week 5 questions

Compare and contrast Bazin’s and Seldes’s timelines for Hollywood classicism (from week one) with the timelines proposed by Peter Lloyd, Thomas Elsaesser and Steve Neale. Bazin and Seldes said that classical Hollywood was from 1920-1939. Lloyd, Elsaesser, and Neale argued that it was from 1910-mid 60s.

Bazin held that a classical Hollywood film was one made under the vertically integrated machine that the studios ran, and that when movies stopped being made in that way the classical Hollywood style was gone. Elsaesser, Neale, and Lloyd believed that classical Hollywood films are those that tell a story in a more conservative way (hero moving towards a goal) and fit into a type or genre. Films like Bonnie and Clyde broke these rules and moved Hollywood in a new direction.

Todd Berliner, "The Pleasures of Disappointment: Sequels and The Godfather, Part II."Give two specific examples of how Part II disappoints the viewer (according to Berliner) and how these disappointments "work" for the film.


Part II dissappoints the reader with a less interesting climactic montage and through the noticeable lack of violence and romance that was present in the first film. Both examples create a longing for the first film that coincide with the actual story of Part II. Part II has a constant longing for the goodtimes of The Godfather.