Notes

The following material is from Wikipedia

1918-1928: The Triumph of American Film…

• Citizen Kane (1941) dir. Orson Welles
  • Showed how Hollywood would work wonders with light
• The Thief of Bagdad (1924) dir. Raoul Walsh
  • Complex set design; architectural dream compared to reality of Bagdad
  • States its theme up-front (romantic and american)
  • Immediately introduced to the society/scene, then an individual
  • Makes the space clear, no confusion about where we are
  • Extravagant romance with many special effects
• Desire (1936) dir. Frank Borzage
  • Lighting that illuminated hair and cast shadows
  • Eyelashes cast shadows on the face of Marlene Dietrich
• Gone with the Wind (1939) dir. Victor Fleming
  • Gliding image (using a dolly)
  • Glided as if blown by wind
• Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) dir. Mervyn LeRoy
  • Choreographed routine
  • Creating patterns – increasingly abstract and geometric
• Singin’ in the Rain (1952) dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
  • MGM film
  • Even the shadows have light in them (reflecting optimism)
• The Maltese Falcon (1941) dir. John Huston
  • Warner Brothers film
  • Depicted angels with dirty faces
  • Harder lighting, sharper shadows, gangster outfits, nighttime settings
• The Scarlet Empress (1934) dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • Paramount film
  • Sparkling, feminine, costumes on display, romantic
• The Cameraman (1928) dir. Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton
  • Reflects Keaton’s fascination with cameras (gives film a personal touch)
• One Week (1920) dir. Edward F. Cline and Buster Keaton
  • Director thought like an architect
  • Understanding that movies are about looking
• Sherlock Jr. (1924) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Buster Keaton
  • Keaton helped define silent cinema
• Three Ages (1923) dir. Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
  • Camera angle creates illusion of height of building
• Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965) dir. John Spotton
  • Improvised a gag (starting and stopping a train)
• The General (1926) dir. Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton
  • Every visual joke from the first half is repeated and amplified in the second half (only in reverse order)
  • Audience sees the next joke coming and is laughing before it even starts
• Divine Intervention (2002) dir. Elia Suleiman
  • Influenced by Keaton
  • Filmed in deadpan, keeps back from the action, finds grumpiness funny
• Limelight (1952) dir. Charlie Chaplin
  • Chaplin was more into body movement than Keaton
• City Lights (1931) dir. Charlie Chaplin
  • Chaplin thought like a dancer
  • Rehearses a comic movement before filming it in costume
  • Chaplin believed in inspiration and finding ideas within yourself – letting your unconscious do the work
• The Kid (1921) dir. Charlie Chaplin
  • Recreated the rooms and relationships in Chaplin’s childhood
    • Cold mornings, worn-out bedding
  • Chaplin = cinema’s Charles Dickens
• Bad Timing (1980) dir. Nicolas Roeg
  • Hands filmed close-up suggest energy and mental attitude
• The Great Dictator (1940) dir. Charlie Chaplin
  • Chaplin takes on the role of Hitler
  • Metaphor: Hitler making the world his “toy”
  • Fascism and ballet meet from Chaplin’s incredible creativity
  • Use of improvisation
• Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953) dir. Jacques Tati
  • Tati was inspired by Chaplin
    • Differences were: Tati leaned forwards and wore short trousers while Chaplin leaned backwards and wore long trousers
• Toto in Color (1953) dir. Steno
  • Toto became huge star while wearing Chaplin’s iconic hat and mimicking his maneurisms
• Awaara (1951) dir. Raj Kapoor
  • Screen character modeled after Chaplin
• Sunset Boulevard (1950) dir. Billy Wilder
  • Wilder saw Chaplin as his master
• Some Like It Hot (1959) dir. Billy Wilder
  • Reworked scene from The Great Dictator
  • Chaplin co-founded studio that made this film
• Luke’s Movie Muddle (1916) dir. Hal Roach
  • Introduced Harold Lloyd who was greatly influenced by Chaplin
  • Originally too similar to Chaplin
• Haunted Spooks (1920) dir. Alfred J. Goulding and Hal Roach
  • Tried a different outfit in this film; trying to further differentiate from Chaplin
• Never Weaken (1921) dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
  • Athleticism and courage; jock nerd
• Safety Last! (1923) dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
  • Ends with one of the most famous sequences in 20s cinema
  • Lloyd struggles while climbing up a building
  • Action reaches a crescendo after he finishes his climb
• I Flunked, But… (1930) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
  • Japanese film influenced by Harold Lloyd

…And the First of its Rebels

• Nanook of the North (1922) dir. Robert Flaherty
  • Longest nonfiction film so far in the Story of Film
  • Set in Alaska; beautiful but conventional shots
  • Focuses on one real Inuit man named Nanook (and his family)
  • Attempted to show the reality of Inuit life, though Flaherty fabricated many scenes
• The House Is Black (1963) dir. Forough Farrokhzad
  • Iranian film
  • Used beautiful tracking shots
  • Looked at the lives of those living in a home for people with leprosy
• Sans Soleil (1983) dir. Chris Marker
  • Filmed real places in Japan, then wrote a fictional commentary
  • Imagined words on top of nonfiction pictures
• The Not Dead (2007) dir. Brian Hill
  • Interviewed man about his experience in war, then turned his words into poems
  • Making his memory “magical” by presenting them in poems
• The Perfect Human (1967) (shown as part of The Five Obstructions) dir. Jørgen Leth
  • Short documentary
• The Five Obstructions (2003) dir. Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth
  • Made 40 years after The Perfect Human
  • Lars Von Trier had Leth remake the original five times, with a startling new change each time
• Blind Husbands (1919) dir. Erich von Stroheim
  • Storheim took on the establishment
  • Filmed square-on, looming out of the dark, grinning and scarred
• The Lost Squadron (1932) dir. George Archainbaud and Paul Sloane
  • Drive to realism was obsessive
• Greed (1924) dir. Erich von Stroheim
  • Shows agony and smallness of woman as her husband drunkenly beats her
  • The color yellow, shown earlier as the color of money, floods the screen and the world of the story after the man kills his wife
  • 7 hour long movie – pushed actors to their limits
• Stroheim in Vienna (1948)
  • Stroheim’s ultra-realism became a stigma, not allowed to direct many more films
  • Greed was made into a cut-version and Stroheim said the film was “dead”
• Queen Kelly (1929) (shown as part of Sunset Boulevard) dir. Erich von Stroheim
  • Shows a fictional movie star watching one of her old movies
    • Clip comes from a real movie made by Stroheim, but never released
• The Crowd (1928) dir. King Vidor
  • Attempted to portray 20s America with more realism than romantic cinema
  • Greatest pre-Wall Street crash, social problem picture of its time
  • Pushed realism and acting beyond Hollywood norm
    • No fancy clothes or set, just the actress and her growing despair
  • First film to extensively use New York as a location – used hidden cameras
  • Designed iconic sequence to show scale of office where husband worked
  • Seven endings made and previewed until finding the right one
  • Showed mass society and focused on the every-man
• The Apartment (1960) dir. Billy Wilder
  • Repeated office scene from The Crowd
• The Trial (1962) dir. Orson Welles
  • Same visual idea of huge office space and rows on rows of people
  • Forced perspective
• Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) dir. Yakov Protazanov
  • Soviet Union film
  • All angles and diagonals, with modernist costumes
  • Queen of Mars is shown life/realism on Earth
• Posle Smerti (1915) dir. Yevgeni Bauer
  • Uses open door to create a slit onscreen
  • Main source light is in the shot (daring for the time)
    • Bravely natural
  • Daring composition of actress entering in the backward of the shot
    • Filmed in natural light
  • Various lighting and color changes
  • Laments, pessimistic, showed the realism of grief and loss
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  • Main actress filmed only in close-up with almost no makeup and cropped hair
  • No set or shadow, viewers only see the emotion in the face of the actress
  • Purged silent cinema of its spectacle and decoration
• Ordet (1955) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  • Radical simplification: Only accepting things directly related to the story
  • Cannot simplify reality without understanding it first
  • Woman comes to life in a white, undecorated room
• The President (1919) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  • Simplify and purify images (in a Protestant way)
• Vampyr (1932) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  • Shadows against a white wall
    • Shadows have a life of their own
  • Use of whiteness was extremely rebellious as Hollywood romantic cinema wasn’t supposed to be blank
• Gertrud (1964) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
  • Woman is filmed as if through a white screen, as if in heaven
• Dogville (2003) dir. Lars von Trier
  • Completely setless film
  • Opposite of romantic Hollywood cinema
• Vivre sa vie (1962) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Main actress goes to the cinema to watch a film; that film is The Passion of Joan of Arc