Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Films*
Allen, Michael Patrick.
Lincoln, Anne E.
Social Forces, Volume 82, Number 3, March 2004, pp. 871-893 (Article)
Abstract
In 1989, when the National Film Preservation Board selected the first 25 films
to be included in the National Film Registry, one of the films chosen was The
* The authors are indebted to John Campbell, Mary Blair-Loy, Paul DiMaggio, Denise Bielby,
William Bielby, John Mohr, Michael Schudson, Gary Alan Fine, Tom Rotolo, Greg Hooks, Amy
Wharton, and the members of the Social Inequalities Workshop at Washington State University
for their comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Please direct all correspondence to
Michael P. Allen, Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-
4020. E-mail: allenm@wsu.edu.
© The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, March 2004, 82(3):871-894
872 / Social Forces 82:3, March 2004
Searchers, a western directed by John Ford. Nine years later, the American Film
Institute included it among the “100 greatest American films of all time.” The
consecration of this film by these two cultural institutions from the tens of
thousands of American films produced over the past century was paradoxical
on a number of counts. Although The Searchers was one of the top ten films of
1956 in terms of box-office income, it did not garner any professional awards
or much critical acclaim when it was released. It was not among the 28
American films that were nominated for major Academy Awards that year.
Moreover, it was not included among the ten best films selected by either the
New York Times or the National Board of Review in 1956. Last but not least, it
did not receive any awards from the New York Film Critics Circle. In the words
of the reviewer for Variety, the major trade publication of the film industry,
The Searchers was “repetitious” and “overlong.” Similar unfavorable criticisms
were expressed by Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, the most influential
film critic in America at the time. Nevertheless, the consecration of The
Searchers four decades after its release is important because it illustrates some
of the intricacies of the process of cultural consecration.
Sociologists have devoted considerable attention to the manner in which
the reputations of cultural producers and their products are created and
perpetuated (Becker 1982; Corse & Griffin 1997; DeNora 1995; Dowd et al.
2002; Kapsis 1992; Lamont 1987; Lang & Lang 1988), but they have paid much
less attention to more formal processes of retrospective cultural consecration
(Bourdieu 1991; Zolberg 1990). This lack of attention to formal processes of
cultural consecration is somewhat surprising given the fact that the conferring
of honors, awards, and prizes is a pervasive and highly visible aspect of everyday
life (Goode 1978; Levy 1990). There have been a number of historical studies
of the processes by which scientists receive Nobel Prizes (Feldman 2000) or
athletes are elected to the Hall of Fame (James 1994). However, these studies
have been largely descriptive and atheoretical. There have been no systematic
analyses of more formal processes of cultural consecration. Specifically, cultural
consecration occurs whenever distinctions are imposed that serve to separate
individuals and achievements that are worthy of admiration and respect from
those that are not. According to Bourdieu (1991:119-20), cultural consecration
is an act of “social magic” that produces “discontinuity out of continuity.” Of
course, the most important distinctions are those that are imposed by cultural
institutions that can legitimately claim that function (DiMaggio 1992).
Consecration is especially important within the field of cultural production,
where cultural producers struggle primarily for legitimacy rather than profits
(Bourdieu 1993). Ironically, the process of cultural consecration is often more
formalized in those fields of cultural production that are less autonomous from
the field of economic production. Writers whose books are popular may be
ignored by critics, scholars, and other writers. However, they are more difficult
to ignore if their works have won important awards and prizes (Todd 1996).
The Cultural Consecration of American Films / 873
In many cases, cultural producers and their products are consecrated
retrospectively rather than contemporaneously. In the field of fine art, the
ultimate form of cultural consecration is to be the subject of a retrospective
exhibition by a major museum (Heinich 1996). Indeed, cultural organizations
and institutions sometimes endeavor to establish the legitimacy of a field of
cultural production by identifying the most exemplary achievements by cultural
producers within that field over a prolonged period of time. These acts of
retrospective consecration are based on the premise that only the most
legitimate cultural producers and cultural products survive the “test of time”
(Becker 1982:365). This assumption was explicit in the retrospective
consecration projects conducted by both the National Film Registry and the
American Film Institute.
Previous studies of artistic reputations have consisted primarily of
qualitative analyses of the historical processes by which certain individuals have
established their reputations as artists. Very few studies (Lang & Lang 1988)
have examined historical changes in the reputations of different cultural
producers and products over time. None of these studies has examined the
more formal process of retrospective cultural consecration. This research
proposes a theory of retrospective cultural consecration and examines the
empirical adequacy of this theory as it applies to American films. To this end,
it examines the implicit criteria employed by both the American Film Institute
and the National Film Registry in selecting films for retrospective consecration.
The analysis is based on a sample of 1,277 films released from 1929 to 1991
that received popular, professional, or critical recognition at the time of their
release. It examines those factors that affect the likelihood of a film being
retrospectively consecrated, including the extent of its contemporaneous
recognition, its age, and the extent of critical discourse about the film and its
director. Finally, it examines the extent to which cultural schemas, which frame
the discourse about films and their directors, affect the retrospective
consecration of American films.
only the age of a film and popular recognition as independent variables. This
model reveals that only age of film has a positive effect on the odds of
consecration. Model 2 includes the age of a film and various forms of
professional recognition as independent variables. It reveals that the age of a
film and receiving Academy Award nominations for best picture, best director
and best screenwriter have positive effects on the odds of consecration. Model 3
includes the age of a film and various forms of critical recognition as
independent variables. This model reveals that the age of a film, being selected
among the ten best films of the year by the New York Times and the National
Board of Review, and receiving an award from the New York Film Critics for
best director have positive effects on the likelihood of retrospective consecration
by the National Film Registry.
Model 4 in Table 2 includes the age of a film and all these various measures
of popular, professional, and critical recognition as independent variables.
The Cultural Consecration of American Films / 885
When these variables are considered simultaneously, only age of film, receiving
Academy Award nominations for best picture, best director, and best
screenwriter, being selected among the best ten films of the year by the New
York Times, and receiving a New York Film Critics award for best director have
significant positive effects on the odds of consecration. However, receiving an
Academy Award nomination for best art director has a marginally significant
positive effect on the odds of consecration. Finally, model 5 includes these
variables as well as the two measures of critical discourse as independent
variables. Once again, it reveals that both the number of books about the
director of a film and the number of anthology entries about a film have
significant independent effects on the odds of retrospective consecration by
the National Film Registry. Moreover, receiving an Academy Award nomination
for best screenwriter and receiving a New York Film Critics award for best
director also have positive significant effects on the likelihood of retrospective
consecration.
These results of these analyses require further explication on two points.
First, the fact that the effects of receiving an Academy Award nomination for
best director and best picture are not statistically significant in the final model
for retrospective consecration by the National Film Registry can be attributed,
at least in part, to the fact that these two measures of professional recognition
are highly correlated (0.614). If either variable is deleted from this model, the
other becomes statistically significant. Indeed, the correlation between these
two measures of professional consecration suggests that even members of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences associate the excellence of a film
with the achievements of its director. Second, it must be noted that the extent
of critical discourse received by a film is undoubtedly affected by the popular,
professional, and critical recognition that it receives at the time of its release.
The final models in both Table 1 and Table 2 examine only the direct effects
of these independent variables. The total effects of these variables, including
their indirect effects through the critical discourse variables, are more
substantial and significant than their direct effects. Indeed, that is the reason
why the effects of these independent variables are examined separately in these
models.
As one might expect, there are a number of similarities between the results
presented in Table 1 and those presented in Table 2. In both sets of analyses, it
is apparent that the contemporaneous recognition received by the director,
either in terms of Academy Award nominations for best director or New York
Film Critics awards for best director, has a positive effect on the odds of
retrospective consecration. The extent of critical discourse about a film, in terms
of the number of anthology entries, and the extent of critical discourse about
its director, in terms of the number of books about the director, also have a
positive effect on the odds of retrospective consecration. However, there are
important differences between these two analyses as well. Popular recognition,
886 / Social Forces 82:3, March 2004
TABLE 3: Mean Number of Books about Director and Mean Number of
Entries in Film Anthologies for Contemporaneously Recognized
Films and Retrospectively Consecrated Films, 1929–1991
in the form of being among the top ten films in a given year in terms of box-
office revenue, has an effect on the likelihood of being retrospectively
consecrated by the American Film Institute but not by the National Film
Registry. Indeed, the odds ratios suggest that receiving an Academy Award
nomination for best director has a much greater effect on the odds of
retrospective consecration by the American Film Institute than it has on the
odds of retrospective consecration by the National Film Registry.
A comparison of the goodness-of-fit statistics for these two models indicates
that the variables used in this analysis account for the selections of the American
Film Institute better than they account for the selections of the National Film
Registry. Overall, the similarities between these two analyses suggest that the
implicit criteria employed in these retrospective consecration projects are similar
but not identical. Indeed, it is possible to measure directly the association
between the results of these two independent retrospective consecration
projects. As noted earlier, the 1,277 contemporaneously recognized films in the
sample include 131 of the 202 narrative sound films selected for the National
Film Registry and 83 of the 93 narrative sound films selected by the American
Film Institute. Altogether, there are 65 films that are on both lists. The Yule’s
Q for the association between the list of best films identified by the American
The Cultural Consecration of American Films / 887
Film Institute and the list of best films identified by the National Film Registry
is 0.958. In short, prior knowledge of whether films are on one list reduces the
errors in predicting whether they are also on the other list by 95.8 percent
(Bishop, Fienberg & Holland 1975:387-89). By this criterion, it is apparent that
these two retrospective consecration projects yield very similar results.
It can be argued that the accumulation of extensive critical discourse about
a film and its director contributes to the formation of a consensus that it is
worthy of retrospective consecration. Table 3 presents the mean number of
books about the directors and the mean number of entries in film anthologies
for the films in the sample. It is apparent that those films that are consensus
selections for retrospective consecration, those selected by both the American
Film Institute and the National Film Registry, have significantly more books
about their directors and more entries in film anthologies than films selected
by only one of these two institutions. Moreover, those films that were selected
either by the American Film Institute or the National Film Registry have
significantly more books about their directors and more entries in film
anthologies than films that received only contemporaneous popular,
professional, or critical recognition. In short, those films that are consensus
selections for retrospective consecration are the objects of much more critical
discourse than other films. Indeed, the 65 films that were consensus selections
for retrospective consecration had four times as many entries in anthologies
as did other contemporaneously recognized films. Similarly, the directors of
these films had twice as many books written about them as did the directors
of the other films in the sample.
Finally, the theory proposed in this study argues that the particular
discourse of value applied to films has a differential effect on their likelihood
of being retrospectively consecrated. The ascendancy of auteur theory as a
cultural schema in films studies serves not only to privilege the contributions
of directors over those of other collaborators in the production of films, it also
serves to privilege some directors over others. Although there is no definitive
directory of auteur directors, they have generally been the subjects of more
books by film scholars than other directors. Table 4 presents a list of the 29
directors who had two or more films selected for retrospective consecration,
at least one by the American Film Institute and at least one other by the
National Film Registry. It also presents the number of Academy Award
nominations received by these directors and the number of books written about
them. The number of books written about each of these 29 directors is closely
related to the number of their films selected by either the American Film
Institute (r = 0.381) or the National Film Registry (r = 0.414). Although the
number of Academy Award nominations received by these directors is also
closely related to the number of their films selected by the American Film
888 / Social Forces 82:3, March 2004
TABLE 4: Number of Retrospectively Consecrated Films, Number of
Academy Award Nominations, and Number of Books about
Director for 27 Directors with Two or More Retrospectively
Consecrated Films, 1929–1991
Alfred Hitchcock 4 5 5 42
John Ford 3 6 5 8
Steven Spielberg 5 3 4 19
Billy Wilder 4 4 8 10
William Wyler 3 4 12 5
Martin Scorsese 3 4 3 14
Francis Ford Coppola 3 4 4 9
Stanley Kubrick 3 3 4 12
Frank Capra 3 3 6 16
George Stevens 3 3 5 1
John Huston 3 3 5 10
Howard Hawks 1 5 1 9
Michael Curtiz 2 4 4 4
George Cukor 2 3 5 9
Elia Kazan 2 3 5 12
David Lean 3 2 7 6
Robert Wise 2 3 3 1
Vincente Minnelli 1 4 2 6
George Lucas 2 2 2 7
Orson Welles 1 3 1 21
Woody Allen 1 2 6 23
Robert Altman 1 2 4 9
Sam Peckinpah 1 2 0 5
Milos Forman 2 1 3 3
Fred Zinneman 2 1 7 2
Lewis Milestone 2 1 5 2
Leo McCarey 1 2 3 1
Franklin Schaffner 1 1 1 1
Victor Fleming 1 1 1 0
Institute (0.533), it is not closely related to the number of their films selected
by the National Film Registry (0.178).
Given the ascendancy of auteur theory, it is not surprising to find that many
of the retrospectively consecrated films were directed by auteur directors. The
two directors with the most retrospectively consecrated films, John Ford and
Alfred Hitchcock, have been the subjects of several books and were identified
by one influential proponent of auteur theory (Sarris 1968) as “pantheon
directors.” Indeed, two other “pantheon directors” on this list, Orson Welles
and Howard Hawks, have both been the subjects of several books even though
The Cultural Consecration of American Films / 889
they each received only one best director nomination during their careers. At
the same time, however, there are directors who are associated with several
retrospectively consecrated films despite the fact that they have been the
subjects of relatively few books. For example, neither George Stevens nor
Michael Curtiz is generally considered to be an auteur director even though
they received several Academy Awards nominations for best director during
their careers. In these cases, the particular films directed by these directors were
retrospectively consecrated because the films themselves received
contemporaneous professional and critical recognition and have been the
subjects of considerable discourse in the form of entries in film anthologies.
For example, George Stevens directed A Place in the Sun and Michael Curtiz
directed Casablanca. Both of these films garnered Academy Award nominations
for both best picture and best director and are routinely mentioned in film
anthologies.
Conclusions
This research provides considerable empirical confirmation for the theoretical
propositions advanced by this study concerning the process of retrospective cultural
consecration, especially as it applies to films. In general, the extent of
professional and critical recognition received by the director of a film has
substantial positive effects on its likelihood of being retrospectively consecrated.
In addition, the extent of subsequent critical discourse about a film and its
director has significant positive effects on its odds of retrospective consecration.
Indeed, the fact that older films have often been the subject of more articles
and books than newer films may account for the finding that age does not have
any effect on the retrospective consecration of films. Moreover, despite the fact
that the National Film Registry has a slightly broader mandate than did the
American Film Institute in selecting films of cultural, historical, or aesthetic
significance, the two retrospective consecration projects achieved very similar
results. Those narrative films selected by one institution were very likely to be
chosen by the other. However, films that received popular recognition at the
time of their release were more likely to be retrospectively consecrated by the
American Film Institute than they were by the National Film Registry.
In general, these findings confirm the argument that the valorization and
retrospective consecration of cultural producers and products is influenced, at least
to some extent, by the activities of reputational entrepreneurs who are responsible
for producing much of the discourse within a field of cultural production (Fine
1996). With the emergence of film studies as an academic discipline, a large
volume of discourse, in the form of articles and books about films and their
directors, is produced each year. Film critics and scholars are able to act as
reputational entrepreneurs by choosing to study some directors and their films
890 / Social Forces 82:3, March 2004
and ignore other directors and their films. At the same time, however, these
findings suggest that the cultural authority exercised by these film critics and
scholars is constrained by the cultural schemas employed in this discourse.
Given the ascendancy of auteur theory as a discourse of value within film
studies, critics and scholars are often compelled to frame their aesthetic
judgments of films in terms of the contributions of their directors. Moreover,
once certain directors have been identified as auteurs, it is difficult for film
critics and scholars to ignore them or their films. The fact that John Ford is
considered as an auteur director and George Seaton is not may be the primary
reason why The Searchers was retrospectively consecrated and The Country Girl
was not.
The results of these analyses also reveal some of the limitations of auteur
theory. Auteur directors, those who have been subjects of numerous books, are
more likely to have their films retrospectively consecrated than other directors.
The films of less celebrated directors may be retrospectively consecrated but
only if they received sufficient professional, critical, and popular recognition
at the time of their release. Moreover, this theory does not explain why some
directors and their films were the subjects of more books and articles than other
directors and their films. Some very accomplished directors, who have received
considerable professional or critical recognition, have not been the subjects of
very many articles or books. It is beyond the scope of this analysis to explain
why some directors are considered auteurs by film scholars and critics while
others are dismissed as mere technicians. There is some evidence that the
original proponents of auteur theory favored those directors who were seen
to possess a distinct and consistent cinematic style (Hiller 1985). In short, these
theorists argued that auteur directors, by their characteristic use of lighting,
camera, and staging, left an identifiable imprint on their films (Bordwell &
Thompson 1993). Whatever the criteria, this discourse produced by the early
contributors to the French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma and later American
proponents of auteur theory (Sarris 1968) has had a profound effect on the
artistic reputations of certain directors and their films.
In recent years, auteur theory has been supplemented by a number of other
film theories, such as genre theory and feminist theory. These alternative
cultural schemas, which are more interpretative than evaluative in nature, have
enabled film scholars to examine the historical and cultural influences on both
film production (Schatz 1988) and audience reception (Jenkins 1995).
However, auteur theory remains the predominant discourse of value with
respect to films (Corrigan 1991; Dudley 1993). Its appeal can be attributed, in
part, to the romantic assumption that one person, namely the director, is
ultimately responsible for the aesthetic merits of a film. Moreover, auteur
theory is popular as an evaluative theory because it invites comparisons among
the films directed by the same director. Finally, unlike most of the other cultural
schemas applied to films, auteur theory is both simple and accessible. At the
The Cultural Consecration of American Films / 891
same time, the ascendancy of auteur theory as the dominant form of discourse
in film studies and film criticism has served to privilege the contributions of
directors over those of other creative artists involved in the production of those
films (Crofts 1998; Schatz 1988). The problem of ascertaining the contributions
of various creative artists to a given film is complicated by the fact that
accomplished directors typically collaborate with other accomplished actors,
screenwriters, and cinematographers (Faulkner & Anderson 1987).
The results of this study have implications for the development of more
general theories of cultural valorization and consecration that are applicable
to other fields of cultural production. In particular, these results indicate that
theories of collective memory are relevant to the process of retrospective
cultural valorization and consecration. Specifically, the fact that certain cultural
producers have achieved the status of brand labels contributes to the likelihood
that their products will be valorized and consecrated (Lang & Lang 1988).
These results also confirm that cultural valorization and consecration are
greatly affected by the intellectual and critical discourse surrounding certain
cultural products and their producers (Shrum 1996). Critics and scholars, who
produce this intellectual and critical discourse, may serve as reputational
entrepreneurs, but their intellectual authority is derived from their ability to
frame their aesthetic judgments within the context of specific cultural schemas
(Beisel 1993; DiMaggio 1997). Finally, the results of consecration projects are
important because they provide valuable insights into the cultural schemas
employed by various groups and organizations. In so doing, they reveal both
the strengths and the limitations of various discourses of value.
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