In 1973, Stewart Hall published an essay in which he explains a revolutionary process on analyzing the structural composition of communication. Until the publication of Hall’s Encoding/Decoding, mass-communications research has theorized the process of communication in the terms of a continuous loop. The traditional model (sender/message/receiver), has been criticized for its linear approach to how information is understood. Hall suggests that there is more to the traditional model of mass communication. Hall said it best when he said “To put it paradoxically, the event must become a story before it can become a communicative event” (Hall 232).  He rejects the traditional model of the passive consumer, and points out that audiences create their own interpretation and find their own meaning based on their cultural background. The willingness to think freely and without boundaries is the cornerstone of determining meaning. In Hall’s model, each of us as individuals personally decides what something means; once we start to think for ourselves, we can tap into our past experiences and knowledge and determine the significance of the cultural product in question. Hall’s approach to mass-communication restores hope that audiences are not just passive consumers of the media and use intellect and reason to come to their own conclusions.

The creation of the encoding/decoding model signifies an important stage in the conceptualization of watching and analyzing television. It allows the viewer to be an active contributor, instead of a passive consumer. Hall's essay offers a theoretical approach of how media messages (encoded messages) are perceived and interpreted by the audience. The basis of this essay revolves around a viewer watching some type of media (primarily television), and being able to decoded the message based on that viewer’s background, economic standing, and personal experiences. “The degrees of symmetry- that is, the degrees of ‘understanding’ and ‘misunderstanding’ in the communicative exchange- depending on degrees of symmetry/asymmetry (relations of equivalence) established between the positions of the ‘personifications,’ encoder-producer and decoder-receiver” (Hall 234) Since the way a message is decoded depends on the viewer’s cultural background, Hall argues that viewers are in fact not passive but play an active role in decoding messages. When a message is decoded, it is broken down in a way that makes the most sense to the viewer, a way that only the viewer understand. 

The encoding of a message is how the message is produced. It is a system of coded meanings that the sender (or the encoder) needs to understand for the message to be comprehensible to the members of the audience, for it to be decoded. The encoding process accounts for all areas of the message, including the design, casting, writing, directing, when and where its aired, and how its marketed. The content we see on television or in the movies is vetted very carefully. In the process of encoding, the sender uses verbal and non-verbal symbols for which he or she believes the receiver (the decoder) will understand. The production of the encoding process is the most important part, it’s also where Hall’s process begins. The production process is also the framing of the meanings and ideas of each message. The creator of the message is operating on society’s beliefs and values, for the message to be properly decoded. 

Using Hall’s abstract theoretical framework is important when close reading cultural products. To Be or Not to Be expertly criticizes actual events happening during WWII, and alludes to how important it is to not halt the production of art just because of hypothetical circumstances, especially in wartime. In the movie, the characters are trying to put on a play in which Adolf Hitler is a character. The Polish government is scared to put on the play because they are afraid the play might offended Hitler and lead to Poland becoming involved in the war. What the Polish government didn’t understand is that you can’t rationalize with an insane dictator like Hitler. They worked hard trying not to provoke him and he attacked Poland anyway. How you perceive the events I just explained is when Encoding/Decoding comes into play.  Lubitsch set everything in motion to exactly how he wanted, in order to create a satirical situation poking fun at the Nazi’s, while alluding to how negative of an idea it is to halt the production of art during war. He wrote the script, casted the right actors, set the scenes, and produced this movie to accomplish these goals. 

When I look at this movie, I perceive it in a way based on my beliefs and cultural background. Considering myself as an artist I think it’s crucial to keep the production of art during war. Art is such an expressive thing, were all of someone’s feeling come pouring out into medium you can share with others, whether is a song, painting, or play. War can often be the thing that can spark all of these emotions considering war is arguably the most emotion thing to ever happen in mankind. That’s exactly what the director of the play in the movie did. He created a play based on his surrounding, and because his surroundings were war the government shut the production down. The kicker in all of this is that Hitler decided to come in and occupy Poland anyway, to me this is Lubitsch criticizing censorship of art during war time. According to Hall, not everyone will perceive this movie in the same way I do. Some people will see this as the Polish doing the right thing trying to protect their country by all means possible, by trying to fly under Hitler’s radars. The problem with that approach is that they were thinking very short term and not big picture. Hindsight is 20/20, however I believe if I was alive back then I still would have been in support of allowing the show to go on.

A very common recurring theme in this movie is standing up for what you believe in, especially when the odds are stacked against you.  Each character in the movie at one point or another risks their life for standing up against Hitler. The most obvious one is mocking Hitler in the play they are trying to put on.  Eventually Hitler invades Poland and they all work toward the common goal of stopping him. If you think it was a bad idea to stop the production of the play, then you probably think it was a bad idea for Stanislav to parachute into Poland to warn the others about Siletsky. Stanislav saved many lives and the others couldn’t have been as successful as they were without him.

To Be or Not to Be is a very brave movie that was ahead of its time. When watching a film, it’s important to consider the time period in which it was created. Knowing the time period of a film can be critical to understanding the message the film is trying to convey. To Be or Not to Be criticized the events that were happening during World War II, which made it much more meaningful. An after the fact criticism doesn’t carry the same credibility. The movie also criticized production codes in Hollywood during World War II, by having the characters in the movie put on a play that was shut done due to censorship. The shutting down of the play alludes to America trying to not provoke a war effort as well.  Hall’s theoretical framework can be a very important tool when thinking about how the culture of a specific time period influenced the final product of a film. This film, To Be or Not to Be really challenges the way we should think about art and war.
