Singin' in the Rain

During the 50s many great advances in the film industry came about. The movie Singin’ in the Rain 1952 was one of the first motion pictures with sound both recorded along with the acting, and also added to the background of the taped footage. The most famous song performed of course is what the movie is named after. In class we took a look at this number performed in the original version of the movie from 1952, and later we saw the same song performed in a dramatically different light. “Singin’ in the Rain” appeared again nineteen years later in an almost scarily unique movie named “A Clockwork Orange” directed by Stanley Kubrick. Singing in the Rain and A Clockwork Orange were created during two drastically different points in our country’s history. One could even argue that during the almost twenty years between the releases of both, the United States went through the most significant change of our country’s past.

                The 1950’s was still a decade that was full of rules, church views, family values and hardworking American’s with one view morals. During this time our country was involved both in Korea during the war and also in the Space race with the soviet’s launch of Sputnik. Because of all of these things the government was trying to put out media that only soothed tensions and ideas at home. Not a lot about the war or soviet relations was released, and the main focus of many directors was to make movies that will keep focus here, and also make people happy, with entertainers such as Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Marlon Brando. The version of “singin’ in the rain” performed in the original movie was a happy number sung solely by the main character as he dances around tapping his feet and swinging on lampposts. This shows a happy go lucky attitude that the film industry aimed to put across in hopes of easing the public’s nerves.

                From the beginning on the 1960’s to the beginning of the 1970’s when A Clockwork Orange was released (1971) the United States took an immense turn and has never gone back to its conservative ways since.  Many social revolutions occurred during this time which was nicknamed the “cultural age”.  Sexism and racism both relaxed, and radical and new trends emerged. Many think our nation was reversing their rigid culture of the previous decade with unattainable demands, and break free of these social constraints through drastic digression from the norm. This explains why the second time “singing in the Rain” was performed in a movie that was made almost twenty years later; the delivery was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Acted out while abusing a tied up man, and going to rape his wife, the new message was not joyfulness, but rather an image with a deeper and more intense message.

Art and Technology

While discussing popular entertainment and how it played a major role in shaping the culure of America, s a class we examined some U.S. history to get a better grasp on how entertainment evolved in our own history not just in that of the world. A major part of American culture in the 20th century was the beginning of the Jazz music era. This was a defining segway into defining our own sense of unity. The origin of jazz music is by African American musicians in the south during the early 20th century. At this time many black musicians were trying very hard to get into the music game, and took musical traditions from both Africa and Europe to develope this popular style of music which consisted of notes from "blue's" songs along with polyrythms and improvised playing as well. The most interesting link I found while researching this topic is named "A Passion for Jazz" http://www.apassion4jazz.net/ and has links discussing everything about jazz music from milestones in the history of this genre, to a timeline, to musician tips and a photo gallery.

While still discussing American culture and how it was shaped by not only entertainment, but by many other major factors in our country's history, there is no way to skip over the stock market crash. The "stock market crash" of 1929 was when all the stocks on Wall Street crashed leading to a major downfall that lasted an entire month. This was preceeded by a period of decline in industrialized nations and also by declining real estate values. During these days, a majority of the population of Americans decided to sell or trade shares from the stock market, or to try and liquidate their funds from the bank. When this happened  all at once in a big panic, the market could no longer keep up and inevitably crash. The loss during this single week in 1929 was $30 billion.

The eonomic crisis we are currently in today is said to be the worst fincancial crisis since the great depression of the 1930's. Triggered by a shortfall of liquidity in the U.S. banking system, the effects have been grand and significant. These include the need for some national banks to be bailed out, the failure of several large financial institutions, suffering of housing markets, and even risidual effects that have caused downturns in stockmarkets across the world. With so much new technology and banking systems, much more seems to be at stake during this crisis (which could cause a tidal wave of crashing markets across the world).