Raconter l’Amérique pendant l’ère progressiste : photographies documentaires et films muets

• Main Author: Clémentine Tholas-Disset
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Association Française d'Etudes Américaines 2015-03-01
• Series: Transatlantica : Revue d'Études Américaines
• Subjects: Documentary photography; silent motion pictures; progressivism; social reform; reality effect; dramatizing
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/7155

At the turn of the 20th century, documentary photography and silent motion pictures both seemed to call for a transformation of American society. Even as the country strove to evolve under the influence of Progressive reforms, these two media—one being more exclusive and the other more popular—were used to denounce the evils of industrial metropolitan life. They were both grounded in a pedagogical mission and somehow adopted a journalistic stance in order to inform and alert the population. Photography and cinema use an effect of reality to end up producing visual constructions elaborated thanks to specific staging processes. In this article, I purport to connect and compare the photographs taken by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine with about ten movies centered on social issues. My aim is to understand how these different pieces combine dramatization strategies, a political message, elements of national ideology, and an entertaining dimension.