TFM 364A (History of Film Classics) Midterm 1 Study Guide

____________: the artistic belief that all artists (including filmmakers) should seek to bridge the gap between the traditional creative process and the needs of a new Socialist society.

Constructivism

This prolific filmmaker sought to create tightly structured films that utilized cause & effect, continuity, tension, suspense, action, and many of the themes and emotions that we still see in films today.

Edwin S. Porter

From around 1907 to 1913, film makers were seeking to make distinctive images that went beyond everyday life representations. Their curiosity brought on the concept of "____________________", a term coined by the film researcher Tom Gunning.

Cinema of Attractions

Travelogues, War films, and news reels - these became something aligned with the term:

Cinema of Attractions

A device with which one person could peep through a whole in the machine and watch moving images:

Kinetoscope

Vertov had managed an experimental and influential newsreel series called:

Kino-Pravda

A film technique developed by Vertov where assembled film fragments and images are cut together to create a new way of seeing. Intended to capture what was impossible for the human eye to see.

Kino-eye

____ ________ was one of the pioneer thinkers of the Soviet Montage era, grappling with new ways to organize film materials through montage editing, to shock and excite audiences.

Lev Kuleshov

Alice Guy Blache helped mentor __________, an actor who would eventually become the first female American filmmaker.

Lois Weber

This device displayed slide shows through slide projectors. Oil lamps lit up glass on which hand drawn images and multiple projectors worked together to create these movements.

Magic Lanterns

Which filmmaker/scholar made this statement? "Black independent cinema which puts Black people and their culture at the centre as subjects of narrative development; in these films, Black people are neither marginalized as a problem, nor singled out as villainous stereotypes such as Hollywood constructs in its films."

Manthia Diawara

In 1926, UFA released the film __________, which was widely considered the most expensive and elaborate German expressionist film.

Metropolis

This position is responsible for overseeing the genres and narrative set-ups in early cinema Became responsible for organizing a system of production.

Metteur en scene

Composition, production design, blocking, costume, textures. These are all crucial aspects of what?

Mise en scene

These facilities had multidimensional ways of engaging audiences, including foyers, hallways with ushers, and massive theater spaces feat ornate architecture and decorations. Most were air-conditioned, and some even offered child care.

Movie Palaces

These low cost cinemas cost 5 cents, and lasted for about 5 years before the incentive to change the layout and quality of film viewing locations.

Nickelodeons

Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd, were all prolific actors of what type of film?

Silent Film / Silent Comedy

Alice Guy Blanche owned and operated this film studio, which specialized in long form dramatizations, adaptations, and comedies.

Solax

The essential nature of _____________ boils down to the graphic and rhythmic editing rather than editing dictated by Hollywood-style storytelling. These films downplayed the character's psychological development, stressing instead how social forces are the root cause of change in people's lives.

Soviet Montage

In 1910, this film producer established The Foster Photoplay Company, the first film studio owned by a Black person, with the express purpose to challenge and correct negative/racist stereotypes and depictions of Black people.

William D. Foster

With help from Edison, this inventor created the first Kinetoscope:

William K. Dickson

This 1920 film was seen as a direct response to the racist stereotypes and imagery of Birth of a Nation. It was an explicit attempt by Micheaux to show Black lives struggling with issues of class, race, and universal emotions (love, jealousy, greed).

Within Our Gates

One of the central concepts behind Russian Futurism was creating shocking juxtapositions between images and ideas. Art can be a ____ ___ __________.

tool for revolution

____________ believed that shots should be joined together like bricks in a building.

V.I. Pudovkin

In what year did the first kinetoscope parlor open with 10 machines?

1894

What year did The Lumière Brothers film 'Train Arriving at the Station' & 'Workers Leaving the Factory'?

1896

By what year had Hollywood become the center for film production in America and influential around the world, where movies were now sold as unique products.

1919

There were many competing political and aesthetic ideologies during the time between ____________ before Russian film production experienced a boom in the mid 1920s.

1920-1923

A stage actor from London who came to America at 19 and began appearing in short films for Keystone Studios in 1914. His most recognized onscreen persona was "The Tramp" persona, and rapidly became famous. By 1918 was one of the most recognized stars in Hollywood.

Charlie Chaplin

The pattern of light and dark in an image produced by the distribution of shadows within it

Chiaroscuro lighting

A device that allows for motion pictures to be have synchronous sound

Chronophone

This 1912 film was the first known example of a film with all African American cast.

A Fool and His Money

This 1902 film by Méliès inspired filmmakers and vaudeville performers from around the world to experiment with different ways of telling a story cinematically.

A Trip to The Moon

The head of Paramount, he revolutionized film distribution by marketing stars and films as a product.

Adolf Zukor

This early cinema pioneer was born in 1873 in Saint-Mandé, France. She went on to create important films such as 'The Cabbage Patch Fairy' (1901), 'Madame Has Her Cravings' (1906), 'The Hierarchy of Love' (1907), and 'The Results of Feminism' (1906).

Alice Guy Blache

Expressionism has its roots in the in a revolt against the arts of the 19th century. Painters such as __________ and __________ rejected the aesthetic of absolute fidelity to the external appearances of the outside world. A. Vincent van Gogh & Claude Monet B. Leonardo Da Vinci & Claude Monet C. Vincent van Gogh & Paul Gauguin D. Leonardo Da Vinci & Paul Gauguin

C

This art form has its roots in the artistic trends of pre-Revolutionary Russia. Around 1910, the Russian Futurist movement attracted many of the most creative minds of the day.

Avant-garde Soviet art

All of these were important aspects in Eisenstein's films except: A. History & events B. characters & stars. C. Duration & order of shots

B

Elements of 'Within Our Gates include all except: A. Crime film B. Comedy C. Melodrama D. Historical narrative

B

_____, _____, and later ______ became art forms used to communicate ideologies and calls to action in Russian propaganda. A. Paintings, Radio, Cinema B. Print, Radio, Cinema C. Print, Radio, Theatre D. Theatre, Radio, Cinema

B

This 1925 film depicts the abortive 1905 revolution that was crushed by the Tsar, and shows how violence impacts every Russian in brutal and life-altering ways, placing the film's sympathy squarely with the people.

Battleship Potemkin

This Film studio was founded in 1895, and one of the first American companies devoted entirely to making films. It quickly became one of the most respected film studios.

Biograph Company

Edison built this movie production studio to create content for the kinetoscope to sell. The content was mainly filming famous people.

Black Maria

Throughout the 1920s, this comedic performer made features and shorts that highlighted his deadpan comedy style in which he rarely smiles. Parody of classic genres was a big part of his work, as was his dedication to vaudeville style slapstick that would pit his stone-faced characters within volatile and dangerous situations.

Buster Keaton

Which of these are true about 'Within Our Gates'? A. At its core is the pervasive social inequality experienced by Black people and the white controlled establishments that perpetuate it. B. The film deals with key themes involving the pursuit of fair educational models, expressing oneself through suffrage, the necessity of civil rights, and community building. C. Challenges the notion that lives of Black people in the North were somehow better and less threatened by racism. D. All of the Above

D

This film director joined Biograph Company in 1908, and within months became the principal director.

D.W. Griffith

In 1921, UFA took over __________, another major German film company, and acquired the services of Fritz Lang and Friedrich Murnau.

Decla-Bioscop

In addition to Sergei Eisenstein, this person also emerged as an important figure within the Communist film scene.

Dziga Vertov

In 1889, this photography company began making cheap motion picture cameras, and introduced a flexible film base photography.

Eastman Kodak

Eisenstein believed _______ was the main way to convey meaning through film, but that the collision of sometimes contradictory shots were meant to shock and agitate the audience, inspiring revolution and philosophical/ideological change.

Editing

French scientist and chronophotographer who developed continuous photographic strip

Etienne-Jules Marey

This aesthetic movement involved personal and subjective visions of contorted/distorted objects, settings, and faces. It was about reflecting the nightmarish and surreal qualities of the mind onto real life tableaus.

Expressionism / German Expressionism

True or False: All Russian artists were in agreement about how Soviet Montage could achieve its intended goals.

False

True or False: By the early 1900s, movies/films were not yet being considered for business and profit.

False

True or False: In the early days of cinema, visual humor was not important for comedy and storytelling.

False

True or False: Micheaux was never criticized for his films or labeled as problematic for his content.

False

True or False: Movies/Films never became part of Vaudeville acts in the USA.

False

True or False: The Lumière Brothers did not get any ideas from Edison's work and invented their own devices to record and project movies.

False

True or False: The violence of WWI had no effect or influence on German Expressionism.

False

This company patented the chronophone and hired Guy as Head of Production.

Gaumont

This French filmmaker took special effects to another level. He knew that people loved magic tricks, so he incorporated these into his films.

George Melies

______ ____________ became a popular style to differentiate German films from Hollywood. These films reflected a collective anxiety, trauma, and madness through its extreme style.

German Expressionism

A 1922 film directed by F.W. Murnau and an early example of German Expressionism.

Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror

This self-made novelist/film director formed a company to publish his books. He believed in aggressive word-of-mouth marketing on promotional tours through traditionally black parts of the country.

Oscar Micheaux

A French company that gained a stranglehold over worldwide distribution, became an innovator in world distribution, sent representatives around the world to sell equipment and films and encouraged local entrepreneurs to open theaters.

Pathe Freres

___________ became an effective weapon used by the Bolsheviks to sway public opinion and demonize their opponents, creating a sense the the party was the most central institution in daily Russian life.

Propaganda

These films became a genre unto themselves, and were made by black filmmakers, with black audiences in mind. They often had low budgets and poor production value, but they've had a lasting impact to this very day.

Race Films

____________ , an important figure in communist film, believed shots shouldn't fit together smoothly so that audiences would be jolted out of their regular way of thinking.

Sergei Eisenstein

The core aesthetic markings of German Expressionism originated in painting, literature, and dramatic theater, but eventually were embraced by filmmakers in what decade?

The 1910s

This 1915 D.W. Griffith film told the story of the American south, Civil War, Reconstruction, and the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan through the experiences of a single white family.

The Birth of a Nation

Directed by Robert Wiene, released in 1920, this film was considered the first true German Expressionist film. Initiated a trend in German Expressionist films presenting the world through a madman's subjective point-of-view.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

From 1910-1920, this was the beginning of a period of time when millions of Black Americans migrated to Northern industrial cities to fill work shortages brought about by WWI.

The Great Migration

A 1903 film by Edwin S. Porter that involved a group of outlaws taking a train hostage and steal from it.

The Great Train Robbery

Around the emergence of ____________________, black performers and filmmakers began envisioning an independent cinema that would stand in opposition to the racist messaging in Griffith's films and the pervasive racism in literature and theater.

The Harlem Renaissance

A film experiment conducted by Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov exploring how audiences ascribed meaning to and understood shots depending on the order in which they were assembled. He believed that simply showing one frame would not be enough to convey meaning and emotion. The audience views two separate images and subconsciously gives them a collective context. The experiment signaled to directors and film editors that shot length, movement, cuts, and juxtaposition are filmmaking techniques that can emotionally affect audiences. This is known as:

The Kuleshov Effect

These two siblings were photographic equipment manufacturers who created the first Cinematographe system - a projection system and theatrical space where people could watch movies.

The Lumiere Brothers / Auguste and Louis Lumiere

A system in Hollywood that afforded certain actors more recognition and influence, and changed the way motion pictures were marketed.

The Star System

Hollywood studios developed this model for controlling all facets of Production, Distribution, and Exhibition of their product. Movie stars and unique stories were main selling points for films.

The Studio System

True or False: The goal of The Lumière Brothers was to make a much lighter apparatus that allowed them to go out into the world to record everyday life.

True

True or False: The late 1890s was all about experimentation and trying to figure out how to capture the public's attention and money with new spectacle.

True

True or False: The rise of Movie Palaces in NYC and Chicago introduced audiences to the "experience" of filmgoing, and locations were often strategic in order to attract upwardly mobile, middle class patrons.

True

True or False: as the movie business grew, the appeal to the middle class to spend money grew, which in turn meant the filmmakers themselves had to create content that was more attractive to this demographic.

True

True or False: at the beginning of the early 1900s, films became more about storytelling, adaptations, comic, and dramatic narratives.

True

True or False: it was Eisenstein's belief that film as a visual medium could convey ideas far more convincingly than any political speech.

True

True or False: photographic images were eventually innovated into magic lantern shows, replacing hand drawn images.

True

Founded in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Mary Pickford , D.W. Griffith, and William S. Hart. This was a move to ensure creative independence, a formation of their very own distribution company so they could reap the benefits of their own work.

United Artists

In 1917, the German government established __________ , the largest film production and distribution company in the country. It subsidized the entire film industry, buying up smaller companies to create a vertically integrated production company that would have total control.

Universum Film AG / UFA

An ambitious businessman and inventor who specialized in electric power (incandescent light bulb, sound recording/phonograph, mass communication, and motion pictures) and sought to invent a movie camera.

Thomas Edison

True of False: Micheaux's philosophy was to learn from the masses, then teach them.

True

True or False: As WWI saw Germany shift from an empire to the Weimar Republic, the film industry was seen as a way to jumpstart the flailing economy.

True

True or False: By the era of The Studio System, feature length films become the norm, and Hollywood sets the professional standard for filmmaking.

True

True or False: George Méliès films were fundamental to the origins of fantasy, sci-fi, the exploration of outer space, and grandiose imagination in film.

True

True or False: Russian Futurism was Influenced both by French cubism and Italian Futurism.

True

True or False: The early decades of cinema were about cycles of invention, innovation, financial risk, and cycles of diffusion (i.e. how quickly an audience adapts to a new product). It took 10-15 years for the cinema to become a mass leisure activity.

True