Download pdf
A Discussion of Hollywood's 1940s-1960s Film Reproduction History under Bazin's Film Theory: Taking Casablanca (1942) and Singin' in the Rain (1952) as Examples
- 1 Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry (CMII), University College London, London, United Kingdom
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The period from WWII to the 1950s marked Hollywood’s rapid evolution. Drawing on André Bazin’s theories about cinema’s intrinsic link to reality and its documentary function, this paper examines Casablanca (1942) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952) to analyze how Hollywood narratives mirrored sociohistorical contexts while reflecting contemporary political, economic, and cultural influences. Casablanca, though framed as a romance, emerged during WWII’s final stages, channeling patriotic sentiment into soft propaganda to mobilize public unity. Conversely, Singin’ in the Rain, produced in Hollywood’s musical golden age, allegorized the industry’s self-reinvention amid 1950s television competition by revisiting the silent-to-sound transition. Both films exemplify Bazin’s duality of cinematic reproduction and reconstruction of reality. The study reveals that Hollywood’s narrative-industrial apparatus not only addressed urgent social issues but also generated cultural artifacts that crystallize historical moments. Casablanca embodies wartime mobilization, while Singin’ in the Rain reflects media adaptation strategies, together illustrating cinema’s role as both a social mirror and an active participant in historical discourse. These cases demonstrate how Hollywood’s artistic practices and institutional frameworks dynamically mediated between art and reality, validating Bazin’s insights into film’s capacity to archive and reinterpret its sociotemporal milieu. Their legacy offers researchers vivid material for decoding postwar American sociocultural shifts.
Keywords
André Bazin, Hollywood, Casablanca (1942), Singin' in the Rain (1952)
[1]. Bazin, A. (2004). What is cinema? (H. Gray, Trans.). University of California Press. (Original work published 1958)
[2]. Bazin, A. (1971). The ontology of the photographic image. In H. Gray (Ed.), What is cinema? (Vol. 1, pp. x-xx). University of California Press. (Original work published 1945)
[3]. Ferro, M. (1988). Cinema and history. Wayne State University Press.
[4]. Doherty, T. (1999). Legacies. In Projections of war: Hollywood, American culture, and World War II (pp. 265-316). Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/dohe92436-012
[5]. Koppes, C. R., & Black, G. D. (1990). Hollywood goes to war: How politics, profits and propaganda shaped World War II movies. University of California Press.
[6]. Pontuso, J. F. (Ed.). (2005). Political philosophy comes to Rick's: Casablanca and American civic culture. Lexington Books.
[7]. Bordwell, D. (1985). Narration in the fiction film. University of Wisconsin Press.
[8]. Bordwell, D., Thompson, K., & Smith, J. (2010). Film art: An introduction (Vol. 7). McGraw-Hill.
Cite this article
Xu,S. (2025). A Discussion of Hollywood's 1940s-1960s Film Reproduction History under Bazin's Film Theory: Taking Casablanca (1942) and Singin' in the Rain (1952) as Examples. Communications in Humanities Research,66,27-32.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Literature, Language, and Culture Development
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).