Cinema of the Confederate States

The cinema of the Confederate States, began a few years before the Confederate Civil War. The Confederate film industry began to achieve international recognition in the years following the Socialist era. In the 21st century, Confederate cinema has become popular internationally with hits such as *Bulworth*, *The Grand Budapest Hotel*, and *Pulp Fiction*. There are three metonyms associated with the Confederate Film Industry: **Petersburg** during the Golden Age, **New Orleans** during the socialist regime, and **Texas** during the renaissance.

## History

### Before 1900: Origins

Confederate Cinema can trace its origin back to the Virginian Inventor Thomas Armat. Armat studied at the Mechanics Institute in Richmond, Virginia and then in 1894 at the Bliss Electrical School in Washington, D.C. In Washington he met American student Charles Francis Jenkins. The two classmates teamed up to develop a movie projector using a new kind of intermittent motion mechanism, a "beater mechanism" similar to the one patented 1893 by Georges Demenÿ in France. They made their first public projection using their invention, named "Phantoscope", after an earlier model designed by Jenkins alone in September 1895 at the Confederate State International Exposition in Atlanta.

Following this success, the two co-inventors broke up over patent issues. Jenkins tried to claim sole inventorship, but was turned down and sold out to Armat, who subsequently joined and sold the patent to American inventor Thomas Edison, who marketed the machine as the 'Vitascope'. The projector was used in a public screening in New York City beginning on April 23, 1896 and lasting more than a week.

Working for Edison, Armat refined the projector in 1897 by replacing the beater mechanism with a more precise Geneva drive, duplicating an invention made a year earlier in Germany by Oskar Messter and Max Griewe and in England by Robert William Paul.

The first "storefront theater" in the Confederacy dedicated exclusively to showing motion pictures was Vitascope Hall, established in New Orleans, Louisiana July 26, 1896. (It was converted from a vacant store.)

### 1900–1919: D. W. Griffith and Confederate Arts

Following the establishment of Vitascope Hall in New Orleans, more theaters were established across the nation, some of the most successful were the “Million Dollar Theaters” created by Virginian brothers Mitchell and Moe Mark, which focused on high quality theaters designed to attract members of the upper class.

Many of the early films for these theaters were made by the United States and England, but Confederate playwright D. W. Griffith wanted to change that. Griffith established his own studio, Confederate Arts, in Richmond, Virginia and gained investors from the many members of his nation’s upper class, including former first lady Lucy Hale Booth who felt that her late husband would have loved the medium. With his financial backing Griffith purchased movie equipment from Edison Studios and hired some of their staff, including cameraman Billy Bitzer. There were many Confederate stage actors, including Henry B. Walthall, Dorothy West, Creston Clarke, and Wilfred Clarke. By 1907 Confederate Arts began producing their first motion pictures, and by the end of 1908 the studio had produced 48 shorts.

Among Griffith and Confederate Art's earliest successes were *The Cricket on the Hearth* (1909), *Old Arizona* (1910), *The House with Closed Shutters* (1910), *The Avenging Conscience: or "Thou Shalt Not Kill"* (1914), and *The Life of General Patton* (1914).

In 1915 Griffith and Confederate Arts had their most successful motion picture, the feature film *The Birth of a Nation*, which was not only a national success, but popular internationally as well. Considered a landmark of film history, it was the first 12-reel film ever made and, at three hours, also the longest up to that point. Its plot, part fiction and part history, chronicles the Battle of Philadelphia, the Treaty of Alexandria, and the relationship of two families, in the War for Southern Independence and the Construction era of the CSA. The film was by far the most complex of any movie made up to that date. It pioneered close-ups, fade-outs, and a carefully staged battle sequence with hundreds of extras made to look like thousands. It came with a 13-page "Souvenir Program". It was the first Confederate motion picture to be screened in the Presidential Mansion, viewed there by President Woodrow Wilson.

Following the success of *The Birth of a Nation*, Confederate Arts released other financially successful and critically acclaimed films such as *Intolerance* (1916), *Broken Blossoms* (1919), and *Way Down East* (1920).

Along with Confederate Arts, Texans King Vidor and Edward Sedgwick established Hotex Motion Picture Company in the city of Houston. The young studio would attract many Texas entertainers like Florence Vidor and Corinne Griffith to work for them, instead of having to go to Virginia.

### 1920–1935: Petersburg's Golden Age

The 1920s saw a vast expansion of filmmaking and worldwide film attendance. D. W. Griffith moved Confederate Arts out of Richmond and into the city of Petersburg, which soon became a major center for those hoping to enter the film industry. Griffith continued his push for feature films over the shorts. With the success of Confederate cinema, Griffith began taking less of a directing role, and switched his focus to managing his studio, giving directing responsibilities to such up and comers like Henry King.

The main genres for the Confederacy were mostly lower budget romantic comedies and Westerns whose profits would then be used to produce epic dramas and historical pieces, such as the Confederate Art films such as *Robert E Lee* (1921) and *The Book of Esther* (1922). One of the Confederacy’s biggest comedy stars was Oliver Hardy who became one of the nation’s first major stars.

On April 2, 1923, the Confederacy declared war on the United States as part of the Anglo-American War. The conflict led President Robert Latham Owen to hire Confederate Arts to produce war propaganda movies. This in turn led to such modern war films as *Johnny Gone Marching*, *Southern Soldier*, and *Good Old Rebel*, and historical war films as *The Battle of Camp David*, *The Army of Northern Virginia*, and *The House with Closed Shutters* (which was a full-length remake of Griffith’s 1910 short film).

Following the Confederacy’s defeat in the Anglo-American War, many producers and directors decided to follow the international industry and make art films. King Vidor and his Hotex Motion Picture Company released *The Crowd* (1928), which is considered one of greatest silent films in history.

In 1927, *The Jazz Singer* was released in the United States, the film immediately showed the potential for dialogue in films. The Confederacy's first full sound film was D. W. Griffith's *Jefferson Davis* (1930). In the States of Cuba, Florida, and Puerto Rico, movies in Spanish became popular and led to the success of Cuban director Ramón Peón, who would often collaborate with Mexican studios.

In 1929 the Confederacy suffered from the Great Depression. The on the economy and the civil unrest in the nation led to the rise in popularity in fantastical, escapist films. Among the most popular genres at this time were Westerns like *The Alamo* (1931), or *The Camel Boys* (1933), Pirate movies like *The End of Piracy* (1932), and Adventure movies such as *King Kong* (1933) and *Darkest Peru* (1935).

In 1931 Hotex Motion Picture Company released the sports drama *The Champ*, which tells the tale of an alcoholic, down on his luck ex-boxer and his struggles to provide a good living for his son. It was a major success domestically and internationally, winning an Academy Award for Best Picture in the United States.

### 1935–1943: Film during the Confederate Civil War

When the Confederate Civil War began, the Garner Administration commissioned Confederate Arts to release propaganda movies attacking Bill Blizzard and other rebel forces and factions. Such propaganda films included *Madmen in the Mountains* (1937), *The Fight for Freedom* (1939), and *The Foreigner’s Puppet* (1940). Confederate Arts had to turn their full focus on these propaganda films which led to the studio being forced to abandon many of their other projects already in development, like Henry King’s Jesse James. These films included directing talents as Merian C. Cooper and Henry King, and acting talent like Joan Crawford, Margaret Sullavan, Dorothy Lamour, Alan Ladd, Dana Andrews and Randolph Scott.

With the Confederate government having the already pre-established and respected Confederate Arts producing propaganda against the rebel factions, the need for their own propaganda product became apparent. The Popular Front and the People’s Assembly in Baton Rouge had the Committee of Public Welfare create a bureau designed for the production of films. A state-owned studio known as Southern Star Studios was created. Southern Star produced such propaganda films as *Working Man’s Burden* (1939), *Guns of the Militia* (1940), and *Liberation of Richmond* (1943). Southern Star lacked many of the pre-established actors that Confederate Arts did, so the studio used many black entertainers in their films. Southern Star films included such entertainers as Louis Armstrong, Ossie Davis, Sammy Davis Sr. and his son Sammy Jr., Will Mastin, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Butterfly McQueen, Theodore Ward, Fredi Washington, and Richard Wright. Ramón Peón also became a major director for Southern Star Studio along with his lead star José Ferrer.

During the Confederate Civil War, Hotex Motion Picture Company moved its production out of the Confederacy and into Mexico, taking along with it such film stars as Linda Darnell, Ann Sheridan, and Ann Miller. In Mexico the studio continued to produce movies such as *Northwest Passage* (1940), *A Confederate Romance* (1944), and *Lust in the Dust* (1946).

As the war began to worsen for the Confederates, many of the employees of Confederate Arts fled the nation and sought refuge in the United States, where many of them took jobs working with American film studios.

### 1943–1952: The Socialist Era and New Orleans

Following the end of the Confederate Civil War, the People’s Assembly moved its capital from Baton Rouge to Richmond, and Southern Stars Studios moved its headquarters from Lafayette to New Orleans; control of the studio was handed over to the newly made Ministry of Popular Culture as well. Confederate Arts was dissolved by the Confederate Government, while DW Griffith fled to the United States, where he would spend the remainder of his life. Its assets were given to Southern Stars, which became the basis of its secondary Petersburg studio. Several of Confederate Arts's former performers took jobs working with Southern Stars.

Several film production studios in the Spanish-speaking lands were nationalized by the government and merged into one: EspanFilm (the lack of a tilde was intentional,the government reportedly thought it sounded better without it). This would become the main film producer for the Spanish speaking region.

With these top-of-the-line facilities, Southern Stars Studios began producing high-quality dramas such as *The Little Foxes* (1944) and its prequel *Another Part of the Forest* (1946) and historic and fantasy epics such as *Prince of Thieves* (1948), *The Corsair* (1951), and *Conan the Cimerrian* (1952). Soon, filmmakers looked towards comics for inspiration as well, with three of the biggest hits of the 1950s being the serials *Red Fox: El Zorro Rojo* (1950), *Superion: The Man of Tomorrow* (1951), and *Dixieman* (1952).

With the new government in power, there also came a new media guideline, the Confederate Media Production Code, commonly known as the Fly Code. Often compared to its American film counterpart, the so-called Hays Code, the Fly Code would not only regulate the production of Movies, but all media in the CASS. Film Production was re-segregated, and black and white film goers became completely separate demographics.

### 1952–1978: The Dark Age

With the Fly Code becoming more restrictive under Charles Arthur Floyd, films that did not meet a certain "creative quota" were rejected. On paper, films that promoted pro-Communist ideas were promoted, while "Bourgeoise" films were diminished. In practice, virtually any film that could be even vaguely interpreted as anti-CASS could be, and would be, rejected on sight. Plot points that led to a rejection included: negative portrayals of CASS officials, any rebellion against a democratic system, positive portrayals of royalty, nobility, and businessmen, and every depiction of enemy countries, especially Americans, as something other than evil and/or stupid.

With films being rejected left and right, and a monopoly on the film industry, cinema started to stagnate. Filmmakers got lazy, and tended towards recycling ideas rather than coming up with new ones. The most infamous trend of this period was the "Dixie Soldier" sub-genre. These were low budget action films that generally told the same story of a soldier during the Confederate Civil War. These films were light on story, and generally featured the same stock characters and basic outline: that of valiant Communist soldiers battling evil reactionaries, corrupt businessmen, and the Knights of the Burning Cross. Of these films, only three are seen as any good: *Red and Grey* (1952), *Patton's Last Stand* (1954), and *The Knights of Hatred* (1960).

Another infamous trend were *Conan* films: with *Conan of Aquilonia* being rejected by MinPopCul, and the rise of the sword-and-sandals of the 1950s and 1960s, practically every director tried taking a shot at the Barbarian hero. 1960 alone featured six different Conan movies, all staring different actors: *The Revenge of Conan*, *Conan and the Legacy of Atlantis*, *Conan vs. The Reborn Kull*, *Tales of Conan: Queen of the Black Coast*, *Hyborian Nights*, and *Conan's Quest*. *Kull*, in particular, was infamous for rumors that the production team tried to kidnap *Hercules* star Steve Reeves.

Competition with television was light, since both were controlled by state owned monopolies, but noticeable. For instance, sequels to the Dixies comics were turned into programming for CBN. Though animation was not that popular, Cuban Animation focused almost exclusively on the small screen during the 1950s.

April 17, 1961 marked the beginning of the American War. Petersburg and New Orleans were quickly captured, forcing Star Studios to move its focus south. As funding switched to the war effort, Star Studios' output dried up. In fact, *Long's Boys*, a war time propaganda film meant to boost morale, never actually got finished. American studios started grabbing Confederate actors, hoping that they would be willing to work for them, while independent filmmakers like Warren Beatty attempted to make their own movies, hoping to sneak past the diminished MinPopCul.

### Since 1978: Rebirth in Texas

With the end of the CASS came a new era of filmmaking. As the state monopolies were dissolved and privatized, new studios started popping up, while older studios returned to the area, at least in name. Hotex re-opened its Texas branch, while the heirs of D. W. Griffith established a new company, NCA Films (New Confederate Arts). Iberian Films, formed from assets previously owned by EspanFilm, was also formed around this time.

The 1980s generally saw co-production between American companies. This was because many American companies were interested in Dixie audiences after the end of the socialist regime. This led to several productions like *Conan the Barbarian* (1982) and *King Kong Lives* (1986), which brought in revenue on both sides of the border. Despite bringing attention to the reborn industry, it never reached the heights of the previous decades.

In the 1990s, what would become known as the Confederate New Wave, or the Renaissance in Texas, began. New production companies began springing up, and lesser-known companies found fame in their own rights. A new breed of directors, like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson, pushed the limits of Confederate culture, while older filmmakers fought for traditional values. This would inspire some of the most famous Confederate Films of all time, and the effects can still be felt today.

## Major film studios

### Active

* NCA Films
* Hotex Motion Picture Company
* Empirical Pictures
* Rolling Thunder Pictures
* Iberian Films

### Defunct

* Confederate Arts
* Southern Star Studios
* EspanFilm