Stardom

Welcome to Movie Stars, Stardom & Modern Fame

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Taught by nationally known film critic Ty Burr, this class considers movie stars, film stardom, and pop culture fame from the silent era to the 21st century, establishing key personality and social types, tracing the rise and fall of the cinematic celebrity, and discussing the move from movie screen to TV screen to computer screen as stardom – or the social construct we call by that name – comes within the grasp of the audience.

Intro to the Class
Class Descriptions

To students of Movie Stars, Stardom and Modern Fame –

Thanks for your interest and welcome to the class! When you have a chance, please look at the syllabus, which can be found at CineJourneys at the Course Hub. There you’ll find all the information you’ll need pertaining to session topics, readings and more. Here is a video from CineJourneys (also available on the Course Hub) that will guide you through the process of accessing the course and course materials:

The course consists of ten lectures, each 90 -120 minutes. That sounds long, but there are plenty of film clips and lots of names, historical developments and ideas – the time goes quite quickly.
There’s no coursework – you’re not in college anymore! – but there are readings available to you via a Dropbox link in the course section on CineJourneys. The readings are not required nor will there be a quiz, but I’ve noted which ones are recommended and which ones are useful/interesting for additional information. How much or how little you delve into the readings is up to you.
The exception is my 2013 book, Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame, which is not in Dropbox but can be found at your local library or purchased on Amazon or (preferably) bookshop.org. Again, this is in no way required, but it does offer additional information that can broaden your understanding of the history and themes we’ll be discussing.
Another useful book on the subject is David Thomson’s New Biographical Dictionary of Film; good for dipping into and arguing with.

IMPORTANT: Prior to the first lecture, you should try to watch three films, two shorts and one feature, that are available on YouTube via the Course Hub and that will be helpful to following the discussion. They are “The New York Hat” (1910), with Mary Pickford; “The Pawnshop” (1916), with Charlie Chaplin: and “Show People” (1928), with Marion Davies. (The title links will take you directly to YouTube; links are also available in the syllabus.)

In the case of “Show People,” consider what it is saying to audiences (in 1928 and now) about what stardom gives and takes away, and think, too, about how truthful it’s being. The movie is one of the first to take audiences behind the camera and tell them the real star, of celebrity and fame. But is it just another concocted Hollywood fiction, and if so, what’s the message it imparts? And why do we, as audiences, seem to need the real story however concocted, in the first place?

Since these are some of the ideas we’ll be chewing over in the class, this is a good place to start nibbling.

I truly hope you get as much enjoyment and insight from this course as I enjoyed teaching it. If you have any questions about anything pertaining to the class, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I can be reached by email at ty@cinejourneys.com

Best,
TB

P.S. – Keep an eye on the CineJourneys homepage for occasional scheduled live conversations as an ongoing addendum to Movie Stars, Stardom and Modern Fame.

Class 1: Introduction to the course. Stardom before the cinema and in the early cinema. Florence Lawrence: The invention of the movie star. The first superstars, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin
Class 2: The Silent Era: Female archetypes from Pickford to Clara Bow. Male movie stars and archetypes. Silent scandals and how they changed celebrity, the film industry, and 1920s culture.
Class 3: The Talkie revolution and the Depression: The star playing field gets upended, demolished, redefined. The Studio Years, part 1: the Production Code and its impact on star and character presentation
Class 4: The Studio Years, The 1930s: The movie factory and its new archetypes. House style of the individual studios. “Gone with the Wind” and the search for Scarlett.
Class 5 : The Studio Years, The 1940s. Character actors. WWI and the post-WWII era. New archetypes, adjusting star personas, the rise of film noir. Brando and Marilyn.
Class 6: The Rise of the Counterculture, Part 1: The 1950s. Television and the small-screen star; international stars; the rock ‘n’ roll explosion and expansion of star personas into popular music
Class 7: The Rise of the Counterculture, Part 2: The 1960s. the decline of the studio factory system and the rise of the “realistic” new Hollywood star; the flowering of the African-American star; the Warhol Factory; political star personas
Class 8: The 1970s through the 1990s: The death of the new realism and the reassertion of glamour. The cult of the dead star. The growth of the celebrity industry. Alt-stardom and its conceits. Star permutations in the modern marketplace.
Class 9: The rise of the Internet its affect on the culture of fame.
Class 10: The 2000s and 2010s: New variations on old archetypes; Darwinian stars; The multimedia/multi-platform revolution; the new democracy of celebrity. Stardom in the Trump Era: The Battle for Reality.