Story of Film – Episode 3 – The Golden Age of World Cinema
Notes
The following material is from Wikipedia.
1918-1932: The Great Rebel Filmmakers Around the World
- The Thief of Bagdad (1924) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Raoul Walsh
- Soft lighting, shallow focus, dream-like
- The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
- Realism
- Taking the fantasy and gloss out of main-stream cinema
- Robert and Bertram (1915) dir. Max Mack
- Challenge to conventional cinema
- Over-acting and adolescent
- Mocking the portrayal of sex and love
- The Oyster Princess (1919) dir. Ernst Lubitsch
- Mocking modern-day norms
- Commentary on capitalism, race, gender, etc
- Mocking modern-day norms
- The Mountain Cat (1921) dir. Ernst Lubitsch
- Visually daring
- Strangely symbolic
- Surreal production design and screen-masking
- The Marriage Circle (1924) dir. Ernst Lubitsch
- Early film after Lubitsch’s move to Hollywood
- Had to be creative with portrayal of sexuality with American censorship
- Communicating the ideas of sex and romance without actually showing – we can only infer
- Early film after Lubitsch’s move to Hollywood
- La Roue (1923) dir. Abel Gance
- French film
- Work of impressionism
- Viewers are able to see inside a character’s mind – flashes of short shots
- Napoléon (1927) dir. Abel Gance
- Four-hour film
- Made main-stream romantic cinema look static in comparison
- Rethought the camera’s relationship to movement
- Great showing of dynamism (characterized by vigorous activity and progress)
- Masterpiece of impressionist filmmaking
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) dir. Robert Wiene
- Influential expressionist film – looking deeper into the human mind
- Filled with fear and murder
- Flooded set with flat light and painted shadows directly on the walls and ground
- Bizarre imagery – questioning point of view with jagged lighting and space
- The Tell-Tale Heart (1928) dir. Charles Klein
- Jagged set design and lighting
- Directly influenced by Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
- The Lodger (1927) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
- British director – worked in Germany
- Using similar shadowing and hysteria to Dr. Calagari film
- A Page of Madness (1926) dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa
- Japanese film
- Visual overlays and fast cutting as seen in La Roue
- Uses complex flashbacks to communicate story of character
- Goes further than The Cabinet of Dr. Calagari
- Rather than seeing insanity within one character, the entire film seems psychotic
- Combines techniques of impressionism with the unease of expressionism
- Metropolis (1927) dir. Fritz Lang
- One of the most iconic films of the silent era
- Portrays a clash between workers and an authoritarian industrialist (set in 2000 in a giant city)
- Influential with story of exploitation and use of urban landscapes
- The Crowd (1928) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. King Vidor
- Influenced by Metropolis
- Another film set within a city landscape
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) dir. F. W. Murnau
- Made by German director
- Expressionist masterpiece
- Husband and wife walking through the city through traffic – city shifts to nature
- Voted the best film of all time by French critics
- Opus 1 (1921) dir. Walter Ruttmann
- Looked by biology – painted on glass
- One of the first abstract animations
- Entr’acte (1924) dir. René Clair
- Placed the camera underneath a dancer
- Rien que les heures (1926) dir. Alberto Cavalcanti
- Experimental film
- Used imagery of multiple eyes
- Spellbound (1945) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
- Influenced by Rien que les heures
- Used imagery of multiple eyes within a dream sequence
- Un Chien Andalou (1929) dir. Luis Buñuel
- Attempted to show the unconscious works
- Nuanced and layered imagery
- Graphic imagery – showing of free association
- Innovative method of editing
- Blue Velvet (1986) dir. David Lynch
- Influenced by Bunuel’s work
- L’Age d’Or (1930) dir. Luis Buñuel
- Shocking imagery and editing
- Members of the Fascist League of Patriots threw ink at the screen and attacked viewers during its premiere
- Kino-Pravda n. 19 (1924) dir. Dziga Vertov
- Russian film
- Camera attached to train
- Glumov’s Diary (1923) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
- Eisenstein’s first film
- Actors performed “mug for the camera” (directly to the camera, posing/making faces to draw attention)
- Battleship Potemkin (1925) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
- Using steps as the scene for a murder
- Dolly movement along the steps as people run
- Each shot averaged about 3 seconds, much shorter than American or German cinema
- Portraying panic w/ montage of attractions
- Emotions come from the screen to the viewer
- The Untouchables (1987) dir. Brian De Palma
- American film inspired by Eisenstein’s step sequence in Battleship Potemkin
- Using splintered editing, short shots, grand staircase
- Arsenal (1929) dir. Alexander Dovzhenko
- Ukranian director/film
- Takes place during time of war
- Depicts woman standing frozen in the midst of dead villages
- Shows the partially buried body of a soldier, his face still smiling
- Shocking and unsettling imagery that evokes emotion in audience
- Earth (1930) dir. Alexander Dovzhenko
- Man walks down road, singing to himself but suddenly collapses
- Left as a mystery to viewers
- Man walks down road, singing to himself but suddenly collapses
- I Was Born, But… (1932) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
- Japanese film
- Ozu: philosopher turned into one of the greatest directors to have ever lived
- Director known for being serious – this film is a comedy but has a level of maturity
- Naturalistic performances from actors
- Dark and honest masterpiece of film with great commentary on society
- Tokyo Story (1953) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
- Framing mid-shot of female character w/ her almost looking into the camera
- Lower angle placement than the norm
- Using hip height rather than shoulder height creates feeling of balance
- Focus on precise rhythm and matching shots
- Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) dir. Chantal Akerman
- One of the few films to use Ozu’s camera height
- The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
- Implementation of pauses
- Giving the story a breather and allowing the space and composition of the shot to also have a breather
- Ozu’s focus was on centering the human body and de-centering the human ego
- Creates balance; far different than romanitcism in Hollywood film
- Implementation of pauses
- Osaka Elegy (1936) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
- Working around the same time as Ozu
- Attacking arrogance in Japan and turning focus onto Japanse women
- Story about a young woman sold into a geisha house
- Bold staging: character in extreme foreground with action still occurring in background
- Ends with the young woman on a bridge, contemplating suicide
- Citizen Kane (1941) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Orson Welles
- Welles later used similiar staging to Mizoguchi
- Background actions still in focus
- Welles later used similiar staging to Mizoguchi
- Chikamatsu Monogatari (1954) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
- Woman married to overbearing husband
- Intense scene dealing with an affair and suicide
- Rather than capture the emotion with well-lit, close-up shots, Mizoguchi uses dark lighting and cuts away to further distance between actors and camera (shot of woman’s back – we soo no emotion)
- Mildred Pierce (1945) dir. Michael Curtiz
- American film
- Female character finds herself on a bridge, contemplating suicide as seen in Osaka Elegy
- Still romanticism though – scene is visually beautiful
- Romance of the West Chamber (1927) dir. Hou Yao and Minwei Li
- Chinese film
- Typical film – period costumes, iris to emphasize one person/part of shot
- Scenes of City Life (1935) dir. Yuan Muzhi
- Evovled towards leftist, realist cinema
- Use of camera angles and suggestive imagery to convey ideas
- The Goddess (1934) dir. Wu Yonggang
- Woman forced to sell her body to pay for son’s education
- Tracking movement conveys spread of information/gossip among parents
- Woman is shunned and isolated because of her situation
- Well-known film for popular Chinese actress Ruan Lingyu
- Women related to and understood her authentic and genuine performances
- A beginning of real acting
- Center Stage (1991) dir. Stanley Kwan
- Ruan Lingyu played by Maggie Cheung
- Recreating her mannerisms
- Ruan Lingyu played by Maggie Cheung
- New Women (1935) dir. Cai Chusheng
- Another Ruan Lingyu film
- Playing the role of an actress who committed suicide after being hounded by the press
- An all too-real relation to Ruan’s life as tabloids trashed her modern, realistic acting in a scene dominated by gloss and sparkle
- Led to her suicide
- Another Ruan Lingyu film