Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siecle Paris

by Vanessa R. Schwartz

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Paris emerged as the entertainment capital of the world. The sparkling redesigned city fostered a culture of energetic crowd-pleasing and multi-sensory amusements that would apprehend and represent real life as spectacle.

Vanessa R. Schwartz examines the explosive popularity of such phenomena as the boulevards, the mass press, public displays of corpses at the morgue, wax museums, panoramas, and early film. Drawing on a wide range of written and visual materials, including private and business archives, and working at the intersections of art history, literature, and cinema studies, Schwartz argues that "spectacular realities" are part of the foundation of modern mass society. She refutes the notion that modern life produced an unending parade of distractions leading to alienation, and instead suggests that crowds gathered not as dislocated spectators but as members of a new kind of crowd, one united in pleasure rather than protest.

Genres: History, France, Nonfiction, Grad School, School, Art History

244 pages, Paperback

First published December 26, 1997

Reviews

[Emily B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best book on 19th century Paris morgues and wax museums that you probably will ever read.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting read if you love history, turn-of-the-century Paris, or socioeconomic classes coming together to form a new mass culture.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schwartz’s Spectacular Realities shows how visual culture in fin de siècle Paris focused predominantly on recreating, or to use her somewhat cute term “re-presenting,” the real or everyday (this, of course, contrasts with merely representing reality). More than this, these presentations of the real were meant for mass consumption, and focused largely on current events. Schwartz locates the roots of this visual culture in the activities and visual experiences of the flâneur. Often presumed to be both bourgeois and male, the flâneur’s privileged experience of the city, his addiction to transient, sometimes erotically charged, interactions with other human beings and the bustle of modern city life, constituted a central aspect of what Schwartz calls “boulevard culture.”

Schwartz argues that, “collective participation in a culture in which representation proliferated to such an extent that they became interchangeable with reality (10)” characterized Parisian life. Spectacularizing “became the means through which reality was commodified (11).” Beginning with the flâneur, Schwartz shows how emerging forms of entertainment served these ends, beginning with print culture, then proceeding through the spectacle of the Paris morgue, the wax museum, and ending with early cinema. Schwartz thinks that the culture of fin de siècle Paris was already “inherently cinematic (176).” In this sense, the origin of cinema must be situated in the context of attempts to depict reality in more and more tantalizing and convincing ways. These depictions, however, were inherently ephemeral, needing to be replaced by the next interesting thing, be that a new depiction of a sensational murder in the wax museum, or the latest political gossip in the press. Each new situation depicted and sold, created a basis for common Parisian identity, but the pace and turnover of the markets pandered perfectly to capitalist logic. Much like the need for the latest department store fashion that we see depicted in Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise, the new public culture demanded that one keep up with the latest sensation and consume the latest commodified versions of reality.

And here we get to the part where I’m just not sure I’m convinced by Schwartz’s argument. Schwartz wants to side with those who have argued for a liberating function of flânerie. Mass consumption equals universal education and a “democratizing conception of culture (202).” Far from merely sapping the proletariat of their revolutionary impulses, these new products formed a “new kind of crowd (202).” I agree that these new forms of mass culture created new public spaces and identities, but I’m not sure that her assessment of “positionalities of power” is correct. Schwartz defines flânerie as a positionality of power in which “the spectator assumes the position of being able to be part of the spectacle and yet command it at the same time (10).” I’m just not sure how the flâneur “commands” what he sees. Indeed, this history, beginning with the flâneur, only reveals the increasingly centralized capitalistic control of what we see. At least the flâneur observes street life as it is, as opposed to how museum curators or magazine writers filter that experience. Though Schwartz wants to argue that collective participation in these cultures involves the spectator, thereby empowering him or her, they only control insofar as they purchase the limited options presented to them. And as the depictions of the real become more complete and seductive, the capitalist has more and more control over just what we think of as reality. To me, it seems that Schwartz’s “democracy” is just as illusory as Grévin’s wax figures, which are just as surely under material control by capitalists themselves. I realize that this is somewhat of a polemical stance to take, as Schwartz seems more interested in the democratic experience, and I do think she makes a good case that visual culture created new public spaces in fin de siècle Paris. However Schwartz herself points out that Hollywood, the extreme end of this logic, creates reality for export, to be enjoyed by people in completely disparate communities all over the world, with no recourse for checking reality against the real. Is Hollywood “democratic,” too?

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This read like a novel (in a positive way).

[Mackenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating discussion of spectacle in/of Parisian boulevards at the fin de siecle. Drawing on an eclectic archive of guidebooks, memoirs, and museum exhibition histories, she argues that interrelated forms of visual entertainment--including the morgue, wax museum, panorama, and early cinema--worked alongside the press in creating and pleasing a public, while co-constructing an idea of modern Paris and a standard by which "realistic" representation would be judged. She takes a democratic approach to flanerie, suggesting that the accessibility of these spaces of privileged viewing across class and gender allowed for the activity to be unfixed from its bourgeois male connotations (with the caveat that these viewing experiences would not be monolithic across class/gender divides). She is weirdly silent about race within this democratizing schema, especially considering that the book features archival photographs of colonial tableaux, and I also feel that flanerie is not fully possible so long as the standard of voyeurism requires the invisibility/disembodiment that was only really possible for the upper class, white male. Schwartz acknowledges that the discussion could go farther in evaluating how effective this supposed democratization actually was, focusing less, I assume, on the people who built these spectacles and more on lower-class viewership (of which her book contains virtually no documentation).

[Samantha Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book in an Art History seminar but never finished it. While definitely an academic read it is very interesting in regards to day to day life and spectacle within Parisian society during the 19th century. Definitely worth picking up if you have an interest in that era.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: Flâneurs. The News. The Public Morgue. Wax Museums. Moving Pictures.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vanessa R. Schwartz, an assistant Professor of history at American University, conceived of this work as her dissertation for the history department at Berkeley. It has been revised and expanded into this current volume. The book itself is organized into five chapters and includes a lengthy introduction and conclusion. Each chapter builds on the previous as the author constructs her argument to explain the formation of a new mass culture transcending class and gender in fin de siecle Paris. She asserts that this new crowd was undergoing a cultural revolution unified by the act of consumerism rather than by acts of violence and political uprising which some argue has defined "The Crowd" in revolutionary Paris. It is in the introduction where Schwartz lays out her theoretical assertions regarding modernity and discusses the social theories to which this work responds. The theories of modernity proposed by postmodernist and deconstructionist philosophers and historians are refuted. Schwartz takes aim particularly at the notion advocated by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, T.J. Clark, and Guy Debord that the alienation of the members of this new consumer society was a defining characteristic of modernity.
This work is an interesting and innovative approach to the development of mass culture; however, the general thesis of defining modernity through the development of mass culture becomes complicated by the long list of goals found in the introduction that the author purports to address. Several assertions are neither completely developed nor adequately addressed in the body of the work. The introduction is filled with statements asserting what the book “attempts” to accomplish and what the author “suggests.” Unfortunately Schwartz has bitten off more than she can chew. She has “attempted” but not necessarily accomplished what she set out to do. The idea that “spectacular realities” should be included in the definition of mass society along with the democratization of politics, the fruitlessness of mass uprising, and increased standards of living is a bold assertion but lacks adequate development. Flanerie as a “liberating and even democratizing effect” is introduced on page six and only again briefly discussed. Also, the opinion that the spectator commanded the spectacle is not adequately supported. Participation in the spectacle does not necessitate controlling the spectacle. Schwartz also attests to argue that Paris was in innovator of mass cultural forms (8). However this is not addressed in the body of the work.
Schwartz leaves the reader with several unanswered questions. How did the spectator command the spectacle? How did this new collective displace class conflict? Are we to believe it was simply through the act of simultaneously viewing the spectacles Paris had to offer? Also, was this “new crowd” actually enjoying sociability or were they only unified by participation in the spectacle but alienated from each other? Also lacking is a discussion of the fetishness of the commodity culture.
Schwartz achieves success in her analysis of the development of mass culture and she provides the reader with a vivid picture of the unique characteristics of the leisure activities enjoyed by Parisians. The author also gives us a viable alternative to the alienation theory of modern society put forth by proponents of postmodernism and deconstructionism. The themes of modernity, consumerism, mass culture formation, urban spectacle, and class distinction are brought to the attention of the reader. However, the significant link between word and image and its connection to modern cinema is Schwartz’s greatest achievement in this book. This is a very worthwhile and entertaining book to read. Not only does it give the reader insights in to fin de siecle Parisian culture, but it also exposes us to several important social theories that effect the study of history.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a French historian so my background knowledge of this topic was limited but this book was fascinating. Her thesis centers around the historical concept of spectacle and how that was used to develop a new culture at the end of the 19th century in Paris. She focuses on five areas that defined this new culture: the boulevard, the newspaper, the morgue, the wax museum, and the development of cinema. The chapter on the morgue was so interesting, I couldn't stop reading. This book was well written and fairly easy to read. However, since I have little knowledge of French or background in the history some of the words and phrases were confusing. All in all a good history that made me want to learn more about the time period.

[T.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating discussion of the neurosis, pageantry, display, and beauty of turn of the century Paris. The highlights include the culture of flaneurs (the idle strollers on the Parisian streets), the Paris morgue, and J'Accuse, the terrifying WWI documentary staring many soon-to-be ghosts from the German Front.

An in-depth, engaging look at a particular place and time.

[Lyric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great glimpse into the early days of spectacle entertainment in Paris.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating subject matter, not so fascinatingly conveyed.

[Jeroen Lemmens · Rating 4 out of 5]

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