Film TV 106b Midterm
Robert William Paul
In 1894-1895, Robert William Paul builds motion picture viewing device modeled after Edison-Dickson kinetoscope. Brit Acres helped build the film camera device called the Paul-Acres camera. In 1896, Paul developed a motion projection device, the Theatograph. Later, he created the Maltese Cross (the invention changes continuous rotation into intermittent rotation motion). He also built the first UK film studio. He was a filmmaker for the countryman and the cinematograph
Vittorio De Sica
(1901-1974) was a leader in the neorealism movement. He got his start as a theater actor in the 1920s, and then became a popular film actor in the fascist era. Under the fascist regime he trained to be a director in the Italian film industry. Upon meeting Cesare Zavattini, screenwriter and theorist of Italian neorealism, he became inspired by the neorealist ideals and began working with Zavattini. The neorealist style of directing sought to move away from artificial type filmaking and aimed to make films that conveyed a true depiction of reality. In 1944, near the end of the fascist era, De Sica produced The Children are Watching Us which showed his depth and sensitive touch to actors.
Cines -
-Early film production company in Rome during early silent era -lured artists like Gaston Velle (previously at Pathe) away from French films -Polidor (Ferdinand Guillaume, 1887-1977) -comedic series -comedy series like these were cheaper than epics and became internationally popular
motion studies | serial photography
1887: Muybridge begins proto-cinematic motion studies with multi-camera system (trip wires) gave other people the idea to put still images in an apparatus to mimic motion multiple camera system with rapid exposure time to document motion ex. Horse running Etienne did same thing, but shot with a gun-like camera Had multiple exposure images of nature/animals
Russian Constructivism
1920: Avant-garde art movement that used industrial materials to create abstract non represented art. It challenged traditional art forms and functions. Art should be socially useful. Art work=machine-an "assemblage of artist= technician parts. Art should not mystify; rather be understandable by the workers. Artist=Technician. The most important constructivist theatrical director was Vsevolod Meyerhold an established figure who offered his services to the Bolshevik government immediately after the revolution. In his 1922 production the Magnanimous Cuckold, for example the set somewhat resembled a large factory machine; it consisted of a series of bare platforms with their supporting legs visible and a large propellor turning during the play.
Kino-eye
1929) Kino=cinema. It is a film technique developed in Soviet Russia by Dziga Vertov. Kino-Eye was Vertov's means of capturing what he believed to be "inaccessible to the human eye" that is, Kino-Eye films would not attempt to imitate how the human eye saw things. Rather, by assembling film fragments and editing them together in a form of montage, Kino-Eye hoped to activate a new type of perception by creating "a new filmic, i.e., media shaped, reality and a message or an illusion of a message - a semantic field." Distinct from narrative entertainment cinema forms or otherwise "acted" films, Kino-Eye sought to capture "life unawares" and edit it together in such a way that it would form a new, previously unseen truth. Largely considered Vertov's lone masterpiece, Man with a Movie Camera is the greatest example of Kino-Eye. According to Vertov, it required more work than his previous Kino-Eye films because of its complexity in both filming and editing. Without words or titles, it relies solely on the visual language of film to tell its story, departing wholly from the languages of theatre and literature that the kinoks believed had infiltrated cinema.
Gaumont
A french film production company founded in 1895 by Leon Gaumont. Next to Pathe, Gaumont was the biggest firm in France. Created serials, later expanded onto british theatre. Alice Guy was head of production for 1895-1908 and replaced by Lpuis Feuillade in 1908.
Luis Buñuel
A key figure from the avant-garde movement, Luis Bunuel was a director most known for his films such as An Andalusian Dog (1929) and L'Age d'or (1930) (or otherwise known as The Age of Gold.) A spanish poet, Bunuel worked in France under Jean Epstein, a French filmmaker. He saw cinema in a specific way, which he goes into more depth on in his article "Cinema Instrument of Poetry." He believed that cinema was capable of putting the human mind in a state of total ecstasy, and commented further on its ability to delve into the subconscious. Additionally, Bunuel had the opinion that cinema could express things like dreams, emotion, and instinct in a way that is better than any other medium. His films seem to resemble these aspects of the psychological mind. They are often nonsensical, and undermine narrative continuity. Films like An Andalusian Dog also serve to make social commentary. He incorporated aspects of surrealism, an art form focused on the unconscious mind, in his cinema.
long take
A long take is a shot lasting much longer than the conventional editing pace either for film or television. The long take was a significant component of the Italian Neorealist film movement. As neorealist directors sought to move away from artificial style, towards a "true" depiction of reality, the long take was used heavily in films. Andre Bazin, a prolific French film critic and theorist, preferred long takes, stating that they captured the actual duration of events, allowing audiences to really feel time passing as if they, themselves, were characters in the film. The use of long takes can be viewed in The Children Are Watching Us, and other neorealist film of the period. Bazin and his praise of the long take is in direct opposition with Eisenstein's dialectical montage theories which focused on excessive use of montage.
phonoscope
A phonoscope (1891), also called the bioscope, is a projection device which demonstrated word pronunciation. The phonoscope was developed by George Demenÿ after working as an assistant to Étienne Jules Marey. It came about after the development of chronophotography by Marey, in order to project images captured with this method. After developing the phonoscope, Demenÿ developed the biograph, which was used to capture images that the phonoscope would then project.
Chronophotography
A single camera system that represented movement within a single image. The device used multiple exposures in on image to do this. It registered up to 20 images a second on paper and looked like a rifle. Chronophotography was developed by scientist Etienne Jules Marey in 1882 in order to study the movement of animals such as birds. He was not concerned with its un-reliability motion picture wise because he was interested soley in studying locomotion. Chronophotgraphy was unique in the reasoning it was designed for; it was made to further science. Also, the Chronograph was unique at the time in comparison to Muybridge's method of motion studies, despite its inspiration from this method, as it was a single camera system that showcased movement within one image rather than using multiple cameras and images to simulate motion. The device was significant as it inspired innovators like Demeny and Edison, who worked to improve it for the purpose of using motion pictures as a source of entertainment that would appeal to a paying audience.
Marxism
A theory of history as produced by class struggle developed in the 19th century by Marx and Engels. While this structuralist approach to Marxism and filmmaking was used, the more vociferous complaint that the Russian filmmakers had was with the narrative structure of the cinema of the United States. Eisenstein's solution was to shun narrative structure by eliminating the individual protagonist and tell stories where the action is moved by the group and the story is told through a clash of one image against the next (whether in composition, motion, or idea) so that the audience is never lulled into believing that they are watching something that has not been worked over. Einstein dreamed of filming Karl Marx capital creating concepts through images and editing rather than through verbal language.
Italian Historical Epic Film
After the rise of cinema in France, Italy's film production industry began to rapidly increase in 1905. Cineform, Ambrosio, and Itala were among the top 3 film production companies in Italy at the time. Even though Italy's film production industry was established, they still heavily relied on French filmmakers to create content because they didn't have experienced people in the field yet. Rather than depending on other countries to distribute films in more temporary venues, Italy opened more permanent film theaters in different cities for people to continuously come and watch movies. After the Ambrosio company made ' The Last Days of Pompeii' Italy became known as a Historical spectacle
Alice Guy Blaché
Alice Guy Blache became the first woman to direct, write, and produce film. She was french and lived from 1873-1968. She entered the film world when she was hired by a supply company as a secretary, which soon became Gaumont. She began working in film production, producing some of the first narrative films, and became Gaumont's head of production. For example, her first film The Cabbage Fairy, 1896, is considered by many to be the first narrative film ever. She eventually married and moved to America and began her own production company with her husband and partner, Solax, before failing to make the transition from short to feature length fils, and eventually divorced, moved back to France, and wrote film commentary instead. Her film Madame's Cravings, 1907, exemplifies a narrative film, telling the story of a pregnant woman who cannot control her pregnancy cravings, and goes as far as stealing others food.
Ambrosio
Ambrosio was an early Italian film production and distribution company based in Turin. It was established in 1905 and was highly influential during the silent film era. In 1908 the company made The Last Days of Pompeii, a film which established the Italian historical epic as a popular genre. The film was a major success, further enhancing the company's status and laid the template for future historical epic films. After the popular reception of The Last Days of Pompeii, Ambrosio also produced a series of literary adaptations. The company built a large studio and picture house in Turin, and the city emerged as a major center of the early Italian film industry.
Thomas Edison and W.K.L. Dickson
Date -Creators of the Kinetograph Based on Etienne Marey's camera, Edison and Dickson use flexible film strips (1 inch wide/35 mm), spliced together with four holes punched on both sides of each frame -The film was pulled through the device with tooth-geared mechanism
Eadweard Muybridge
Date: 1830-1904 British born photographer who used multiple camera system with rapid exposure time to document motion-developed the zoopraxiscope (1879)
deep focus
Deep Focus is defined as a use of the camera lens and lighting that keeps both the close and distant planes in sharp focus. One again, this filmmaking technique was highly used during the Italian Neorealism era to maintain an aesthetic of reality. It also allowed the viewer to select, for themselves, what they thought to be important in a scene and to come to a conclusion of their own, rather than having a meaning forced upon them as in the Soviet montage era. We see deep focus being highly used in De Sica's 1948 film Bicycle Thieves.
Etienne- Jules Marey
Develops chronophotography, a single camera system used to represent movement in time within a single image 20 images per second -Works closely with assistant George Demeny, who later develops the phonoscope (1891), also called the bioscope, which demonstrated word pronunciation, and the biograph (1893)
Paul-Acres camera
Due to patents and Edison's unwillingness to share motion picture technology, other inventors had to create their own devices to capture and project film. From 1894-1895, Robert William Paul developed a motion picture viewing device based on the Edison-Dickson kinetoscope. After this, Paul works with Brit Acres to develop a film camera to capture motion pictures, called the Paul-Acres camera, which was the first film camera made in England.
Fernand Leger
Fernand Leger (1881-1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. A popular film of his was the Ballet Mecanique (1924). In his early works, he created a version of cubism featured in many of his films. He was important in creating Avant-Garde and experimental cinema. Filmmakers in this movement were visual, literary, performing artists in major modern art movements. They worked outside of the mainstream, commercial cinemas, and the state. They sought alternate forms of funding and organized through cine-clubs. (There wasn't a whole ton of info on him specifically but I did my best)
Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov, originally known as Denis Kaufman, was a film director during the Russian Constructivism Movement. Filmmakers such as Dziga Vertov applied constructivist principles to documentary film with films such as Man with a Movie Camer. A Man with the movie camera reveals Vertov's belief in non-acted film and the real image should be the heart of the film. Vertov's believed all purpose of cinema is to capture life off-guard and that it should not be dependent on theater, literature, but has its own function and rules of organization. Man with a Movie camera is a clear representation on Vertov's belief of cinema because the film acts as an assembly of random shots, seemingly having no narrative structure, just a glimpse into life. This concept is referred to as Kino-eye, kino meaning cinema, the eye of the camera more accurately saw life than the human eye. Kertov also created Kinok, a collection of filmmakers he started with his brother Mikkhail Kaufman.
Film d'Art
Film d'art is a term coined by the early Italian Silent Film Industry. It was developed within the Italian Futurism where an emphasis was placed on modernity, technology, industry, war, and dyananism. Focusing on this notion of progessing forward film d'art was born. It was a movement used by the Italian Film Industry to suggest that cinema was made for high culture, not popular culture. At this time, the Italians through this as where filmmaking should be going toward wealthy audiences that can fund future film projects. Film d'art was deployed as a marketing technique to bring in the high-brow market. To do this, theaters were created that were dedicated solely to film. Before then theaters that had shown film were used for other arts like opera, dance, music, etc. The movement also reflected the aspirations of Italian silent filmmakers, because they wanted film to be a grand art, respected by the masses and exclusive to the bourgeoisie.
French Poetic Realism
French Poetic Realism is a filmmaking style that emerged in France during the 1930s. It was influenced by foreign domination of the French cinema during the 1920s and film innovation from other countries. French Poetic Realism can be described as popular fiction set in urban environments. One of its characteristics is movement between documentary realism and atmospheric, "moody," ethereal, lyrical environments. Stylistically, it generally involved use of the long take, on-location shooting, natural lighting conditions, depth of field, and fluid, "improvised" camera movement. The protagonists are from the working, lower classes or marginalized figures (criminals, etc.). The narratives would concern tragic love affairs, and would usually end with a loss or death of the main characters. Examples of important French Poetic Realist filmmakers are Jean Vigo, Jean Grémillon, Marcel Carné, Julien Duvivier, Marc Allégret, and Jean Renoir.
George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith was an English hypnotist and lanternist that ran an amusement park in Brighton. He was inspired by R.W. Paul and decided to get a camera. After getting his camera he made numerous films and in 1897 he even made over thirty films. Smith is credited with the impressive use of close-up shots, creation of dreamtime and developing continuity editing. Smith also worked with Charles Urban in the early 20th century to develop Kinemacolor which was a two tone color process. Smith then left the film business in 1915
George Melies
George Méliès was French, and lived from 1861-1938. He contributed to early filmography, and stopped making films after 1912, because he struggled to transition to feature length films. He originally had a career as an illusionist, working on stage magic and in the theater, but was inspired by the Lumiere Brothers' cinematograph to enter the film business, and when they refused his offer to buy their invention, acquired a projector from Robert William Paul and modified it to become a movie camera. He began making and directing his own short films, 500 between 1896 and 1912, which lacked a traditional plot but showed his magic skills and trick films. He has also been defined by the formalist tendency, as opposed to the realist tendency of the Lumiere Brothers, using editing to manipulate time and space, such as stop-motion. His style often resembled a theater, with painted backdrops and trained actors. Some of his short films include Voyage to the Moon, 1907, The Living Playing Cards, 1905, and The Cook in Trouble, 1904.
German Expressionism
German expressionism, bore out of the Weimar Republic, sprung to life in the 1920s. The advent of the movement is commonly demarcated by Rober Wiene's 1920 classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a film that became known as both a preeminent example of German expressionism and the horror genre itself. The German Expressionists had a variety of techniques and theories that exemplified their films. First, they sought to defy naturalism and realism in film. Instead, the expressionists opted for a focus on emotion and the inner psyche. Rather than presenting scenes of everyday life, films of the German expressionist era utlilized distortion of shape, color, and movement. By contrasting acting with the set, a particularly warped vision was presented - perhaps mirroring the minds of the characters themselves. This new film movement prospered within Germany, ironically, due to their post-war predicament. A ban on certain foreign films forced the country to focus on internal content and the increase of hyper-inflation inserted more capital into the film industry; allowing them to produce and sell their films at home and abroad.
Hans Richter
Hans Richter was an individual associated with the avant-garde movement of cinema and focused on ideas of early animation. Most notably known for Rhythmus 21 (1921), Richter joined the Zurich Dada. The Dada movement was an artistic movement that arose from the aftermath of the horrors of the first world war. Hans Richter also worked with the swedish artist Viking Eggeling in his career. The short film Rhythmus 21 consisted of geometric shapes that were meant to create rhythmic patterns through visual and aural composition. The film was meant to be an experiment with abstraction; that is, Rhythmus 21 did not consist of a narrative structure. Rather, it was simply an exercise of various squares and rectangles appearing, disappearing, sizing up and sizing down on the screen. Shapes are also seen coming out from different sides of the screen and overlapping with one another. The shapes would at times change color from white to black and vice-versa.
Communism
In political and social sciences, communism is the philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state. During war communism (1917-1920), the soviet union was in a state of civil war and experienced great hardships with the film industry struggling to survive. The Russian Romanov dynasty collapsed in the chaos of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The rise of the Soviet Union from the ashes of the Romanovs is perhaps the most important event in the twentieth century. It saw the world's first Communist government, and it led to a wave of communist inspired revolutions around the world and ultimately the Cold War.
Ideology
In society, the common definition of ideology can be summarized as what amounts to essentially a strongly held belief. It is something that guides someone or, more broadly, a country or religion in their actions. It can also be called their worldview. In film, ideology functions similarly but can be discussed in two ways. First, films can express the ideology of the state or regime it is produced under or, more negatively, for. One such example this would be Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 Triumph of the Will where she was tasked with creating what amounted to propaganda; serving to prop up Nazi Germany's ideological viewpoint. In addition, filmmakers and movements can have their own ideology that is independent to them or itself. Film movements such as Dadaism and neorealism expressed strict ideologies that influenced how they made films and what the films featured. The films within these movements served to express the unique ideological features that characterized them.
Itala
Itala Films was an Italian silent film era production and distribution company established by Carlo Rossi and William Remmert in 1905. Based in Turin, Italy, Itala hired french technicians to help with film manufacturing. In 1907 Giovanni Pastrone was hired and helped with managing the company become more commercial and successful. Even hiring comedian Andre Deed to produce his own films under the name "Cretinetti" (Little Cretin). Not only that, but Pastrone also directed very successful historical epics. The films "The Fall of Troy" (1910) and "Cabiria" (1914) were hits for Itala. Cabiria was a historic melodrama that introduced one of the oldest recurring characters in cinema, Maciste, who was a heroic figure from his debut until the 1960s. While the films were successful, in 1918 Pastrone lost his financial hold on the company, and a year later in 1919 the whole film industry had begun to take a dive. This resulted in Itala being absorbed into the Unione Cinematografia Italiana.
Italian Neorealism
Italian Neorealism (1945-1952) was a film movement that began during the Italian Resistance, which was an anti-Fascist movement towards the end of World War II. Neorealism sought to move away from the artificial filmmaking style, towards "true" depiction of reality. Some examples of films in this era include Obsession (Luchino Visconti, 1943), Rome Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945), Paisan (Roberto Rossellini, 1946), The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio de Sica, 1948, The Earth Trembles (Luchino Visconti, 1948), and Umberto D (Vittorio de Sica, 1952). Some characteristics of Italian Neo-Realism include on-location shooting, black and white film (documentary-like aesthetic), mobile camera, use of non-actors or stage actors, post-production sound (dubbing), and low-budget production. The films were set in post World War II Italy, depicted the loves of the working class and poor ("ordinary person", the narrative conflict stems from social conditions, not character psychological motivations, and films were created for political engagement. The new cinema was created to bring about social change.
Jean Vigo
Jean Vigo (1905-1934) was a French Poetic Realist filmmaker. He was one of the most promising young filmmakers of the early 1930s. He started his career with two short documentaries. The first, A propos de Nice (1930), drew on conventions of the city symphony genre of experimental cinema; its candid shots taken during carnival time harshly satirize the wealthy vacationers in a French resort town. The second film, Taris (1931), is a lyrical underwater study of the great French swimmer Jean Taris. Jean Vigo's man work consists of a brief feature, Zero for Conduct (1933), and L'Atalante (1934). Vigo died in 1934 at the age of 29, but, despite his small body of work, he is remembered as one of the great French filmmakers. His death and the inability of the Prevert brothers to make further films cut the Surrealist impulse in French commercial filmmaking.
Leni Reifenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) began her career as an actress. However, she went on to be a director in the German film industry. She is most well known for her work in Nazi Propaganda/ Documentary film making. Propaganda is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature. It is used to promote or publicize a particular cause or point of view. The cinema was considered a powerful tool for propaganda. She portrayed Nazi Germany and Hitler as a Utopia. In her film, Triumph of the Will, Hitler even seems to come down from the clouds as if he is a god. She completed four Nazi propaganda films in her lifetime including Victory of the Faith (1933), Triumph of the Will (1934), Day of Freedom: Our Army (1935), and Olympia (1936).
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti was a film writer, and director responsible for the first Italian Neorealstic film. "Obsession" in 1943. Visconti started his career as an assistant director in the 1930s. This was before meeting director Roberto Rossellini, as well as Benito Mussolini's son, Vittorio, who was then the national arbitrator for cinema and other arts. Meeting famous directors and producers allowed him to write "Obsession" which was a loosely based literary adaptation. He continued making neorealism films, in 1948 he wrote and directed "The Earth Trembles" and in 1960, made his most well known film, "Rocco and His Brothers." The film depicts a family of brothers moving to northern Italy in search of a new life. It reveals a failure in the postwar era (and lost hope that once inspired by Italian Neorealism). Visconti worked well into the 1970s, directing films like "The Damned" (1969) and The Innocent (1976), before dying in 1976.
Lyda Borelli
Lyda Borelli was a famous actress in the Italian Silent film era. She was one of the three most prominent diva actresses, among Francesca Bertini and Pina Menichelli. To many film historians, she is considered the first Italian movie star. She used her theater background to amplify and complicate her gestures, developing a unique acting style termed "borelleggiare." She also embraced modernity and attended futurist events in modern clothing of her choice. Lyda's most notable film is Diva Dolorosa.
zoopraxiscope
Made by Eadweard Muybridge (1879) spinning disks with DRAWN figures on the circumference, to create the illusion of movement found that horses feet don't touch ground predecessor to motion pictures projector
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was an artistic associated with the avant-garde period in cinema that emerged with other movements such as Dadaism. He was known for creating Anemic Cinema (1926) with the assistance of Man Ray, an American visual artist. Anemic Cinema is a film that consisted of different abstract circulating disk formations. Perhaps what pops out to be the most significant about the film is the illegible text seen on the disks. This text consisted mostly on puns, word play, and alliteration. Some nonsensical sentences that are visible in Anemic Cinema are the phrase "Baths of vulgar tea for beauty marks without too much bengue" as well as signs "Rrose Selavy / Eros c'est la vie (Eros is life)." In his life, Marcel Duchamp eventually moved to France in the 1920s from New York after having worked on ready-mades. Overall, Marcel Duchamp was a significant figure in the avant-garde cinema, known for his work with animation.
Mezhrabpom-Rus
Mezhrabpom-Rus was an independent film studio in the USSR. It was established in 1922 and last until 1936. It was one of the most extensive and long-lived independent production companies in the Soviet Union. It provided the large portions of the most significant Soviet films. Mezhrabpom-Rus was privately owned and financed by the German communist group. The Mezhrabpom films were modeled after Hollywood films, with high production values, and a "blockbuster" style that evaded heavy political commentary. In 1936, the company was dissolved, as it was regarded too independent and too influenced by foreigners.
dialectical editing
Montage is a film editing technique that can be defined as a colliding of two or more shots that are independent of each other to create a narrative. Essentially, it is the putting together of many parts to make the entire machine, or here, film. Using dialectical editing, a particular type of montage is produced. Originating mostly in the 1920s and out of the Soviet Montage theory, this editing technique relied on conflict. Here, conflict is created between two or more shots that are independent of each other. This can be through the use of rapid editing and graphic differences between the respective shots. Whether it be the camera angle, distance, etc. In addition to the composition, the discontinuity can be produced via subject matter. The goal of filmmakers, such as Lev Kuleshov, is to manipulate the conflict to craft a narrative and meaning that could only be achieved by the presentation of the dialectically opposed between the two shots.
Montage
Montage is an approach to film editing that was developed by Soviet filmmakers beginning in the 1920s. Montage emphasizes dynamic and discontinuous relationships between shots, and the juxtaposition of images to create ideas not present in either shot by itself. Montage is also called intellectual editing, which is a juxtaposition of a series of images to create an abstract idea not present in the single image. For example, the exact same image can take on different meanings depending on the shot that follows it, as shown with the Kuleshov experiment. Another notable use of montage is in Strike, which juxtaposes images of cattle being slaughtered with workers being massacred.
montage of attractions
Montage of attractions is a theory developed by Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein's montage of attractions theory says that similar to the circus spectacle, the director assembles a series of exciting and shocking moments to stimulate the viewer. He criticizes Kuleshov and Pudovin's theory of montage, arguing montage should emphasize a collision of shots rather than shots as "bricks." According to the montage of attractions theory, montage is the idea that derives from the collision between two shots that are independent of one another.
Narkompos
Narkompos was established as the first regulatory body of the Soviet Union's film industry in 1919. It was known as the People's Commissariat of Education and was assigned to oversee cinema. Initially, the organization struggled to gain control of film production, distribution, and exhibition. However, after Lenin officially centralized the film industry with his Five-Year plan, Narkompos emerged as a major producer of propaganda. Dziga Vertov took charge of their first newsreel.
Ole Olsen
Ole Olsen was an entrepreneur from Denmark during the rise of cinema in Europe. Olsen is the main person responsible for making Denmark a key player in World Cinema. In 1906, Olsen started a production company called Nordisk which produced films and distributed them abroad. Lion's Hunt was Nordisk's break out film but it was soon removed from distribution as it showed the killing of 2 live lions. Nordisk specialized in crime thrillers and dramas causing them to quickly establish an international reputation for excellent acting and production values.
Horizontal integration
Pathes-Freres was the first to establish horizontal integration within the film industry. Horizontal integration is the process on production of purchasing other production companies. In this process the film industry is monopolized by absorbing other production companies and their work. Whether the integration is absorbing other areas of production like distribution or more production companies, horizontal integration encompasses external expansion. For example, if you are a bread company you would incorporate horizontal integration by accumulating other bread companies, accumulating the oven production companies, and so on.
Vertical integration
Practice where a single entity controls the entire process of a product, from the raw materials to distribution. In the French cinema industry, the first big production company was Pathes-Freres. It was founded by Charles Pathes and it started as a motion picture camera company before later transitioning into a film production company. They were the largest film production company before World War I, with production companies in both Europe and the United States. Pathes-Freres was the first to establish vertical integration, which is the film process of production (making/editing the films) to distribution (dispersing them around the city/country) to exhibition (theatres for audiences to view the film). It is remarkable, because all of this was done internally. Pathes-Frefres was very innovative at its time, for being the first to create theses production, destruction, and exhibition circuits, which combined is known as vertical integration. As a young film production company - in reference to what we know film companies today to be - Pathes-Freres did it all and introduced all the branches of film production that we later now today to be divided. Vertical Integration included multiple film steps that would normally occur externally, within different companies. For example, today we have separate production, distribution, and exhibitionist companies; however, Pathes-Freres did it all internally.
Propaganda
Propaganda is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature. It is used to promote or publicize a particular cause or point of view. The cinema was considered a powerful tool for propaganda. In the Nazi regime especially, propaganda film-making was highly popular. In the Nazi Regime, Leni Riefenstahl was a powerful proponent of propaganda filmmaking in the Nazi regime. She is most well known for her work in Nazi Propaganda/ Documentary film making. She portrayed Nazi Germany and Hitler as a Utopia. In her film, Triumph of the Will, Hitler even seems to come down from the clouds as if he is a god. She completed four Nazi propaganda films in her lifetime including Victory of the Faith (1933), Triumph of the Will (1934), Day of Freedom: Our Army (1935), and Olympia (1936).
Rene Clair
Rene Clair (1895-1981) was a French Poetic Realist filmmaker. He was a prominent fantasy film director. One of his fantasy films was Paris qui dort (1924), which was a comic story of a mysterious ray that paralyzes Paris. Clair used freeze-frame techniques and unmoving actors to create the sense of an immobile city. He went on to make some of the most innovative early sound films in France, before going abroad to work in the UK and USA for more than a decade. Returning to France after World War II, he continued to make films that were characterized by their elegance and wit, often presenting a nostalgic view of French life in earlier years. Two of Rene Clair's important French Poetic Realist films are Entr'acte (1924) and A nous, la liberte (1931).
Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini was an Italian film director who worked primarily during and at the end of the Italian Fascist Film Era. He started with a series of propaganda films (now regarded as the "Fascist Trilogy") about Italian soldiers in World War II. These films include "The White Ship" (1941), "A Pilot Returns" (1942), and "The Man with a Cross" (1943). "The White Ship" actually was officially sponsored by the propaganda centre of Navy Department which gave helped censor him less. These films are regarded as the precursor to Italian Neorealism, which is why after the war, Rossellini had already began working on his anti-fascist film "Rome, Open City" in 1945. This sparked his Italian Neorealism Trilogy, which included "Paisà" (1946), and "Germany, Year Zero" (1948). Each of the films describe the horrors of the Nazi regime with non-professional actors, co-produced and funded by French producers. Rosselini made movies well after his Neorealism trilogy, eventually teaching film science and dying in 1977.
Sergei Eisenstein
Russian film maker who pioneered the use of montage and is considered among the most influential film makers in the history of motion pictures (1898-1948)
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dali was a Spanish surrealist during the avant-garde movement of cinema in the late 1920s. Surrealism was an artistic movement that began in the 1920s that focused on this idea of the unconscious. It typically consisted an irrational juxtaposition of images. He was most well known for creating such surrealist images that involved the state of the unconscious mind. Dali is credited for having worked on the film An Andalusian Dog (1929) with Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel. An early surrealist film, An Andalusian Dog contained many of these aspects associated with the avant-garde art movement. It is perhaps most known for the scene where a man cuts a woman's eye with a razor in dramatic fashion. Then, the next scene shows the woman just fine. Prior to this occurrence, clouds are seen on the screen in an almost peaceful manner that quickly jumps to this brutal event. The film also contains an illogical narrative; it starts as "Once upon a time" and then skips to "Eight years later" and then "Sixteen years later."
Lev Kuleshov
Soviet Montage director who believed that the edit itself carried the meaning; discovered an effect involving image progression dubbed the "Kuleshov Effect"; directed "Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West"
Surrealism
Surrealism is a type of experimental, or independent avant-garde, filmmaking that emerged in the 1920s from Dadaism. This type of cinema was even more radical than specialized art films. Andre Breton wrote the first surrealist manifesto in 1924. Surrealism was heavily influenced by the emerging theories of psychoanalysis. Rather than depending on pure chance for the creation of artworks, Surrealists sought to tap the unconscious mind. They wanted to render the incoherent narratives of dreams directly in language or images, without the interference of conscious thought processes. The ideal Surrealist film differed from Dada in that it would not be a humorous, chaotic assemblage of events. Instead, it would trace a disturbing, often sexually charged story that followed the inexplicable logic of a dream. Examples of important Surrealist artists are Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, and Paul Klee.
Cinema of attractions
The "cinema of attractions" is Thomas Gunning's concept of describing early cinema from the 1890s to 1906/07. The emerging modern visual culture of entertainment, usually one part of vaudeville entertainment programs, was one that was characterized as exhibitionist, acknowledged the spectator, and focused on theatrical display. Through the goal of soliciting a spectator's attention, the "cinema of attractions" emphasized the visual shocks of 'unique' events or spectacles rather than storytelling or character development, such as through trick photography, slow/fast/reverse motion, close-ups, and simple fictional scenarios. The "cinema of attractions" did not disappear after its main heyday, continuing to exist in the development of the narrativization of cinema in the era that followed from 1907-1913.
Bioskop
The Bioskop was a motion picture projection device developed in 1895 by German inventors and filmmakers Max and Emil Skladanowsky, who had the vision that film should be projected for the amusement of a paying audience. While the Bioskop's construction was delayed because of financial difficulties, once the necessary implementations for a public screening were developed, the first film performance to a paying audience of projected moving images occurred when the Bioskop was introduced to audiences at Berlin's leading vaudeville house, the Winter Garden (although the Lumber Brothers are given this credit because they better capitalized and promoted their franchise).
Kinok
The Kinoks were a collection of Soviet filmmakers in the early 1920s under the influence of prominent montage editor Dziga Vertov. The group was created in 1919 with Vertov, his wife Elizaveta Svivlova, his brother Mikhail Kaufman, and other young filmmakers at the time. This group followed ideas of Russian constructivism and believed that art should be socially useful. They believed that cinema should reveal fact and capture the real world, rejecting "staged" cinema with stars, props, studios, and plots. Vertov and fellow Kinoks emphasized that the camera lens could grasp the world in its entirety and organize visual chaos into an objective picture. They believed in the importance of editing, claiming it to be "the organization of the visual world." The most prominent work of the Kinoks is Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov.
Kuleshov Effect
The Kuleshov effect revolves around the idea that the order and context of shots has more meaning than individual shots alone. When different shots are placed in different orders, viewers are able to infer spatial/temporal continuity and see the shots as being related. Viewers respond less to individual shots than they do to editing. For example, when placing a shot of an actor with a neutral facial expression in combination with other subjects, such as a bowl of soup, a coffin, and a baby, the viewers perceive his facial expression as being hunger, sorrow, or delight respectively, even though the facial expression was the same in every instance. This idea was pioneered by Lev Kuleshov in 1921 in Soviet Russia, and his finding became central to the montage filmmakers' theory and style.
The Brothers Lumiére (Louis and Auguste
The Lumiere brothers made the cinematograph in 1894. It used 35mm film to capture 16 frames per second, with an intermittent mechanism like a sewing machine. The Lumiere brothers has a realist tendency. They used the camera as a window to the "real world. It captures reality without in-camera techniques or trick photography. They utilized outdoor shooting, natural light conditions, and non-actors in everyday clothing.
October Revolution
The October Revolution followed the February Revolution in 1917 Russia, which eliminated the aristocratic rule of the Czar and put a reformist provisional government in place. The October Revolution was lead by the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Lenin and marked the creation of Soviet Russia. The February Revolution had little effect on the Russian film industry. In contrast, the October (Bolshevik) revolution created much disruption in Russian daily life, including in the film industry. The Bolsheviks were not immediately powerful enough to nationalize the film industry, so they established a body, headed by Anatoli Lunacharsky, to oversee cinema. Russian filmmakers started making propaganda films promoting the new socialist society.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire lasted from 1721 to 1917. It was a monarchy, and the third largest empire in world history. The Czarist regime was overthrown in 1917 in a movement led by Vladimir Lenin, and the last Czar Nicholas II was assassinated with his family in 1918. The following Russian Civil War, lasting from 1917 to 1922, greatly disrupted the Russian film industry, and the Bolshevik government ultimately nationalized the industry. The first film screenings in Russia happened during the Russian Empire in 1896, and foreign products, especially from France, dominated. Pathé opened a studio in Russia in 1908 and Guamont in 1909. Moscow was the center of domestic film production. The Czar and his family were film fans, so many people went to the cinemas, and though most preferred international films, Russia still had a small but stable film industry. During the war, when borders were closed, Russian filmmakers began exploring melancholy tones and psychology.
Skwaldanowsky Brothers (Max and Emil)
The Skladnowsky Brothers, Max and Emil, were two Germans who believed that films should be played for the amusement of a paying audience. Max was inspired by Joseph Plateau's Phenakistiscope and worked on creating his own camera. After failing many times he finally made a working camera and shot his first film footage in 1892. Despite financial difficulties, the Skladnowsky brothers created a projector dubbed the Bioskop. The brothers were well-versed in Vaudeville shows and therefore had the necessary equipment and knowledge to set up early film showings. In 1895 the Skladnowsky Brothers held the first film showing to a paying audience when they premiered the Bioskop at the Winter Garden, which was Berlin's leading Vaudeville house at the time. In the late 19th Century, the brothers patented the worm-gear system used in their film camera. The Skladnowsky Brothers toured widely with their films and spent a number of time in Germany, Norway, and Denmark.
Theatograph
The Theatrograph, also known as the Animatograph, is a projection device invented by Robert William Paul in 1896, being presented as Britain's second film projector and the first commercially produced 35mm projector. First demonstrated at FInsbury Technical College, the use of the Theatrograph is credited with popularizing early cinema in Britain in its use in music halls throughout the country. The Theatrograph is recognized as the most successful British equivalent of the Lumiere's French film projector, the Cinematograph, that was exhibited the year before.
Cinematograph
The cinematograph was an early motion-picture film camera, projector, and printer that was invented in 1894-1895 in Lyon by Louis and August Lumière. The device used 35mm film to capture 16 frames per second, and utilized an intermittent mechanism similar to that of a sewing machine to draw film through the camera, solving the registration problem of cameras during the time. The cinematograph printed positive images as well as being able to project when attached to a magic lantern. In 1895, the first private screening of the Lumière cinematograph was held at the Grand Café in Paris which credits the Lumieres as the first to project films to a paying public, and within months the revolutionary device disseminated throughout Europe and North America.
kinetograph | kinetosocope
The kinetograph was a filming device developed by Thomas Edison and W.K. L Dickson in 1891 that was based in Etienne Marey's Chronophotgraphy camera. The device used flexible film strips that were 1 inch wide and 35 mm and spliced together with four holes punched on both sides of each frame. The film was pulled through the device with a tooth-geared mechasim. The kinetoscope was a film viewing device also developed by Edison and Dickson in 1894 that individuals would use to see films produced by the kinetograph. This device was also equipped with sound. These devices were significant in that other innovators such as R.W. Paul built motion picture viewing devices based on the kinetoscopes design. They were also unique in that the kinetoscope was the first viewing device made for film and the kinetograph was the first motion picture producing device that ultilized Eastman Kodak celluloid film instead of paper roll film like the chronophotography device Marey had invented used.
Dadaism
The style of Dadaism marked as beginning in 1916, was an effort to confront and ultimately change the perception of what was considered art. Being rooting in its negative feelings toward warfare at the time, Dadaism was inherently nihilistic in its film ideology. According to David Kuenzli, Dadaism wanted to demonstrate the "absurdity and bankruptcy" of the war. Dadaism can be characterized by its rejection of the use of narrative in prior films. Specifically, dadaists used film to distort images with the use of moving shapes or colors that don't present a logical or coherent story. One may expect to see spirals creating illusions or colors "dancing" on the screen. This avant-garde film movement was practiced by filmmakers such as the Frenchman Hans Richter in his 1921 film Rhythmus 21, in addition to Marcel Duchamp's 1926 film Anemic Cinema and Man Ray's 1923 film Le Retour a la Raison.
realist tendency | formalist tendency
The tendencies to formalism and realism appear from the beginning of film-making. In the1890s, the Lumière brothers produced films of everyday events, like The Arrival of a Train. At the same time, Georges Méliès was appealing to imagination by exploring effects that could be achieved with film, like A Trip to the Moon. realist tendency Realism is a style which creates the illusion or effect of reality, of being a "slice of life," without any changes in or any manipulation of everyday life. The director tries to show the surface of life as closely as possible, so that the viewer accepts the film as a reflection of reality. Content or the story is generally of primary importance, rather than technique or expressionism. Plots may be loose, without a clearly defined beginning, middle and end or resolution; the conflict may emerge gradually. The movie may formalist tendency: The perceptive viewer is aware that the narrative is being manipulated for an effect. Formalist narratives may manipulate the time sequence or use an obvious pattern. There may be a disconcerting change of tone, e.g., a lyrical interlude intruding in a grim domestic drama. Genres almost always formalist are musicals, science fiction, horror/supernatural, and fantasy
LUCE Institute
When the fascist regime took power in Italy in 1922, they did not immediately take over the film industry, as they did not see the importance or significance of entertainment cinema... yet they did acknowledge the power of information cinema. They believed that cinema had much potential politically, and thus they knew they needed to be vigilant in controlling the flow of news images and reports in and out of Italy. Much like the Bolsheviks, they realized that newsreels were important such that they could reach large numbers of people in the country who could not read, but often attended the cinema. Thus in 1925, the state took over a private company that made educational films and turned it into the Instituto Luce. "Luce" meaning light played off the idea of film being a form of mass enlightenment. LUCE officially stands for L'Unione Cinnematografica Educativa. The Instituto LUCE produced documentaries, educational films, and in 1927, newsreels. They even had a small fleet of cinema trucks to take films to villages without a cinema. Additionally, an April 3, 1926 decree-law made screening of LUCE films obligatory in all cinemas in Italy. The government saw that there was an urgent need to carry out constant and intense civil and national education to the public through national propaganda and culture. By 1930, LUCE newsreels were being produced with sound with nearly five films being produced each week.
depth of field
is defined as the measurements of the closest and farthest planes in front of the camera lens between which everything will be in sharp focus. Depth of field was a component of Italian Neorealist films. A large depth of field allowed the viewer to see multiple planes of action. Vittorio De Sica's film, Umberto (1952) is an example of how depth of field was used during this movement to draw the audiences attention to multiple events and characters onscreen. Many films had a deep, as opposed to shallow depth of field, which gave these films a more realistic feel.
Agit-films
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Goskino | Sovkino
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Italian historical spectacle film
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the diva
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Pathé-Frères
name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipment and production company, as well as a major producer of phonograph records. In 1908, Pathé invented the newsreel that was shown in cinemas prior to a feature film. They own a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Les Cinémas Gaumont Pathé and television networks across Europe. It is the second oldest operating film company behind Gaumont Film Company which was established in 1895.
Nordisk
production company that produced films and distributed them abroad. Lion's Hunt was Nordisk's break out film, but it was soon removed from distribution as it showed the killing of 2 live lions. Nordisk specialized in crime thrillers and dramas causing them to quickly establish an international reputation for excellent action and production values
persistence of vision
the optical illusion that occurs when visual perception of an object does not cease for some time after the rays of light proceeding from it have ceased to enter the eye. This refers to the optical illusion whereby multiple discrete images blend into a single image in the human mind and believed to be the explanation for motion perception in cinema and animated films. Like other illusions of visual perception, it is produced by certain characteristics of the visual system. Early practitioners tried different frame rates, and chose a rate of 16 frames per second (frame/s) as high enough to cause the mind to stop seeing flashing images. Audiences still interpret motion at rates as low as ten frames per second or slower (as in a flipbook), but the flicker caused by the shutter of a film projector is distracting below the 16-frame threshold. Modern theatrical film runs at 24 frames a second. This is the case for both physical film and digital cinema systems.
Cinecittà
was a large film studio in Rome. The studio was founded by Benito Mussolini in 1937 and was modeled after the Hollywood studio system. The studio was government owned and constructed during the Fascist era as part of a plan to revive the Italian film industry. Mussolini established the studio so that it could be used for propaganda films in the promotion of fascism. The facility housed twelve sound stages and from 1937-1953 more than half of all Italian films were shot here. The studios produced films that were part of the "cinema of distraction", upper class, "white telephone films, melodramas, and escapist comedies. Rossellini's film Roma cittá aperta (1945) is an example of a film that was shot at Cinecittá and on location. Filmmakers such as Roberto Rosellini and Luchino Visconti worked at Cinecittá.
Pina Menichelli
was an Italian actress and silent film star known for her image as a diva and on her passionate, decadent eroticism. In the early Italian silent cinema, the diva was a woman with an "arrogant or temperamental" personality and embodied "ineffable spirituality, ritualistic otherness and an aura of transcendence" (Vacche 24). She became a global star and one of the most appreciated actresses in Italian Cinema. She was favorably compared to Lyda Borelli and Francesca Bertini.
Francesca Bertini
was an Italian diva silent film actress who became one of the most successful silent film stars in the first quarter of the twentieth century. She had a major role in Salvatore Di Giacomo's melodramatic story "Assunta Spina". Specifically with "Assunta Spina", she took care of the scripts as well as performing the role of the main character. Bertini was to claim with some support that she was the true director of the film which included novel acting techniques. She was one of the first film actresses to focus on reality rather than on a dramatic stereotype, an anticipation of Neorealistic canons. *The expression of authentic feelings was the key to her success through many films.