have to talk all quality everybody's over works and exhausted its early career people are in constant anxiety because of this and that was certainly my experience I'm a year ahead of election post no I I still have this overbearing fading and I know I've got loads of ideas suggesting adding I've got ideas for at least four Berwick said I want to right now I know exactly what I want to do with them that it's going to take time to do the research and times change writing and I feel the anxiety of those hanging over me because I just feel like I should have happened %HESITATION five minutes ago I can't shake out failing I don't know if I after awhile I feel like even emerging these recordings and are you still on the production J. saying right perfect and institutional terms and hopefully they'll be a few sirven trashed two other people and other scholars people here just general and Chastain these topics but I feel like this isn't what I'm supposed to I'm supposed to be right in effect right now I am Miami no chance of a laptop concerning this two things going on at one of which is years of institutions telling you produce for your worthless but the other one is you do love frighten even less painful love not just the use of language the products of a research person product of sitting down asking questions formulating models testing those models against evidence compiling massive accidents fitting that into a bigger picture seeing the bigger picture means to change doing almost half and then expressing your findings in writing is great so in addition to being intentional pressures from the outside is also something which we do get completely understandably addicted doing like why is it the feeling itchy that you're not smoking if you're someone who's tried to quit smoking because you're actually addicted to nicotine we can say oh it's nothing like addictions and mental harmful substance because writing is harmless but it does tend to six three hundred sixteen it's harmless in one sense and not it's very therapeutic but it's also if you're writing to meet deadlines and if you're having to hit those high standards for whatever reason if you have targets you need to reach it's very stressful and there's a lot at stake and if you know that something is going to be AT and t's the peer review process convey her affect as well show me a scholar he hasn't had their work completely torn to shreds and someday be incredibly rare to find it yeah because there are people out there who are playing nasty and %HESITATION maybe give constructive criticism they'll just tell you you're stupid and right six pages of notes as somebody who works on film in a school of English in the states to language in English I working amongst a bunch of scholars who working on some exciting different from what I work on and external examiners who are asked to look at the work that students take my models are being honest look at work on a topic that they have and what some greedy used to being in a film about people making judgments yeah the stuff that comes my way even though they're not expensive exposed to different steam extend examiners and pair of ears is apparent here should be able to go on nothing experts on this I'm not the person you want to read this but some people don't seem to think that you want to work in that rigorous way to spend some script from send it my way there's times when I think wouldn't it be nice if just once the peer review process for something I produced was briefly locks and slapdash and it just got way through I think that and then I go now I wouldn't because that would be undisciplined living up to its popular misconception every bit of Fairview I've had stuff that was unsolicited based if it's stuff you know it's part of a special issue of pop in as the collection when I was approached to write the thing the peer reviewed tends to be less exacting everything on time which is unsolicited I have had really merciless reviews reports I mean most of us in the sense of even when they were being really complimentary but being measured rigorous no one's just waiting in the thing for you after the critical ones that had been difficult to read one of them carrying students read the critical feedback I can understand why it's very difficult and that's especially when I try to do something for somebody I know and care about each it's even more difficult than Jennifer a stranger just trying to concentrate and make sure you're not come across this main when you want them to do their best work you know you want me to do better by the same token when we do peer review we are harsh in part because we realize what it was people harsh to us we can't keep this if we just let stuff through that's awful that's going to devalue the quality of this time of year when you are very rigorous sometimes being rigorous or something which is amazing and the rigorous there's just identifying how great it is and why it is you're saying yes unreservedly publish this I think there's a time once when I was there before it became one of the editors at every public official culture is just one of its readers as time went from my readers report it was something like eight hundred was long and then I have to just give a decision and the decision was except minor revisions major versions etcetera and instead of any of these the decision I was published this little beauty with dispatch it was wonderful it was just amazing piece of scholarship about because individual culture during the horse surgeon peddling the norm is the people still traveling on horse drawn buses and carriages when cost arrive the visual culture of because during this period when Congress the slower than most room carriages great article wonderful in every respect the only recommendations I had with a little bit of extra evidence that fine you off that the person didn't seem to know for the past not abundant evidence anyway so it's one of those is anything I can suggest to you is a joy when you have something like that it's important there you go this is great there's a record of that as well in addition to that no that is nice because it's been incredible when I received reviews that are like that it's an amazing feeling the grass from six pages of scary things that make you feel like the lowest form of being not there you've written anything so then have progressed to a point where you're saying if you copy the publisher says it is but if you want to fix it because of the things here's a couple of events that could become our fight but really it's fine you've done as much as you can physically do you have six eyes and words that was a really special moment for me I felt like gaffe made it nice that was when I was in the nicest job I've ever had because while it was a great great productive year cherry tree is very distant high it's fundamental to be in a place where you are stable enough to write because if you just living CZ pounds going from a three month contract free month contract chance of you being able to research and write on next is there a minute up point out was a visit by halfway through a at ten months contract which is short enough and it wasn't perfect but it was the best I've ever done this is a nice job of all the jobs I've had and I've had many I was really well supported and I had money to go you know the funded me to go away to conferences and they supported me today and research led teaching said a really happy time when I was at Lancaster he had that sort of stomach place hanging over yay because it was ending in a few months but I really went for it because it built my confidence up to the point where I thought I am facing this I am really good at this career I can't really make it go fast if I could just get a permanent job somewhere or at least something that lasts longer than just shy of a year it was a tough time after that the writing process it's difficult anyway and then when you call up cycles of the things life is staring at me it's very frustrating to hear people saying for we just have to make time or you just have to do it anyway and I think when your mental health is broken and you physically counts and words are not painful and that was the thing if I eat the right in process I find it healing and therapeutic pops I've had a problem since I had the health problems of last year my brain works very differently than it used to say I lose words and language is so important to me and I'm fascinated by it there are times when I have lost words it's a kind of aphasia and it's incredibly frustrating when you're trying to write and the words not coming it's gone there's an image in my head but I can write top line account describes the image the words that belong to that image for the fading I have do not exist for me in that moment and then medic system to take time and the time that I need done I think that's improved it's not as bad as it was it's tricky and it's another thing to overcome as painful as the writing process as anyway when there are things again she and also of course there's the practical thing so if I have a laptop that ship to South Carolina well for freezes constantly so it slows me down a bit so therefore if one were sharing each others from the living beings situations going on exactly this sensation but who's I'm just giving you an example of it now I know that there is a word for this sensation %HESITATION having now for this idea that might be no no that doesn't work for I think what's happened is that you used to be super human and something to throw away you can like us like last time when I think it was in the second season runs on talking the ones when I check out that yeah when mom went into that chamber and had his power was taken away okay he got beaten up by a normal person that's because it's my kryptonite I probably already had this kind of issue but it was wildly exacerbated by that mental health issues that arose during an extremely difficult time that led me to leave academia there's no provision for mental health issues really in this country and I think actually that brings us full circle with my extender fund athlete calling my senators beforehand like sender we'll never know probably what happens to him and that's why maybe it's wrong to speculate but the fact that he seems to have murdered his young wife and then killed himself I mean we don't know if that's happened or if it was just a side park shortly this is the interesting thing because according to Moreland she was told by family members and then he was raising her when she was off and I thought about it she was told that Max had killed his wife and then killed himself and that is difficult for anyone who wants to kill themselves even the job of getting themselves is of course a huge amounts of job of killing somebody else's work on certain aspects of it that makes it very difficult to detect but that's what she was told by those needs where is it because the press at the time just referred to a double suicide yes and that's the way it was packed and even in the documentary that model and other is providing the narration for I was it where it is he killed himself and took his young wife with him it's very easy for mistake where is a hundred years later you're thinking well the systematic abuse and this woman was less than half his age you have a printer he was fourteen she was seventeen there's a whole spectrum of things that could be she could have had absolutely crippling postpartum psychosis and have convinced him that he has no reason to live should we just so not only don't know anything about his personal life we don't know if hundreds years on what day of hats diagnosis of things that could have saved their lives may be used by public this is the thing which recently has been proposed but Joseph said that maybe it was the thing that was his crime car Magnus wasn't one of the many conditions been proposed before the assembly he was extremely by part and this one of the places where film history becomes biography a lot of people will go straight into that field of history with enthusiasm it involves needing to understand people hello and that's where my skills I think I'm sending him it involves too much speculation exists to have a sense of confidence but we'll have to see the program and additional records of people he knew him well and there's basically next to nothing by his wife it seems sometimes talking this afternoon talking about it it's just that's radio she's referred to yes and she was very young very young to have trials you don't know what's going on there but I think just a night of abuse that is coming to light and it's starting to be evidenced and some industry as well and of course is there a toxic masculinity that's already affecting him I mean in one of the clips the document she watched was essentially correct shows rather than a documentary and narrative films to run correct from his films to facilitate the showing off the cracks of sounds rough and ready anything else but one of them was he's holding it bear bait and I think his wife's another brand with another mom she was shocked all right so she could service and a night to think about putting you up on your phone calls on the phone and some of them was he going to see a doctor right some of those was her and she examined him and he was really ticklish I'm really nervous and then you come back the next day I'm much more confident lady proposed to her and she said yes and then click for expected of AB naming the baby into work one day to go and see her and that's about six men in her waiting room yes got one mining with and she's examining him and that she's holding her arms around them from the back and listing to his lungs from the back and looks like a way of examining somebody and then it gets really jealous another interesting he gives the baby into one of the guys who is about to throw out throws out we'll look back up so is the guy even though he's got the baby with it and grab some last minute takes the baby back and throws my project is not in service of mild jealousy read eight what I find interesting was that why he was walking with the database three all these men in the waiting room they were also looking up starring him and looking at him disparagingly as if he's on the fairway that's not mine for you you could say this actually being conveyed in their faces and he was aware of it and see turning range and they would try to find their newspapers and I was starting to think this is the stirrings of toxic masculinity because this is a man caring for his family and other men are disparaging him for caring for his baby because they associate that with women's work so I faced twice in the next round and what is typically moms work as a doctor from this point and she's the doctor for obese man and he's getting wildly jealous you've got a comedy of them throwing them all I eat and the baby getting mixed up in it and any stock in my filet and specific case because %HESITATION however montica says %HESITATION not threatened by all these other man that he need to examine for professional reasons I just felt like this is toxic masculinity on display it was a mixture of what city could be regarded as a criticism of toxic masculinity and the downtime in this or at least the enemies of the main character of the men who were judging the mind holding yes but he's been mistaken for seeing them as I'm typing this but just customers most of the phones about him being that character well this one works yes but but then the ending doesn't care or he's an idiot having done that everything's a mess as well then you are a guardian and a husband so part of the film seems to go into cemex ninety horrible kind of indicate think that's high RD this is coming three and cinema and I think more than a hundred years later and we're still at a point right here actually perpetuating fest it's like with the three billboards thanks Sam Rockwell wins an Oscar for his performance as a racist abusive murder you've gone beyond the point where you can make comments about stuff sort of thing because you're making it okay because you keep pertaining not character you keep retaining the person Hey totally flips of aids and does an acceptable things I mean this is very early on but it doesn't mean we can be okay with that the same as we don't have to be okay with black face and the jazz singer it needs to be called right but it's worrying that he's writing these films this comedy it's making light of that kind of situation that kind of jealousy and at sanctions violence sorry doctors say and it's totally unreasonable he's a guardian husbands account trust his wife to just get another job I'm back after the pay of eight counts of a media stranger does artefact life just life reflect arch in this situation it's not always helpful to a psychologist based on artists through their work there's such a collapse here if you've already pointed out right with the character and the person playing the character and they have the same name and his case hi much of it is him acting right things that he thinks are okay it's possible that the current him I go the other way rather than it being that the fictional Max's justice studies characterization of the remarks it might be that the real Max was a contrivance just as much as fiction so it may be that we have I have no idea what this guy was arrested on when things are proposing the book actually is that the latter is a version of a public persona that the film industry directly solicits one of the things about always maximums is the Max is a bass ability the comedy comes from a main character I'm doing is kind of being a president with slightly different from dramas and we are being invited the employees here at least is being invited to on the actual fear is being forced to to log off the main character but that may have caused a conflict for Bevin fixation with another has never gone away and I think the fact that it's played for laughs has never gone away I mean you've had %HESITATION TV series and many many many many fans that have done the exact same thing because I got to a point if it take with family guy for example having this child of that five acre and white Americans prev page nine Hey get to play with absolutely everything and it's played for laughs in anything he said shape at that other than that I don't know we've got trump in the White House tonight this is no longer funny you need to stop privileging mediocre man getting all the glory because only when not stops this everybody else everybody else can I say this is Bruce is one of the other aspects of this which is that is sure to from my seat mate on a visit to Spain the film is his Max series character learning how to be a toreador and doing it hopefully but then the second part of the film is actual Mike's Linda dressed %HESITATION Tory does affect actually fighting bulls although he's actually fighting while the small keeping deliberately given small fry and not just fighting them but killing them they've done nothing of giving him those metals the use of tassels on and it serves state by state engine putting about six of them into a small bowl and then there was a moment for me using a sword stabbed in the back of the head and it seems to pretty much instantly done and that's one of those moments where you go %HESITATION different error another bull fighting still happens now but for the purposes of making a film hearing date for radio when you got the license because it's fiction tend not to do something for real I've seen some films in this production stills from some films from this period where they represent animals by just getting humans dressed up in costumes and it's a comedy so okay this one still a scene from a %HESITATION another one of his films from about nineteen unleavened flat I'm one of our main characters one of female singers characters who is known as rankings users Betty and you can your aspect to the from nine in from she's been a long time in this film on the line and an address to come is is just a dog with a main effect of costume attached on his neck it's not a line but it's a comical line okay why they feel that they need to do in this Max from from nineteen twelve is going to show that they needed to go actual bullfighting last post from that point still have travel documents and that it was possible to share people prodigious bits from other parts of the world and that could be part of the appeal of phone services that still have a great fiction has still has elements of dementia the way the crowds gather trying almost carries in Laughlin sorry celebrate every day to feel like it switched and documentary felt like that's real that's a real saying that they're actually this is real people with the navy star mark sender should collapse between now and the setup you often hear about stopping malls I have seen some stills of stuff being thrown one massive crowds but the accounts %HESITATION usually overblown and there's a lot more plentiful than the actual photos of people being old but that was live footage of somebody being lifted on the shoulders of a crowd of several hundred people and he really seemed to be fine okay this is %HESITATION hold on now on the shelves of the several hundred people are being carried somewhere either I don't know why I'm being carried on the card out of the stadium it seems maybe that's gonna dump me in the river but I have to go this is looking for happiness was the fear was going with that the film on the happy face the way things happen these people who were famous with Publix who were orders of magnitude larger than the public's within fixed also famous just because of the reproducibility of at thirty thousand so let's enter titles so to them he's a Spanish hero as much as he's a French hero files I wonder is there a cultural difference %HESITATION with it being researched and found her in the Spaniards it's party time takeover faith says Jack one thing it was quite a feeling was when the extras which was the little interview with Melinda from nineteen sixty three so even though the she referred to how she has a %HESITATION what was that she was referring to English reserve in Australian nine it wasn't was it was it was English something English upbringing or English child minding English to mean cold and military right in the way you treat people and of course we would probably say German if we wanted to refer to a cold military treatment of kids or Prussian anything thanks we've my associate with unemotional but when a search it sit with Miller tree regimented yeah well I might have like fifty eight if you've been paying attention you're going to try to pick something here at tend to spiral everybody statements to the point where you're causing pain to your thanks and gracious to me and the kind of slack competitor I'm not here to colonial oppressor there is no English equivalent for catches cellphone display the just the running somebody humorously but dismissively yeah we don't have that we just go would you mind awfully can yeah we were not we do have like a and waiting the entire country is having a one day we can get something Welch on this this is sort of the cross the Irish Sea do you have any other points I feel like there is no two questions I probably had as you were talking but I didn't want to disrupt your flow that was quite flat but I think there were quite a few things that would be useful to T. sorry and the madness that is late and that's quite a bit to go one better than pleasure to chat with you about me but it's been good since last year a sign your own work as is the case with anything that is about to get published I basically already moved onto a different researcher thank you for telling us all about it here back and marks on there next time don't plan I think you need to tell me all about something in your IRA writing on all have been corrected hello thank you for that I didn't really get rinds cherry their contemporary relevance of the emergence of stars but maybe not something we can have a look at another time and more tax relevance to phenomena that we can observe happening now yeah I suppose so yeah it's one of those things were and are very pro it's kind of work in the arts and humanities we have to justify your existence all the time so the very taking question is why should we care about this guy and why should we care by the emergence of from stardom to we should care about this because the story is about a phenomenon that happened to a culture industry the story proposes a model of how cultural industries request assistance and whether that cost our systems and so such a model could be tested against and much in your culture industry testing such models involves waiting for real world things to happen so it would mean more actually I suppose the third option to just messed is testing it against Instinet specific celebrities if we were to pretend we never heard of internet based liberties we could look at what's just happened over the past fifteen or so years and find that if we did look at it if we found that there was a familiar story them we have a working model about how personhood and coastal industries interact and laugh with me was to make predictions about how they're going to function future of course just as an exercise in his militants he's a claim that's a test that claim against the evidence any basis culture is useful as an exercise in producing accurate knowledge so this could be about anything I mean to why do things happen so we could be of any question about why something happened and that would be worthwhile doing if it somehow raise the general bar for rigor and precision coming up with conclusions well that probably could find his own city a topic of mine at some later point as well because that's an ambitious project I want to J. S. fact checking the hell out of me and her last exhibition the thing around this is fact checking off something which is deliberately and openly lying many many many shifts mythology from all over the world from across licenses here but in addition to the deliberate open lies they may speak some actual closed lies in those well some kind of a apps actual countries yeah I will not present it is untrue kernels of chase chase within the lines and what all of that contagious in this world both faith communities hi Dan raffle the ninth %HESITATION mentality and what is reality but it's true well the screening of questions as I find myself saying anytime anyone says something like science deals with facts not with trees I was scared now the truth is whatever can be demonstrated to beach signs deals factory say what is truth my instinct is to go truth is whatever can be demonstrated to be tricked all I know is that it's like they're still I will always continue to be affect thank you very much we more than a year after recording a discussion yeah we're back again because we were holding this back to coincide with the publication of Andries back we're recording this at the end of April twenty nineteen and you have a publication date night on you yes I have good news and bad news I mean the fact that we're recording this over a year after having recorded that is an indication of how long it takes books to get published I already had a contract to publish it when we had that discussion I was just finishing it off and now it's gone to the whole publication process it's going to be out very soon publication date is thirtieth of may twenty nineteen and even on the publisher's website it says the sixteenth of may I don't know if it's anyway some point in late may it is completely and totally down the entire manuscripts it's been typescript is been supplied to the publisher the index is down you know what kind of work of proof the back cover and all that kind of stuff so completely done so it's going to be an object very soon and I'm kind of physically visibly vibrating the anticipation of this however the bad news is that even when we recorded this and we didn't know when we recorded this model in the how to read he died more than the whose real name of course more than there was a bit of an affectation because Mike's Linda wasn't even had that's nine more than that who is more to the DA must sell lo fi out she died in October twenty seventeen that's a good innings for somebody who was born in nineteen twenty four so we were discussing the work of somebody who had recently died at this sad and we didn't have never managed to get hold of it while she was alive and had lots of letters but she was and I was told this by acquaintances of has she was rather difficult to communicate with in the last few years probably because of the standard reason why somebody who's in the nineties would be quite difficult to communicate with and the last two years but yes exactly more Linda had already died recorded this one thing I forgot to mention when we recorded this was who was going to be publishing this book what publisher and it's actually good that I didn't because the publisher has changed now it was IB Taurus and IB Taurus has since then been acquired by blames bracket that make so it will be a boost rebook and that's going to cover and it's very beautiful it's the first time turquoise has ever been a part of my repertoire cover colors and an open mind it's not covered don't buy it because you will never pay off the debt if you buy it because it's it's recommended retail prices eighty five pound standard academic book stuff there will be any book pick it up on on Amazon's marketplace in two years time when someone selling it second but you know university libraries will get to and I will have a book launch shortly at Newcastle University basin is there anything else you'd like to say oh yeah one thing I have agreements with the title of the book is yeah and it's changed over the years it's called the origins of the film star system passed Senate publicity and economics in early cinema Flay not my choice of title but a compromise between my choice of title of the position with the choice of title you lucky things having an insight into the type of world that we live in yeah well I thought it was important today some coverage of that writing and publication process and academic publishing because that's what people have to go through to get any of their work done and it takes a long long time and that is made an even longer time if you work in visual culture because the logistics of getting images from archives and all the fiddling around with how we're going to be placed in the book for example I don't want to go skating how many you can have if someone does happen to be able to afford it you'll get to see something that has got a good few very interesting images in it I was good for mistreated many have since moved skill lesson you counselors well %HESITATION yeah I said it we talked about me being in the school of English literature language in English takes on now in the school of arts and cultures resentment moving up about fifty feet in the university of in the next building definitely think if anyone is looking for you on the website you're not on the right skill anymore I just thought it's worth mentioning that you've made thank you again for telling us so much being so articulate and remembering so much if I eat all of your process I think it's useful for people right there if they're doing archival research this is a really useful and hopefully to the S. and Tate so they will have a kitchen thanks for the long and of course I've never remembered we have a deal to have a nice long chat about Damien Hirst we have already done and I have already released and after so that's I. scape I skipped about after that so we can do it sometime anyway but %HESITATION I don't wanna platform take months because he doesn't really need it it was more my clever ideas about his work I thought were nice the platform you know drop that much I don't know so yeah anyway but yes you're on skates because I wrapped my ass I already for the podcast and I needed a nap so it's I have been listening to it I should already know that thank he's been listening to audio visual cultures with me Paula Blair and Angie Scheel this episode was recorded and edited by Paul the player and the music is common grind by air tone licensed under a creative Commons attribution three point zero and available for download from CC mixer dot org if you like the show and find its contents useful and interesting please help cover production and distribution costs by donating to pay pal dot me forward slash P. A. Blair and labour a pay dot com four bit slash P. A. prior episodes are released every other Wednesday please read it share and subscribe on your chosen the same platform as this helps others find the show for more information visit audio visual culture style wordpress dot com and follow a few cultures on Twitter and Facebook thanks for listening and catch you next time