I appreciate the insightful remarks of James Schamus and Harriet
Margolis in response to my noting postmodern traces in 1930s and
40s low budget filmmaking. James is quite right to question my
implied valorization of "self-consciousness". What I should have
more carefully indicated was the belief that some of the "B" (for
lack of a better word) filmmakers were indeed intentionally
either artistically or for other reasons stretching the bounds of
convention in narrative and-or visual technique. I noted this in
the perhaps mistaken anticipation that the assumption would be
that such filmmakers would be regarded as merely after the bottom
line, getting the picture ground through on time and moving
automatically to the next project with little if any creativity.
Harriet and James have also effectively noted the multiplicity of
methodologies in approaching such popular culture.
Brian Taves
Motion Picture Division, Library of Congress
Tavesmail.loc.gov
P.S. These opinions may or may not reflect those of the Library.