Cinema Final

Cahiers du Cinema

"cinema notebooks". A vastly influential journal which gathered about it a group of young critics-Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, and Eric Rohmer- who were to become the major directors of the New Wave.

Das Neue Kino

"the new movie theatre"; made West German cinema among the most exciting in the world during the 1970s and 1980s. It is related to other modernist European film movements through its emphatic rejection of conventional narrative

cinema verite

"truthful cinema"; a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics. Cinéma vérité can involve stylized set-ups and the interaction between the filmmaker and the subject, even to the point of provocation. Some argue that the obvious presence of the filmmaker and camera was seen by most cinéma vérité filmmakers as the best way to reveal the truth in cinema. The camera is always acknowledged, for it performs the raw act of filming real objects, people, and events in a confrontational way. The filmmaker's intention was to represent the truth in what he or she was seeing as objectively as possible, freeing people from any deceptions in how those aspects of life were formerly presented to them. From this perspective, the filmmaker should be the catalyst of a situation.

Asian film and eros

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Countries with significant quantity of film production

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British post-war film: 2 main trends

1). Literary adaption experienced a sharp upswing 2). Witty comedies

Postwar evolution of the studio system (in Hollywood)

8-month studio unions strike in 1945 combined with spiraling postwar inflation led to a 25% pay increase for studio personnel in the following year. Hollywood's chief overseas market, Great Britain, levied a 75% protective tax on all foreign film profits, and this reduced the American industry's annual British revenue. Hollywood was faced with the task of restructuring its entire production and delivery system in the midst of the most sever financial crisis. Major studios unemployment was on the rise and production budgets were cut by as much as 50%. Many of America's "boys" who returned after war realized that they could not get jobs, obtain loans, or resume their education.

Antonioni, Fellini, Bertolucci, Pasolini

Antonioni, Fellini, Bertolucci, Pasolini: ANTONIONI- was an Italian modernist film director. FELLINI- an Italian director known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque films and he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century. He became involved with Italian Neorealism after meeting Rossellini. BERTOLUCCI- an Italian director and screenwriter. He uses his films to express his political views; hence they are often autobiographical as well as highly controversial. His political films were preceded by others re-evaluating history. PASOLINI- Marxist poet and film director. He made his first two films in the neorealist tradition but later rejected it in favor of what he called an "epical religious", or mythic, vision of experience.

Bonnie and Clyde, 2001, The Wild Bunch as exemplars of the "new American cinema"

BONNIE AND CLYDE- the only film ever to have forced the public retraction of a critical opinion. It was in fact a sophisticated blend of comedy, violence, romance, and symbolically-politics that borrowed freely from the techniques of the French New Wave and that perfectly captured the rebellious spirit of the times. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY- this film has an epic structure. Enigmatic, mystical, and profoundly sensuous, 2001 resist concrete logical interpretation because in a real sense its medium is its message. The film is essentially a nonverbal experience. It attempts to communicate more to the subconscious and to the feelings than it does to the intellect. Less than half of the film contains dialogue; the rest alternates between classical and avant garde electronic music and the silence of the deep space. This film also broke new ground in photographic special effects. It is the most rare of cinematic achievements: a big budget, non-narrative spectacle of enormous technical sophistication that nevertheless makes an original and personal artistic statement about the human condition. THE WILD BUNCH- this film is a stunning piece of widescreen composition from beginning to end. By bringing the American film closes to reality in its depiction of what high-powered modern weaponry can do to the human body. The directors had overturned decades of polite filmic convention that the body has the resilience of rubber and that death is simply a state of terminal sleep.

Andre Bazin

Cahiers du cinema. A renowned French film critic and film theorist, Bazin was a major force in post-World War II film studies and criticism.

Fassbinder, Wenders, Herzog

FASSBINDER- previously an actor and theatre director, he became the undisputed leader of the New German Cinema. He had a high regard for melodrama as a popular form. Most of his films are about people who don't "make it", who have somehow failed to reap the material benefits of the German "economic miracle". He saw melodrama, about real life, as a form of heightened realism. WENDERS- through Ozu-like camera placement and a variety of unusual subjective shots, he attempts to induce in the viewer a state of anxiety similar to that experienced by the goalie. His major theme is that of "a worldwide homesickness", the anxiety-ridden sense of psychological and geographical dislocation induced by living in the modern world. HERZOG- a German film director and producer; he is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema. His films often feature heroes with impossible dreams, people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals who find themselves in conflict with nature.

influence of the Cold War on Hollywood

Former President Roosevelt established a Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs to mobilize the studios for the national defense effort. Hollywood responded by creating the War Activities Committee to coordinate American filmmaking activity with the propaganda and morale-boosting programs of the government. From 1941-1945, the Army/Navy entity were involved in the production of documentary films designed to explain and justify the war. Major Hollywood directors such as Frank Capra, John Ford and a few others were recruited into the armed forces to operate these programs. The films they created collectively are among the most outstanding documentaries in the history of the form. Hollywood enjoyed the most profitable 4-year period in its history during the war.

Sweden's most prominent director

Ingmar Bergman-wrote and director 13 somber films that explored themes of loneliness, alienation, and the sheer difficulty of being alive. The Seventh Seal is a poetic allegory. He brilliantly evoked the Middle Ages and posed the first of a series of a metaphysical questions about the relationship of man to God, a theme that occupied him for a decade. For Bergman, modern alienation has reduced human communication to a series of desperate sexual encounters that can only end in chaos. He is an artist of vast and unusual talent; he is essentially a religious artist whose films concern the fundamentals questions of human existence. He uses small casts and crews and he shoots in natural locations whenever possible.

kabuki, noh

KABUKI- a highly stylized and somewhat overwrought dramatic for deriving from the Feudal Tokugawa period (1603-1868). Stylized conventions of kabuki became the mainstream conventions of Japanese narrative film. NOH- it evolved from various popular, folk and aristocratic art forms. It is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. The emphasis is on tradition rather than innovation.

Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi

KUROSAWA- became the most famous Japanese director in the West bc his films are more Western in construction. He was a giant of the international cinema; a true auteur of his films-he set up his own shots, did his own editing, and wrote his own scripts; a professional student of Western painting before he entered cinema. Kurosawa was a fatalist, or at least an existentialist, in subtle but thoroughly Japanese terms. OZU- a master of the classical Japanese films. He was a specialist is light comedies. He focused mainly on social comedies that concentrate on the daily lives and interpersonal relationships of the members of lower-middle-class families. His camera is often motionless, and it frequently assumes the low-angle position of a person seated; become on of the first directors in the history of film to create off-screen space. MIZOGUCHI- he studied Western painting as a student but his themes and visual style were purely Japanese. His first films were mainly thrillers and melodramas adapted from popular literature. In 1925, he began making films dealing with the impact of urbanization on Japanese life. He turned increasingly to period films to avoid government censorship. Like Renoir, he sought ways to portray internal states through external means.

brief history of the production code (film censorship) in postwar US

Motion Picture Production Code was drafted based on the "Don'ts and Be Carefuls" formula whose provisions would dictate the content o American motion pictures for the next 20 years. The Production Code was very repressive, prohibiting the showing or mentioning of almost everything germane to the situation of normal human adults. It forbade depicting "scenes of passion" and required the sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home to be upheld at all times. The use of profanity was also prohibited as well as excessive drinking. It was forbidden to ridicule or criticize any aspect of any religious faith, to show cruelty to animals or children, to represent surgical operations, "in fact or in silhouette."

Parajanov, Tarkovsky

PARAJANOV- He invented his own cinematic style, which was totally out of step with the guiding principles of socialist realism (the only sanctioned art style in the USSR). This, combined with his controversial lifestyle and behavior, led Soviet cinema authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him and suppress his films. he had a deliberate aesthetic strategy to interrogate a whole set of historically evolved assumptions about the nature of cinematic space and the relationship between the spectator and the screen. He uses a variety of lenses such as "fish eye" to warp the film's scenographic space to the outer limits of narrative comprehension. TARKOVSKI- a Soviet and Russian filmmaker and the 2nd major figure to emerge from the postwar Soviet cinema. Tarkovsky's films are characterised by metaphysical themes, extremely long takes, and memorable images of exceptional beauty. Recurring motifs are dreams, memory, childhood, running water accompanied by fire, rain indoors, reflections, levitation, and characters re-appearing in the foreground of long panning movements of the camera. Tarkovsky included levitation scenes into several of his films. To him these scenes possess great power and are used for their photogenic value and magical inexplicability.

Peter Weir, Jane Campion, Bruce Bereford

PETER WEIR- the most consistent director working in America and also the most internationally prominent figure to emerge from his nation's new wave. JANE CAMPION- the most interesting filmmaker to emerge from Australian cinema. A number of her shorts received wide recognition while she was still a student at the AFTS. She was experimental in form and feminist in theme, with these films focusing on subject such as familial power relationships and sexual harassment. BERESFORD-adapted from Australian authors. Returned occasionally to Australia to direct culturally indigenous material, his better work was in America, i.e. Driving Miss. Daisy.

India's most famous and highly respected director in the West

SATYAJIT RAY- in 1947 he founded the Calcutta film society. His style was neorealistic in its simplicity and directness, and he made brillian use of classical Indian music. Because his focus fell so frequently on personal relationships and the small intimacies of everyday life, he was sometimes accused of ignoring India's problems. He was a genuine artist who made the Indian cinema worthy of serious attention for the first time in its history.

Truffaut, Resnais, Chabrol

TRUFFAUT was one of the founders of the French New Wave. He later devised the auteur theory, which stated that the director was the "author" of his work; that great directors such as Renoir or Hitchcock have distinct styles and themes that permeate all of their films. He also wrote a book on Hitchcock. RESNAIS is another French film director best known for three early works that deal with themes of memory and trauma. CHABROL is another director who remained prolific and popular throughout his half-century career. His early films are usually categorized as part of the New Wave and generally have the experimental qualities associated with the movement.

Wajda, Polanski, Zanussi

WAJDA- the first Eastern European director whose films were widely shown in the West and studied painting for 4 years before entering the film biz. POLANKSI- began his career as an actor in Wajda's film. He has a masterful evocation of the hallucinated horror of psychosis, through both image and sound. The most popular and commercial successful of all his films is Rosemary's Baby. He had a thematic obsession with cruelty, violence, and the forces that produce them. ZANUSSI- the most important of the Third Polish Cinema and who is today the only rival to Wajda. He was trained as a physicist and his films tend to focus on a single contemporary problem and treat it in a highly analytic manner. He became closely identified with the "cinema of moral anxiety" during the Solidarity era. He also became one of the several directors who were forced to work outside Poland for political reasons

Neorealism: what, when + form/content + major figures

WHAT/WHEN- 1942, a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors. Italian neorealist films mostly contend with the difficult economical and moral conditions of post-World War II Italy, reflecting the changes in the Italian psyche and the conditions of everyday life: poverty and desperation. FORM/CONTENT-abolished contrived plots, do away with professional actors, and take to the streets for its material in order to establish direct contact with contemporary reality. MAJOR FIGURES- Roberto Rossellini, Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica.

the New Wave: what, when + form/content +major figures

WHAT/WHEN-a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm and is an example of European art cinema. Many also engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style and narrative part of a general break with the conservative paradigm. FORM/CONTENT- 1) rejection of montage aesthetics in favor of mise-en-scene and composition depth and 2) personal authorship: film should ideally be a medium of personal artistic expression. MAJOR FIGURES- Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Alain Resnais and Eric Rohmer.

Socialist realism

a style of realistic art which developed under Socialism in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleological-oriented style having as its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism. Unlike Social realism, Socialist realism often glorifies the roles of the poor. A social-realist film movement whose themes were borrowed from Italian neorealism and whose techniques were modeled upon the Free Cinema documentary of the late 1950s and the films of the French New Wave. The movement's films were generally set in the industrial Midlands and shot on location in black and white against the gloomiest backgrounds. The films featured unknown actor, and their protagonists were typically rebellious working-class youths.

Bollywood

also known as Bombay is India's film industry-the country's tenth largest. It is formally referred to as Hindi cinema, though frequent use of poetic Urdu words is fairly common. There has been a growing presence of Indian English in dialogue and songs as well.

Hollywood's response to advent of TV

at first Hollywood attempted to enter television business by applying for station licenses in major markets and by innovating large-screen television in its theater circuits. But, the studios were out-maneuvered politically by the dominant radio networks, and NBC, CBS, and ABC moved directly into TV broadcasting. Moreover, theater/subscription television simply could not compete with the "free" programming provided by the networks. Many studios contractually restrained their stars from appearing on television. This stimulated the new medium to develop start personalities on its own. By 1949 the American film industry was seriously threatened by television. Hollywood adapted, counterattacked, and survived.

changes brought by the arrival of digital film effects (CGI)

at first, CGI was used primarily for special effects, but filmmakers soon realized that it could be used for more mundane ways to achieve production economies by creating synthetic sets and props, erasing unwanted elements in principal photography, etc. CGI had become an important feature of nearly all films that relied on special effects and such films had become an industry mainstay.

Shift in demographics of American film audiences in the last 40 years; effects

between the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s, the audience shifted from a predominantly middle-aged, modestly educated, middle- to lower-class group to a younger, better educated, more affluent, and predominantly middle-class group. This audience was smaller than the previous audience, and its values were different. The old audience had begun to stay home and watch television, venturing out occasionally for some spectacular family entertainment but generally out movie theatres. As the size of the audiences decreased, admission prices rose well above the rate of general inflation, which had the effect of further decreasing the demand for the traditional Hollywood product. There was an increase tolerance for independent production. The major studios were turning increasingly to television production to save themselves from financial ruin.

Pedro Almodovar

his perverse, anarchic, and wildly funny films have consistently led the list of top Spanish exports to the West and they are paradigmatic of the current vitality of Spanish cinema.

auteur theory

holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if he or she were the primary "auteur" (the French word for "author"). In spite of—and sometimes even because of—the production of the film as part of an industrial process, the author's creative voice is distinct enough to shine through all kinds of studio interference. In some cases, film producers are considered to exert a similar "auteur" influence on films they have produced. Auteur theory has influenced film criticism since 1954, when it was advocated by film director and critic François Truffaut. "Auteurism" is the use of auteur theory to analyze films or to understand the characteristics that identify the director as auteur. Both the auteur theory and the auteurism method of film analysis are frequently associated with the French New Wave and the film critics who wrote for the influential French film review periodical Cahiers du Cinéma.

influence/resonance of the New Wave in world cinema

it revitalized the stagnant British and American cinemas during the 1960s, and it produced similar chain reactions in Italy, West Germany, Eastern Europe, and indeed around the world. Varda, Resnais, Marker and Malle began their careers as assistants and editors within the established industry. Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rivette, and Rohmer began as theorists and critics in total revolt against the industrial system. Two common notions bound them together and made their films vastly important to the evolution of narrative cinema. 1). They believed that film was an art form that could provide an artist with a medium of personal expression as rich, as varied and as sensitive as any other. 2). They shared the belief that the narrative conventions they had inherited from the 1930s and 1940s were insufficient to achieve these ends, that in fact many of these conventions prevented the audiovisual language of film from approaching its full range of expression. By calling into question the very form and process of narrative cinema, the filmmakers of the New Wave insured that the cinema could never again rely upon the easy narrative assumptions of its first 50 years.

influence of widescreen on film aesthetics

the Cinerama image was six times the standard size, and its curvilinear shape added the phenomenon of peripheral vision to the screen. It also surrounded its audience with seven tracks stereophonic sound recorded magnetically rather than optically. These factors combined to create an illusion of depth and spectator involvement that thrilling audiences. But the astounding success of Cinerama in the early 1950s was the catalyst that started the widescreen revolution and brought audiences back into the theatres again. Stereoscopic 3-D did not last long for many reasons. 1) Producers found it difficult to make serious narrative films, 2) the illusion of depth wasn't authentic or satisfying, 3) people dislike wearing weird glasses, and 4) the major reason was because of the anamorphic widescreen process. The anamorphic screen process= CinemaScope. It had the distinct advantage of requiring no special cameras, film stock or projectors, only special lenses. Distortion was common in lateral movement across the frame and in tracking shots. Textures would become grainy and colors indistinct through the blowing up process. CinemaScope was cheap, flexible and simple enough to be used on a regular basis in the commercial cinema and the public adored it. Panavision offered a nearly distortion-free definition of image to anamorphic films. It gradually replaced CinemaScope as the leading anamorphic system. Vista Vision was Paramount's own widescreen system. It produced an enhanced picture resolution and clarity and exhibitors liked the system because it required no modification of existing equipment.

Effects of university film studies and film production courses on US film industry

the highly specialized training produced a generation of American filmmakers whose visual and technical sophistication was immense but whose film s were sometimes so painstakingly calculated for effect as to lack spontaneity. All of these extremely talented film-school-trained directors have produced works of distinction-some of near genius. There is at times an almost academic preoccupation with cinematic effect and audience response.

aspect ratio (what + 2 main types)

this is the ratio of width to height, also known as Academy aperture. The standardized ratio is 4:3 or 1.33:1. CinemaScope offered a radically new ratio of 2.55:1, and then reduced to 2.35:1. Vista Vision was variable from 1.33:1 to 1.96:1.

Third World Cinema: themes and challenges

was widely recognized as one of the most important and innovative movements in conemporary filmmaking. This term covers a wide range of films produced on 3 continents, in countries that have long histories of exploitation and colonial oppression by Western powers. Third World cinema countries tend to have several common characteristics that identify them as parts of a coherent international movement. 1. 3rd world filmmakers use cinema as a compelling means of mass persuasion, cultural consolidation and consciousness raising. 2. 3rd World filmmakers often operate from an independent production base outside their countries' established film industries. 3. 3rd World cinema rejects conventional narrative syntax of Hollywood and other Western filmindustries in an effort to extend limits

East European and Soviet film as barometers of political conditions

when the war ended, these countries were "liberated" by the Soviet army and found themselves once again occupied by a foreign, totalitarian power. Among the first acts of the new regimes was to nationalize the Eastern European film industries in order to use them, as the Nazis had, for the production of political propaganda. In Czechoslovakia and Poland, nationalization took place in conjunction with the establishment of state supported film schools, repeating the pattern of the Soviet Union just after its revolution. The thoroughness of the postwar nationalization meant that there would always be a close relationship between film and politics in Eastern Europe. During periods of liberlization, the cinema has become a vehicle for social criticism and ideological debate. For this reason, the cinema has always been one of the most important arts for the Eastern European intelligentsia. During the repressive postwar years, few Eastern European countries produced significant films. Most adopted official Soviet style "socialst realism" as decreed at the first Congress of the Soviet Writers Union.