Academic Tutor: Mr Andy Conio

Module leader: Ms Denise Doyle

University of Wolverhampton
BA (Hons) Video And Film Production

AD 3200: Extended essay in Digital Media

Assignment Task: Research Essay (5000 words)
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Contents

Introduction.1

Chapter 1
The significant role of Propaganda in War times4 World War I - United States Committee on Public Information...........5 World War II Germany: Universium Film AktiengesellschaftTriumph of the Will World War II-United States :The role of Hollywood industry...6
Soviet Union......7

Chapter 2
Post War Era -The metamorphosis of Propaganda & the Domination of Hollywood images.........................................8 Hollywood Genres................................................................11 Western films Gangsters films12

The Arriving Of New Hollywood And The Rating System....13 Hollywood films in 1960s under social-political discourses...14 Hollywood films in 1970s under social-political discourses..16 Hollywood films in 1980s under social-political discourses...19 Contemporary Hollywood....20

Chapter 3
Moving image and audience...22

Conclusion..23

Reference List24
Bibliography Web sources..25 Movies...25

Student: Apostolos Tsatsaronis 0624297

'Moving image and Social ideology through the twentieth century: a critical analysis

The spectacle is not collection of images it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images G Debord ( 1983) The concept of this essay is to research and analyse the significant role of moving image as a medium for development of ideology and consciousness, throughout the twentieth century. The aim is to explore and study where and somehow the moving image has been applied as a control tool for manipulation of the masses. Moreover, which groups or individual controlled the moving image for purposes and finally, what influences and impacts we have been experienced as audience and therefore as society or individuals. Among all the cultural forms, moving image is considered as one of the first mass produced cultural forms in the twentieth century. Moving image itself became a major entertainment form and possibly the most popular leisure activity in social life. For example during 1910, the number of the theatres worldwide increased from 10.000 storefront nickelodeons- with daily attendance of 4-5 million people - to 28 000 movie theatres by 1928.In 1920 the average of customers was between 25 and 30 million a week , while by the 1930s the number of audience increased to 110 million people who paid to go and watch a movie each week.
Jowett and Odonnel (2000, p128).

Of all the mass produced media and art forms, the motion picture has probably the biggest potential for emotional appeal to the audience. Cinematic and motion pictures have always been capable of creating psychological attitudes and emotional responses to the audience. Under different circumstances, they can make us laugh, cry sign, shout, become sexually aroused, or sometimes fall asleep Moreover, motion image is strong enough to be a source of social and cultural information, and as a result have a great, and sometimes, crucial impact on behaviour, manners and habits of the audiences life. Jowett and Before the moving image becoming
Odonnel (2006,p107).

a useful mass-control tool

for social,

psychological and financial purposes, everyone could easily to believe that the purpose of moving image, rather was to entertain and socialize, than to

educate and propagandize societies or individuals. In addition to that Richard Dyer Mac Cann deliberately examined the meaning of moving image and notes: This is an entertainment industryIf you have a

message , send it by Western Union The above statement validates that the pleasures of learning cannot be easily distinguished from the pleasures of entertainment McCann
(1964,p51).

Propaganda is old as societies; the term exists from 1622 when Congregation for propagating the Faith was established.The definition of propaganda could be represented following on Linebergs words. Linebergs notes : "Propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of public or mass-produced communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given group for a specific purpose, whether military, economic, or political.

The purpose of propaganda may be to influence people to adopt attitudes that correspond to those of the propagandist or to engage in certain patterns of behaviour. (Lineberger, 1954)Furthermore, the enormous appeal of the motion picture to the audience and masses, lead to systematic attempts by governments or other groups to use the motion picture as a medium for propagandistic purposes. The entirely use of propaganda through a film medium was best known in I an II World War practics.We mention to the most important historical propagandisitc film examples during the Word War I &II.

The significant role of Propaganda in War times Motion picture was a very important propagandistic tool, during the World War I and World War II. All the Allied countries that involved in war times made films with propaganda purposes. For the period of the war, various patriotic and nationalistic images were produced with success, presenting war as a glorified thing in which no sacrifice and effort were too great to make for your country, and having all the various forms of patriotism that could be gotten into a picture. This essay will show some of the most important historical applications of propaganda by the use of moving image. Significantly, the very first use of the pure visual power of the motion picture can be seen, after the declaration of Spanish-American War in 1896.The film was titled Tearing Down the Spanish Flag and simply showed the Spanish flag was suddenly torn down and in its place an American flag was raised.
Jowett and Odonnel (2006,p108)

World War I - United States Committee on Public Information. In the United States on April 13, 1917 the President Woodrow Wilson has founded an organization, in order to promote the war globally. The aim of Committee on Public Information (CPI) was to 'picture the American war aims out of the country, and support films with patriotic meaning including suggestions for stories and military capability and props as required and forced by the studios. When America entered the World War I, Hollywood decided to make the German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II, one of their major targets. Their opening attack was My Four Years in Germany, a film based on the book by former Berlin ambassador James W. Gerard. In the first reel, a card announced: "FACT NOT FICTION."
Jowett and Odonnel (2006, p109).

Other important films with propagandistic content produced during this season were:The Kaiser, and The Beast of Berlin, where a propagandistic view of the First World War, presenting the political self-indulgence of the German Kaiser Wilhelm, the resistance of some of his own soldiers, and imaginary prediction of the nature of the war's end. (http://hnn.us/articles/1521.html)

World War II Germany: Universium Film Aktiengesellschaft Triumph of the Will

Staff General Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937) notes, The war has demonstrated the superiority of the photograph and the film as means of information and persuasion. Unfortunately our enemies have used their advantage over us in this field so thoroughly that they have inflicted a great deal of damage. For this reason it is of the utmost importance for a successful conclusion to the war that films should be made to work with greatest possible effect wherever any German persuasion might still have any effect. Jowett and Odonnel
( 2006,pp.109-110).

As United States did, in 1917 the German Government decided to set up its filmic propaganda arm. The Universium Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), has been considered as a major filmic propaganda agency for the Nazis during the 1930, and through Word War II. A representative film example in which has been applied solid propaganda values undoubtedly was the Triumph of the Will. The Triumph of the Will released in 1935, and chronicles the 1934 Reich party Congress in Nuremberg. Triumph of Will is a visual proof that during the Reichs party Convention speeches have played a minor role. Nazis plans were focused more to reduce the intellect by working upon the emotions and expressions of the listeners. Its worth saying that during the Reichs party Convention been used thirty cameras, which continually scan faces, uniforms arms and again faces. Each of these close ups reveals the configuration of the attention to each detail, while the result of metamorphosis of reality was achieved. The film also purposely point ups pictures of mass ornaments. Mass ornaments, shows Hitler and his staff, who must have appreciated them as constitution, indicating the willingness of the masses to be shaped, and used by their leaders. The importance on these living ornaments draws the outline of intention of captivating the spectator, and leading to believe in the 'rigidity of the swastika world and visual qualities. Leni Riefenstahl (1902- 2003) who directed this film, attempted that not only shows the Reichs party Convention to the full, but achieves in disclosing its whole significance. Jowett and Odonnel (2006,pp.109-110)

World War II -United States :The role of Hollywood industry

Walter Wanger observes: the motion pictures should be used in the upcoming conflict to clarify, to inspire and to entertain. This famous Hollywood producer also believed that movies would have the dominant prospective and potential to gain the publics opinion, just because of popularity and ability to entertain the audience. Jowett and
Odonnel ( 2006,pp.114-115)

The basic concept that has been made was that Hollywood must to develop a most potent combination of being able to entertain and propagandize. There was a necessity, developing an emotional message which offered entertainment and consumption at the same time. Hollywood industry was well prepared, to provide morale-building films and getting the message across for consumption. T he Hollywood film industry did not use propaganda methods on any grade scale but on occasion, commercial filmmakers have used their entertainment medium as a useful tool, in order to promote a particular commercial idea. In fact, many of the most successful American films for the duration of the World War II, did not deal with the fighting at all. The records have been showed that just, one third of all the American films released from 1942 to 1944, actually dealt with the war. Hollywood decided to produce the first propagandistic film in 1939. Confessions of a Nazi Spy which was a film which based on the spirited acts of a former FBI agent who had cracked a spy ring inside the German American Bund. Hollywood also dealt with films such as Devil Dogs of the Air Here comes the Navy and Miss Pacific Fleet which were purposely designed as recruiting films for the still nonaligned U.S armed services by showing this as an attractive way of life. These films became known as the preparedness films and the upcoming effects were to awake the suspicion and anger of those who did not wish to see the United States become involved in a European War.
Jowett and Odonnel (2006,p112-115)

Soviet Union In the Soviet Union, most of films were controlled by the political authorities. The idea of revolution was the basic configuration that applied to almost all Soviet films, with Lenin as the central outline.
(R. Taylor,1979).

In order to achieve the greatest emotional impact, Soviet filmmakers deliberated a visual method called montage, in which a range of films images were put side by side (juxtaposed images) in order to create a specific response from the viewer.

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The idea was based on the talent of the director that could create a desirable result of reality, from the different parts of film, which would assault the visual sensibilities of the viewers and achieve the desired psychological effect. The technique of montage has been applied in the most popular Russian propaganda films like Sergei Eisensteins Battleships Potemkin (1925), Vsedolov Pudovkins Storm over the Asia (1928) and Alexander Dovzhenkos Earth, as a fundamental system to gain the proper audience response.
Jowett and Odonnel (2006,p111)

Post War Era The metamorphosis of Propaganda & the Domination of Hollywood images.

The Wars propaganda theories belong to the past . Since the end of Second World War, we have been experienced a reproduced and a remarkable range of new theories that have in turn been applied in propaganda film. Terms such as structuralism and post structuralism, psychoanalysis deconstruction, feminism, postmodernism and means of other theoretical approaches have produced a variety of approaches to theorising film. These approaches are connected with previous critical theories such as genre theory, auteur theory and historicalsociological approaches.The propaganda has now turn into the term of ideology and the pure meaning of propaganda-image has been superseded by new incoming terms and norms. Kellner ( 2000,pp.130-131) Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) on several instances has used the term ideology in order to assign the construction of images of social reality.Karl Marx put forwarded an economic base/superstructure model of society, where this base related direct to the means of production of the society. The superstructure is placed on top of the base, where this base consists of societys ideology, as well as its legal system, political system, and religions. For Marx, the base is that set up the superstructure. According to Marx words: the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

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Consequently, the ideology of a society is becoming important from the time that can confuse the alienated groups and can produce false consciousness such as commodity fetishism
(Marx et al., 1970)Ideology

and simulacrum of the image and the

upcoming result o transformation of society into to society of spectacle emerged the arrival of new era of cinematic image, after the end of World War II. As Guy Debord argue that : When the real world is transformed into mere images, mere images become real beings dynamic figments that provide direct motivations for hypnotic behaviourBut the spectacle is not merely a matter of images, nor even of images plus sound. It is whatever escapes peoples activity, whatever eludes their practical reconsideration and correction. It is the opposite of dialogue. Wherever representation becomes independent, the spectacle generates itself. The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophises reality, reducing every ones concrete life to a universe of speculation.The spectacle is the material reconstruction of the religious illusion. The mainly purposes of the film always focus to attract larger audiences and the ideological background of every film, deals directly with the purposes of profit, that every film studio looking for. Undoubtedly, Hollywood Film industry has been considered as the most important film industry that dealt so efficiently with ideological functions of film. Debord
(1983, p11)

After the end of Second World War, Hollywood film industry became a global entertainment product, which spread out all over the world. Due to its popularity, Hollywood film industry attempted to develop its political tension , focusing to socialize immigrants and low-working class cultures into the emerging forms of the consuming society. Moreover, the first early Hollywood films achieved to teach the audiences, how to behave properly and consume with style. As a result it was believed, that American films helped the immigrants and low social classes to learn how to behave like good Americans as well as to adopt the American lifestyle. In general, films from the silent and early era focused on presenting poverty and social struggle from sympathetic viewpoint to the poor and oppressed, but also focused on the rich and wealth and power, serving as advertisements for the consumer society and the ruling elites. Kellner (2000,p129).

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However, the Hollywood film industry always has to respond to audiences emotions such as dreams, fears, and desires. Hollywood film industry indeed, also had to resonate with social discourses such as anxieties morals conflicts and ideologies. The first critical analyses have showed that Hollywood film reflected American society, providing mirror images of its discourses and contradictions. Films became a major medium of socialization, providing and offering new ways of living which have affected the daily life of the audience. Additionally, the role of Ideology in Hollywood films was very important. Hollywood films and ideology attempted to calm social tension and responding social forces in such a way that they tend to be dangerous to the social system of inequality. Ideology and films both reproduces cultural representations and specific metaphoric methods of constructing social reality. A metaphor could replace an image with an ideal or higher meaning. The ideal meaning of image of freedom is often reproduced with a concrete image. Image of an eagle for example generates ideological representations of the world as term of freedom.
Ryan and Kellner (1988,pp.14-15) Kellner (2000, pp.130-131).

Although, one could argue that the language of the film does not correspond to the social events, neither the film works as a parallel mirror to actual events. More or less cinematic images, are capable more to provide information about the psychology of particular era and its tensions, but they do not appeared themselves as a simple representation of social reality. Films thus refract social discourses and content into specifically cinematic forms and leading audiences in an active process of constructing meaning. Kellner (2000,p129 )

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Hollywood Genres The Hollywood cinema became a main genre cinema in which formulas are repeated in cycles of genres that dealt with central public conflicts and concerns of its audience. The Hollywood itself had to deal with the different conflicts and problems in US society, guarantee its audiences that all problems could be solved within the existing genres.The task of Hollywood genre films was to encourage and maintain the American dream, myths and ideologies. Values such as money and success were important, for successful living. Social qualities like heterosexual, romance, marriage, and family were the desirable dreams for everyone; also the state, police, and legal system were also lawful sources of control and authority where violence was absolutely necessary to annihilate any threats to the system. Hollywood film is consequently political in the way it tends to sustain American values and social institutions. Is it worth saying that, among others genres like melodramas, social comedies, and musicals, the most implicitly genre films with significant political and social meanings were the Westerns films and Gangsters films.
Kellner (2000,pp.131-133)

Western films Western films deliberating assured their audience that civilization could be maintained in the face of threats from criminals and villains. As Douglas Kellner notes : In the most western films a mythologized version of American history illustrates over that the Indians, Mexicans, or villains were the lands original inhabitants who had their property stolen by the white settlers, presented as being forces of civilization. These factors reveal ideologies such as racism, imperialism, individualism, white male authority and violence that works out as a 'legitimate way of resolving conflicts. Kellner ( 2000, p131)

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During the 1960s a series of realistic westerns portrayed the West as violent and hostile country. Realistic western movies that legitimated and encouraged the violence of the (white) good hero against bad Native Americans Mexicans or villains such as The Missouri Breaks Soldier Blue Minnesota and others where The Great Northfield

represented as visual authorities that exposed

killers and violence that was equally illogical and vicious. The Hollywood western genre deals with oppositions between economic and culture values in a way that allowing the changing configurations of American capitalism. American classic westerns like Red River and Shan expose qualities of individualism, whilst later westerns such as The Professionals and The Wild Bunch validate the technocratic elitist ideology of corporate capitalism.
Ryan and Kellner (1990,pp.79-81)

Gangsters films The gangster genres birth emerged from its historical appearance, during the 20s and 30s, but it became a metaphor very soon. Gangsters films tried to approach the peoples fear of crime and their attraction from criminals word. Gangsters films explored the cultural clashes and contradictions of American

capitalism. The stereotype of ideal capitalist that can do anything to make money could be resulted as a social-political cinematic element of a gangster movie.
Kellner (2000,p131)

The gangster film could be represented as a visual example of the American dream. However, the icon of gangster links with our identification with him as the representative American dreamer whose action and manners engage a living out of the dream, which is common to everyone, who is living configurations and contradictions of American society. The term of versus is living on and is the basic characteristic of the genre, and each illustration point creates a conflict, an opposition and violence.

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The personality of gangster character is not acting the same as an outlaw character. In particular, he breaks the system of social rules, where a group of people leaves under .He is becoming an outcome of urban civilization. Some representative all time classic films that presents the gangster culture straightforwardness are: Little Caesar(1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1983).Their aim is to capture the reality of the gangsters word and his character tried to express with non-metaphoric immediacy, the particulars of his behaviour. In the most gangster films meanings come out, exposing the nature of society and the kind of individuals that creates. Therefore gangster film is a method of expanding a perspective of society by creating new meanings and figures that are outside it. Shadoian, J. (2003,pp.3-30) In contrast with gangster films, in western movies, we more experienced an illustration of scenes of individuals against the lands or civilized (white male authorities-cowboys) against uncivilized (Indians, Mexicans, or villains) forces. The conflict is often outside the realm of a social system as such, although it may bear upon it.

The Arriving Of New Hollywood And The Rating System For the period of the 1950s the studio system, which had formed genre cycles as the mode of production of Hollywood film, began to collapsed. Th e genre system was challenged, and a new rising era for new types of film has begun. Moreover, economic and institutional changes in the film industry contributed to the transformations underway in Hollywood. The failure of the Hollywood genres offered to filmmakers more artistic freedom over their film product than had been the case during the previous period. As a result, this change leads to the film production of more socially critical and innovative films.
(2000,p133) Ryan and Kellner (1988,pp.6) Kellner

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As an explanation of why movies changed so quickly in the 1960s engages with the unexpected limitations over what Hollywood moviemakers could show to public and could not .The incoming of a new production code established in 1968.The aim of this code was to encouraged the absolute need of artistic freedom. This production code developed based on two different objectives: To encourage artistic expression by expanding creative freedom and to assure that the freedom which encourages the artist remains responsible and sensitive to the standards of the larger society.(Mast , 1982:702) The new rating system helped the Hollywood Film industry in management of problematic filmic material. The new aim of production code tends to describe than to judge. Additionally, the reason of change of movies status was the upcoming rising influence of European filmmaking that emerged, after the World War II, on the most US filmmakers. Independent film directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Brian De Palma, greatly influenced by the French Novell vague directors (Goddard, Truffaut and Male), started to make films in Hollywood, and they were able to create films based on their own ideas on moviemaking. (Powers et al.,1996)A new era of cinematic image, came along with three basic narrative points that emphasized the major changes of the New Hollywood period: The rise and decline of 60s radicalism , The failure of liberalism and the rise of New Right in the seventies and The triumph and hegemony o f the right and conservatism of the eighties. Kellner,D.K.(2003) Hollywood films in 1960s under social-political discourses In 1960s young people was the majority of Hollywoods audience. So the arrival of new cycle of films and new directors emerged, a new culture of filmmaking which endorsed more socially, conscious, stylistically and innovative movies. The political-social profile of sixties characterized by social movements such as New Left student, and more social contradictions, civil rights, antiwar movements, feminism consumerism, gay liberation, the hippie counterculture and the general loosening of previous strictures against sex and drugs.
Ryan and Kellner (1988,pp.6) Kellner (2000,p133)

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The sixties also portrayed by alienation of white middle class youth from the qualities values and ideas of American Dream and the image of US on fifties, where the world of suburban houses, corporate jobs straight dress and behaviour, sexual repression, and social conformity were the social values of the preceding era . New Hollywood offered films such us The Graduate Bonnie and Clyde1967, Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider1969 were such a important, suggesting touchstones and supplying points of reference for constructing alternatives.Ryan and Kellner
(1988,pp8-18)

New Hollywood movement developed during the 1960s attempted to transform symbols myths and discourses into particularly cinematic terms and meanings. Popular movies such as Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Medium Cool (1969), and Easy Rider (1969) played a significant political role, while they exposed a basic point of this period. The counter-culture.
Kellner (2000,p134)

A rebellion film of 1967, Bonnie and Clyde supports the romanticism that was common in the late sixties. Bonnie and Clyde images reflect the nature as a metaphor of freedom and equality. A critical cinematic analysis will show evidence of liberation images and spirit of freedom through series of images of open fields instead from the tight focus shot in small town settings, single tone colours, and jaunty banjo music . Ryan and Kellner (1988,p21) Alienation and rebellion films like the popular Easy Rider (1968) exposes the hesitant ideology of sixties, elements like individualism and narcissism. Metaphorical expressions and cinematic symbols of images revealed on the scene The ride of two riders into nature generates a metaphor image of the challenging escape from urban oppression. Moreover the nature is described once again as a utopian space of narcissistic self fulfilment. The imaginary analysis of the movie, focused on the camera movements which is regularly in close ups and the single individual figure is detached in the frame against over coded shots of natural settings. Individualism, alienation and independence came along as counterculture representations elements.
Ryan and Kellner (1988,p23)

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The American imaginary is inseparable from formal cultural representations, where neoexpressionist camera techniques applied in many films, in order to translate a sense of disillusion with bourgeois life and to connote the then prevalent existentialist philosophy of existence. Ryan and Kellner
(1988,p21)

However, it is worth saying that conservative films still made during the sixties. A renaissance of right wing films like Dirty Harry (1971), The French Connection (1971), and John Wayne films were still on the defensive against to liberalism films. Hollywood film, like US society should be seen as a contested terrain and that films could be interpreted as a struggle of representation over how to construct a social world and everyday life. Kellner
(2000,p134)

Hollywood film in 1970s under social-political discourses The social and political background of the decade of 1960 and 1970 could be examined under political and generational contradictions. Social movements of change were in progress: the civil rights movements feminism, gay liberation, the environmental movement, the hippie generation. Political forces attempted to stop these movements, and to turn back the clock influencing the American public mind at same time. The Vietnam War divided the American society into the pieces. Along with all, Americans experienced a series of shock, like the murders of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the oil price shock and resulting inflation, and the Watergate scandal. Furthermore the political background encouraged and empowered conservative positions against liberal movements minorities and feminists, as Nixon counterrevolution has been raised up.

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In the early 1970 was the period that representations of blacks and poor became disturbers of law and order of youth culture on film, diluting the image of victims in the sixties. The decade of 1970s emerged with right -wing cop films starring hard American male authorities like Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. These films were fulfilled with a lot of action, and anger, while studied the unresponsiveness to the rights of minority groups and other social outsiders. So an outline of the early seventies would have to examine a break up in the social and cultural values illustrated by American films, rather focusing on an experimental and socially critical and conscious New Hollywood. lev(2000,pp.12- 13). Also the political stigma of era represented with its best way. The Cold War seems that never ends. In the Star Wars series a very Soviet looking Empire that obviously pictures the bad Russians is successfully blow away by republican (The always good Americans) fighters of freedom. A post Vietnam, militarist films including the (Deer Hunter 1978 ) and (Rambo 1982) stated it clear that the hawks were concluded not let it happen again.
Ryan and Kellner (1988,pp9-11)

Feminism as a term is in challenge. The Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) is a film that exposes the feminism giving a different dimension. The film express that father knows better than a mother. In addition to this film, women whose fight for independence and equal rights, now suffered a vicious and violent male counterattack in the form of horror films like the The Exorcist. As the decade progressed, films that encouraged conservatism were becoming popular.Indicated movies such as the Oscar-winning blockbuster The Godfather (1972), horror classic The Exorcist (1973), Spielberg's Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and Lucas' Star Wars (1977).Rocky, Superman) and Dirty Harry (1971) indicating that conservatism responses were developing in the public mind and that Hollywood was promoting these political currents. Schatz (2003,pp.69-70).
http://www.filmsite.org/70sintro.html

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After a mid seventies period a popular disillusion and projected anxiety were the basic characteristics that developed in disaster and conspiracy films. The success of films like Love Story, Airport, The Godfather and Jaws begun to motivate Hollywood producers to look for blockbuster hits in more predictable and classic genre formulas. For instance movies such as Star Wars and and fantasies of romantic, Superman were the top films of 1977 and 1979

nostalgic, or religious transcendence of the world of inflation, unemployment, and loss of national prestige Grease, Close Encounters, and Animal House were the top films of 1978. Blockbusters were not such easy films that anyone could make critical review, because they specifically focused on children and adolescent audiences of the suburban middle class. Ryan and Kellner
(1988,pp9-11)

It is worth saying that, during the 1970s even films with liberal meanings eventually helped and feeding the conservative cause and sentiments. A cause of liberal political conspiracy films like The Parallax View (1974),All the Presidents Men (1976) The Domino Principle (1977), Winter Kills (1979) criticized the state. Consequently, such of these films, argued strongly that government was the main cause of existing evil. Even the social and conscious films such as the Jane Fonda films Network 1976 and other Sidney Lumet films exposed individual solutions against to social problems, and thus strengthen by accident the conservative appeal to individualism and the attack on system. Also the resurgence of private and police detective films like Serpico (1973) and Chinatown (1974) enriched with liberal ethos the seventies portrayed a society that is controlled by corrupt economic and political elites. One important key element is that under political perspective Hollywood films of the 1970, politically allowed one to anticipate the coming of Reagan to power, in the early eighties demonstrating that conservative desires were ever more popular within the film. Kellner ( 2000,p134)

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Hollywood film in 1980s under social-political discourses With the election of Reagan in 1980, the conservative wave of films remained as the principal film tendency. Films that promote right-wing positions about feminism, Terms of Endearment (1983) (Rambo) war, Risky Business(1983) economics, and social structure Return of Jedi (1983) were in common during this time. Conservative ideologies were in challenge with liberal and radical film like Missing (1982) Reds (1981), Salvador (1986) Platoon (1986) and other Oliver Stone films as well as wealth of films by independent filmmakers like John Sayles and Spike lee. Movies such as Rambo, Red Dawn, Missing in Action, Top Gun, represents violently right-wing positions on war militarism while, set the communism under soft and hardcore propaganda in the name of Reaganism.
Ryan and Kellner (1988,pp9-11)

The imaginary examination of Rambo exposes scenes revealing the American heroism against to communist threat as Kellner observes : Close ups of the communist villains, by contrast, focus on their sneering and sadistic pleasure in torturing, while the battle scenes depict the communists predominantly in long shots as insignificant and incompetent pawns in Rambos redemptive heroism. The Rambos triumph represented as a conservativeimperialist-militarist fantasy which translates and exposes the Reagans anticommunists and pro militarists discourses. However movies like ,Missing, Under Fire, Salvador, Latino, and other left liberal films harshly challenge the right wing vision of Central America and ruling bourgeois cliques as bad guys in common settings that are sympathetic to rebels and those struggling against U.S imperialism. During the preceding era of 1980s a range of this post-Vietnam films (Rolling Thunder (1977), Firefox (1982), First Blood (1982) films revealed, the victory spirit of United States while display a refuse to accept any defeat. These films also engage with symbolic compensation for loss shame and guiltiness by presenting United States as good and triumphant, whilst its communist enemies are represented as the representative of evil, who this time receive a well defeat.
Kellner ( 2003,pp.75-76)

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On the other hand, all Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris movies can be reproduce meanings of victimization of the working class. Many working class youth were being well-educated by these movies and choose the military as the only solution to find a job. For instance a very popular Tony Scotts Top Gun

(1986) radically increased the number of applicants at U.S navy recruitment centers. Reagans most popular political acts like his invasion of Grenada and the bombing of Libya that precisely illustrated in Rambo, Top Gun , Iron Eagle and other war - militarist epics. Jowett and Odonnel (2006, p117) Kellner,D.K.(2003,pp.75-78) Also gender struggles emerged in mainly intense with the coming of values of masculinity replacing the more feminized male heroes of the late 1960s and early 1970s.As part of the reaction in opposition to feminism there was also a series of films that showing of independent women, career women without families being driven into pathological attitude .(Fatal Attack 1987, Basic Instinct 1992 ,the Hand that Rocks the cradle 1992 and so on). Kellner( 2000,p134) Contemporary Hollywood As we go into the new world era of the twenty-first century, we could put to ourselves to answer the following question: Are we merely part of a post-modern mediated age which refuses any notion of consensual reality? During the nineties, Hollywood movie image has developed the modes of spectacle in a large scale and impact. However, since the 1980s Hollywood image industry has begun to engage with the benefits of digital post production technologies and the computer-generated imagery. Nowadays, everyone could realize that the spectacular values of the audio-visual experiences have become gradually more important to Hollywood in recently years. James Cameron, Paul Verhoeven, Joel Schumacher and Ronald Emmerich has been considered as persons who dealt with the appliance of Cilicon Graphics Interface era in cinematic image. Dinosaurs, sinking ships, fantastic cities, spaceships, alien landscapes, explosions, war, and disasters are some of the basic characteristics in the contemporaryblockbuster Hollywood cinema.

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All the above characteristics, creates the world of Spectacle, which is undoubtedly a very important cinematic element for contemporary blockbuster cinema.Hollywood blockbuster movies employ to enlarge, the appeal of spectacular audio visual effects, whilst the narrative term is often becoming a victim.The spectacle could be seen as a visual cause of distraction or interruption.Now, our concentration on narrative development faces a great obstacle as we just sit back, like being in trance, watching with amazement/ pleasure /horror the sheer sensory richness of the audio visual experience like the special effects of T- Rex in the Jurassic Park, the iceberg and the sinking of Titanic, and amazing explosive action or the coming of the doomsday on earth.
King(2002,p176-179) Davies and Wells(2002,p3-6)

However, there have been some films in the nineties that found a balance between audiovisual effects and narrative. Such a film is The Matrix which is a successful amalgam of philosophical issues with cinematic spectacle.The Matrix is a Hollywood blockbuster that actually uses the narrative with a loop of simulation. Interestingly, it is not only the plot that serves the notion of simulation, it is also the whole structuring processes of the Matrix phenomenon which operates as a postmodern simulation which questions the new reality that consists of a multitude of simulacra.
http://cinetext.philo.at/magazine/ozturk/simulation_reloaded.html

The basic question of the movie is "What is real and what a dream is?" Morpheus explains: "The Matrix is everything, it is all around us. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to shield you from the truth. " Moreover, in the movie can be found analogies to Marxs and Debords ideas. Here, science in the form of Artificial Intelligence -conspiracy controls an earth almost destroyed by human technology and seeks, if necessary the extermination of human. http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/spectacle_and_inter.html

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Moving image and audience

From what we have said so far, someone may think that the role of the audience when watching films is simply passive. Indeed, even the everyday use of the term audience implies passivity. However, a member of a movie audience is not a typical passive unit lost within the mass. As Perkins argues that movie audiences are ''participant observers''. The way in which each member of the audience precisely participate depends on his individual characteristics, mood, situation, and unlimited other factors experienced in his daily life. Watching movies is a part of persons socialization and interaction within the society. When a viewer watches a movie, he interacts with social discources and he also, enjoys, hates, learns from, and ...believes. In other words, by watching a movie, a person extends his own world. The most technological developments of film have served the individuals senses. For instance, the development of wider screens and better sound systems enlarged on what it was previously the case. Watching television in home, in a familiar and visible physical environment, bears with it something of everyday experience. Watching a movie in the cinema is something different. For example, it is instructive to watch A Space Odyssey in Cinerama in 70mm and in normal wide screen. Viewing a movie in the cinema'' is an assault on the sensations impossible to avoid''. Tudor
(1974,pp74-76)

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Conclusion In this essay we examined the never-ending relationship between film and social history. Films can transform the discourses such as the forms, figures and representations of social life into cinematic texts and narratives. In addition, film is a social terrain of cultural representation that carries political and social struggles. From the innovation of cinema, films have become an important part of that broader cultural system of representations that reality is made of.Moreover, we tried to analyze the significant role of moving image as a medium for the development of ideology and consciousness, throughout the twentieth century. We have examined instances in different part of the world and in different eras in order to see how the moving image has been applied as a control tool for manipulation of the masses. In particular, we examined in detail , which groups or individual have controlled the moving image for their innocent or otherwise purposes and finally, what influences and impacts these movies have had on the audience and therefore on us, as individual members of society.

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Reference List Bibliography

Ryan,M. and kellner,D.(1990) Camera politica the politica and ideology of contemporary Hollywood film. 1st ed., Midland book edition Tudor,A. ( 1974) Image and Influence studies in the sociology of film.1st ed., The Gresham Press Old working , Surrey MacCann,D.M. (1964) Film and society. Charles Scribners Sons Powers,S.,Rothman,J.D., and Rothman,S. (1996) Hollywoods America Social and Political Themes in Motion picture. Westview Press, A Division of Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.

Debord,G.(1983) Society Of Spectacle. Rebel Press Jowett,G.and ODonnell,V. th persuasion.4 ed,.Sage (2006) Propaganda and

Hill, J., Gibson,C.P., Dyer,R. E., Kaplan,A., and Willemen,P.(2000) American Cinema and Hollywood: Critical Approaches. New York: Oxford University Press. Shadoian,J.(2003) Dreams & dead ends: the American gangster film. Oxford University Press US Marx, K., Friedrich E., Arthur, C. J.(1970) The German ideology. International Publishers Co Schatz, T. (2003) Hollywood: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies. Taylor & Francis. Lev, P.( 2000) American Films of the '70s: Conflicting Visions. University of Texas Press Davies, P. Wells, P (2002) American film and politics from Reagan to Bush Jr. Manchester University Press

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By King, G.( 2000 ) Spectacular narratives: Hollywood in the age of the blockbuster. I.B.Tauris King, G (2002) New Hollywood cinema: an introduction. I.B.Tauris

Web-sources
History news network, (23rd June 2003) articles.[online] [cited 29 April 2009]. < http://hnn.us/articles/1521.html> Cinetext film and philosophy (5th August 2003) text [online][cited 29April 2009] <http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/spectacle_and_inter.html> The greatest films. The "Greatest" and the "Best" in Cinematic History [online] [cited 29 April 2009] <http://www.filmsite.org/70sintro.html>

Movies references
Triumph of Will (1935) Film. Directed by Leni Riefenstahl.Germany,Youtube Battleship Potemkin (1925) Film. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.ex-USSR, University Of Wolverhampton Harrison Learning center. Matrix (2003) Film. Directed by Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski. DVD disk format

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