Warms Culture & Film Final

42nd Street, 1933 - Directed by Lloyd Bacon (with Busbee Berkeley) - Stars Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler (with an early appearance by Ginger Rogers)

- 42nd Street probably saved Warner Bros. from bankruptcy. - It's a fast paced, clever musical that mixes Broadway veterans with virtual unknowns. It's a depression film, full of bitter wisecracks (that plays well in our own time). - 42nd Street was directed by Lloyd Bacon (1889-1955) who was an extremely prolific director and also an actor in early films (He is in some of the early Charlie Chaplin shorts including the The Tramp) - 42nd street combined veteran stars (George Brent, Warner Baxter and Bebe Daniels) with virtual new-comers (Ginger Rogers, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler)

Del Lord (1894-1970)

- A Plumbing was produced and directed by Del Lord (1894-1970). Lord had worked as an actor and director with Mack Sennett (he drove the Keystone Kops van). - He sold used cars at the beginning of the depression but was hired by Columbia in '35 as it opened its short films division. - He made over three dozen Three Stooges films and was critical in helping create the style of the films.

Other WB Characters

- After Bugs, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck were the two most popular WB characters (in that order) - Porky was the first WB "star" and was most popular during the 1930s, but became sidekick character. - Daffy is an all-purpose character without consistent traits from cartoon to cartoon.

New Wave directors

- Although inspired by neo-realism and by American pulp fiction, New Wave directors focused on individuality of artistic vision. - Each director tried to approach his subject in as original way as possible. This inspired a conscious striving for greatness. - Directors pushed the boundaries of filmmaking.

What influenced Kurosawa's film making?

- American filmmaking, particularly the wide screen, rapid cutting film techniques and the general plot lines of the Western. - Several of his films were remade as Westerns, particularly Seven Samurai, remade (twice now) as The Magnificent Seven and Yojimbo remade as Fistful of Dollars and more recently as Last Man Standing (1996). - Kurosawa also took European stories, particularly Shakespeare, and remade them in Japanese settings. For example Throne of Blood (1955) is a Japanese telling of MacBeth and Ran (1985) is a version of King Lear.

Our Gang

- Among the longest running short subjects, Our Gang began in 1922 and ran until 1944. There were 220 films and over 40 child actors. - Most of the child characters in the films are clearly poor. Their parents are usually absent (though grandparents are sometimes present). They are often depicted in direct contrast to unlikable wealthy characters (though this moderates as the series progresses) and usually shown in a world of their own.

Jean Seberg (Patricia Franchini) *Breathless*

- An American actress who played frequently in both French and American films. Probably best known in the US for her roles in the 1969 musical Paint Your Wagon and the 1970 disaster film Airport. - She was briefly married to Francois Moreuil, one of the New Wave directors. - Seberg suffered from depression and eventually suicided.

Warner Brothers' Cartoons

- Animation started in the early years of film, between 1900 and 1906. Disney was in production in the 1920s (Steamboat Willie, Disney's breakout film was 1928). - Warner Brothers started producing cartoons in the 1930s. Warner animators had much more freedom than Disney animators. From the mid 1930s until 1969, they created some of the best known cartoon characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Wile E. Coyote, and the Road Runner.

Japanese Studios

- As in the US, there were independent competing studios. There were four "majors," each associated with an important director (Nikkatsu, associated with Kon Ichikawa; Shochiku, associated with Yasujiro Ozu; ToHo, associated with Akira Kurosawa (and with Godzilla pictures); and Daiei (later Kadokawa), associated with Kenji Mizoguchi)

Breathless

- Based on an actual couple. In 1952, Michel Portail, a petty criminal stole a car and murdered the motorcycle cop who pulled him over. His American journalist girlfriend, Beverly Lynette, eventually turned him in to the police. - The film was shot entirely with hand held camera and almost no lighting. - Godard had to use special film and camera to do this. The camera was noisy and could not synchronize sound, so the entire film was dubbed. - shot around Paris, without permission of the authorities or permits. - Much of the script was written on the spot. There are numerous cameos and in-jokes. For example, Poiccard uses the alias Laszlo Kovacs, the real Kovacs was a Hungarian cinematographer who had secretly filmed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. And the man hit by a car is played by the Godard's fellow New Wave director, Jacques Rivette.

Jean-Paul Belmondo (Michel Poiccard): *Breathless*

- Belmondo was deeply associated with the French New Wave. Although Breathless was not his first film, it was a breakthrough for him. - He went on to play in other New Wave films but in the mid 1960s he switched to mainstream films, mostly comedies, and remained one of France's most popular actors through the mid 1980s.

Bugs Bunny

- Bugs, as we know him first appears in 1940, though there are earlier versions. Bugs was WB's most popular character with 168 titles. - Bugs is a (karmic) trickster character: wisecracking, gender-bending, anti-authority ...what parents tell their kids not to be. Bugs, minds his own business but when disturbed, disturbs the complacency of his culture, deflating the pomposity of its symbols. - Bugs taught Americans how to be hip..."you're smarter than the person who's tormenting you even though he's got more power than you. He's got the big rifle, but you're are living by your wits and your own creativity"*

The Stooges After Columbia

- By the late 1950s, both tastes and the movie industry had changed. The Stooges made their career on short films but movies no longer included shorts. They were unceremoniously dismissed from Columbia. - TV was new and searching for programming and the 190 Three Stooges shorts were perfect material, particularly for afternoon kid-shows. This led to new popularity, the Stooges probably became better known among baby boomers than they had ever been before. - The Stooges moved to cash in on their new popularity. They hired Joe DeRita to replace Joe Besser, made a series of feature movies from '59 to '65 and appeared in other films such as It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963). - They were a popular live act and there was even an animated series (and they appeared in other animated shows, particularly Scooby-Doo). Moe and Larry continued to perform until they were physically incapacitated.

Cabaret, 1972 - Directed by Bob Fosse - Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey

- Cabaret won 10 academy awards, but lost to The Godfather for Best Picture. Cabaret was a 1966 Broadway show based on an earlier play (I am a Camera) based on Christopher Isherwood's 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin. - Cabaret was directed by Bob Fosse (1927-1987), choreographer, director, producer of perhaps the best of the 1960s and 1970s Broadway musicals and film. Fosse's style was a radical break with the musical styles of the 1940s and 1950s. He brought jazz dance to the theater (and sex as well). - The scene we play here, "Money Money Money," is everything that the R and H musicals were not: hard edged, cynical, sexual, and much more in tune with the social upheavals of the era from 1965 to 1975. - Just as Sound of Music really included only one hard-edged cynical song "No Way to Stop It," Cabaret includes only one really sweet song: "Tomorrow Belongs to Me." In the play, this is originally sung a cappella by a male voice choir. However, in the film version it's sung by the Hitler Youth. Thus, while earlier stage musicals were sometimes sweetened as they transitioned to the screen, Cabaret was soured! - The song has been covered several times by neo-Nazi musicians (particularly the British skinhead group Screwdriver). "Tomorrow..." is, IMHO, among the most disturbing moments in musical film.

Carousel, 1956 - Directed by Henry King - Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones

- Carousel was the second Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and opened on Broadway in 1945. Like Oklahoma, (the first R and H collaboration) which opened on Broadway in 1943, it was a spectacular success in its era. Rodgers (1902-1979) was a composer who had collaborated with Lorenz Hart (1895-1943) on more than 40 Hollywood musicals and film scripts. Their specialty was the sophisticated, witty musical. - Oscar Hammerstein (1895-1960) was a college buddy of Rodgers (at Columbia) who specialized in operetta. Rodgers joined Hammerstein to write Oklahoma shortly before Hart's death (the stage show premiered 3/31/43).

Film in Czechoslovakia

- Czechoslovakia had a developing film industry in the early 20th century that was destroyed by Hitler in 1938. Between then and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the industry was heavily censored. - However, there was a short liberalization in Czechoslovakia between 1961 and 1968 (when it was crushed by a Soviet invasion). In this brief era there was a fluorescence of film. This is sometimes called the Golden Age of Czech film or the Czech New Wave. -This occurred partly because the state had set up an excellent film school, the F.A.M.U., so when liberalization occurred there were well trained people to take advantage of it. Some of these, including Milos Forman, ended up in the US.

Breathless

- Directed by Jean-Luc Godard, written by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. - Godard made numerous short films during the 50s but Breathless is his FIRST full length film. - - Breathless was deeply influenced by American Film Noir (particularly Touch of Evil) but breaks from American continuity style (look for jump cuts and breaking of the eyeline match rule).

Milos Forman (b. 1932)

- Forman is almost certainly the most famous director to come from the Czech Republic. - Both of Forman's parents died in Nazi concentration camps. - After the war, Forman attended a prestigious school where be became a friend of Vaclav Havel (later president of the republic). - From there, he moved to FAMU. Between 1963 and 1967, Forman directed three very well received films: Black Peter (1963), Loves of a Blonde (1965) and Firemen's Ball (1967). All three are comedic but all provide increasing criticism of the communist regime. - Forman came to the US in 1967 and thus was outside of Czechoslovakia during the 1968 Russian invasion. He became one of the most celebrated directors in Hollywood with films including: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) and Man on the Moon (1999).

The Loves of a Blonde (1965)

- Forman's second film, The Loves of a Blonde, was based very loosely on an experience from his own life. The film won grudging approval from the state authorities who told Forman that the film had neither artistic nor commercial appeal and would offend the public. - The authorities were, in a sense, correct. People from the town where the film had been made were initially offended. However, not only was the film a huge success in Czechoslovakia, hundreds of young men traveled to the town where it was filmed hoping to hook up with female factory workers. - The film won numerous awards outside of Czechoslovakia and was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Academy award (though it won neither).

Godard after 1968

- Godard became increasingly political, first Marxist, then Maoist. - He was convinced that "one cannot think" with traditional narrative films. - His work became more fragmented and disjointed. They became calls to political action and contemplation of the relationships between symbols, stories, and reality (and difficult to watch).

Jean Luc Godard

- Godard was strongly influenced by existentialist philosophy and Marxism. - He was a child of the middle class who became interested in film and film criticism at university. Godard wanted to create a new realism in film. - - Deeply influenced by playwright Bertol Brecht's idea that art and human problems are solvable when they are viewed rationally.

The Hand (Ruka)

- In addition, Czechs developed a very strong tradition of animation. The Hand, a 1965 stop action animation is a disturbing and powerful statement against authoritarianism everywhere. It was banned after the Soviet invasion. - animation was also created for kids. An ongoing example is Krtek, the little mole. Krtek first appeared in 1957 and continued in short cartoons and 30 minute features through the 2000s.

The Sound of Music, 1965 - Directed by Robert Wise - Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer

- In its era, The Sound of Music was unbelievably popular. It surpassed Gone With The Wind as the greatest box office draw (before it was outstripped by The Godfather in 1972). - In many ways it is the height of the 1950s/1960s musical genre. It was made from a 1959 stage show of the same name. It was wholesome, happy, had singable tunes and stage settings that were both spectacular and realistic. It was also, basically, the end of its genre of musical. - After the success of SoM, Fox tried three additional blockbuster musicals: Doolittle (1967), Star (1968), and Hello Dolly (1969). None were successful. SoM was directed and produced by Robert Wise - In many ways, The Sound of Music is a happy upbeat love story about the Nazis! Although the play is set in the disaster of the Nazi take-over of Austria, the focus is really on the various love affairs and on the characters of Maria, the governess and the von Trapp children. Revealingly, the original play included a kind of nasty cynical song "No Way to Stop it" (the song argues against resistance to the Nazis and for the naked promotion of the self). The song was deleted from the film version. - The scene we play from this: 16 going on 17, is cute... actually salacious for its era, but again pretty hard to watch in the current day. - In many ways, The Sound of Music really represents the bitter end of 20th century musical film. Broadway musicals, of course continued. Some of the great Broadway shows of the 1960s were Funny Girl, Hair, Oliver!... Most of these were made into movies but none of the movies had either the success or the cultural imprint of the earlier R & H musicals.

Nickelodeons

- In the early days, nickelodeons showed only short films. - By the 1920s, a movie viewing would usually include several short subjects in addition to the feature film. There were several categories including short comedy, cartoons, newsreels, travelogues, and documentaries.

Forman's inspiration and work process

- Inspired by both Italian neo-realism (particularly De Sica) and by French New Wave, Forman used a mostly non-professional cast. - Although the story arc was well established there was little script. Forman only told the actors their lines immediately before filming each scene. The result is that dialogue is substantially ad-libbed.

Bubsy Berkeley in 42nd street

- It also has the over-the-top choreography of Busby Berkeley and is his first film. His style of production number is often imitated and parodied. Berkeley was a second generation film person. Mother had starred in silents. - Berkeley was said to be inspired the marching formations of soldiers he'd seen in his experiences in World War I. - He was a choreographer on Broadway in the 20s. Began to work in Hollywood in the early 30s. Worked on several films before 42nd Street, however this was his first really big film. He went on to do many similar (but increasingly extravagent) dance numbers for Gold Diggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1935. He worked with Esther Williams, for whom he did similar numbers with the actors swimming instead of dancing on stage (for example Million Dollar Mermaid 1952). - If you go back and look at the "Just Dropped In" sequence from The Big Lebowski (number 17 in the film music portion of the class) you'll see that it parodies Berkeley in general and the "Young and Healthy" sequence from 42nd St. in particular.

Czech films drew heavily from...

- Italian Neorealism and French New Wave. They combined the feel of authenticity of the first with some of the story-telling and cinematographic techniques of the second.

Kurosawa's tragic early years

- Kurosawa had a tragic childhood and was haunted by depression all of his life. As a child, he saw the 1923 Tokyo earthquake and the massacre of Koreans that followed it. - He lived through the death of several of his siblings, particularly the suicide of his much admired older brother. - Kurosawa attempted suicide in 1971.

Postwar Japanese Film

- Like elsewhere, there was strong censorship before and during WW II. Censorship continued during the American occupation (1945-52), though it became less strict after 1949. - Directors took on a strong popular role and were widely known among the general public. They, as much (or even more) than stars were key box office attractions.

Little Shop of Horrors, 1986 Directed by Frank Oz Rick Moranis, Ellen Green

- Little Shop was originally a 1982 off-Broadway musical made from the 1960 Roger Corman (1926-) film of the same name. The film was not a musical and was "serious." Corman, of course, was the director of such Hollywood classics as A Bucket of Blood (1959), The She Gods of Shark Reef (1956), and Attack of the Giant Crab Monsters (1967) (he's got over 400 other director or producer credits.) . - Little Shop was directed by Frank Oz (1944-), who you might know better as the master puppeteer who brought you Bert, Cookie Monster and Grover (as well as Animal, Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy ... and not to mention Yoda). Oz has also had a very successful directing career - In a sense, by the 1980s, although Broadway musical shows continued to soldier on, the musical as a film genre had played itself out. The only musicals that could become popular were either films that more-or-less parodied the genre (like Little Shop or Hairspray 1988) or animated films like An American Tail (1986). - Dance films (like Dirty Dancing 1987) remained popular, but that's a different genre (the same might be said of the two hit religious musicals of the era: JC Superstar (1973) and Godspell (1973).). - Starting in the 2000s, there was a substantial revival of film musicals. This was signaled by the 2002 Best Picture award given to Chicago, a classic backstage musical (but one that had been a play in 1975). Chicago was the first musical to win Best Picture since Oliver! in 1968 (and that's not remembered as great decision. Looking back, the most memorable films of that year weren't even nominated. They included 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rosemary's Baby, and Planet of the Apes). - The revival of musicals that began with Chicago continued, primarily on TV, with the success of shows such as Glee (2009-2015) and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-) and was capped (at least for the moment) with La La Land (2016) which was the first "true" Hollywood musical (again, in the sense of being made originally for film rather than derived from a stage play) since the 1950s. La La Land was nominated for 14 Oscars and won 6 (but not Best Picture. That one went to Moonlight in a famously messed up presentation). - As of Spring 2017, there are numerous musical films in the works, but most continue to be film adaptations of successful Broadway shows.

Toshirô Mifune (Sanjuro Kuwabatake) (1920-1997):

- Mifune came to movies through a series of publically announced talent search contests. - was the original "roving warrior." -One of Japan's best known actors - appeared in almost 170 feature films. - He played in 16 Kurosawa films including Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Rashomon. - - Appeared in American TV mini-series Shogun. - - Eventually Mifune became estranged from Kurosawa. - "The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three." - Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa

- One of the best known Japanese directors/ one of a very few who were well known outside of Japan. - Kurosawa was associated with Communist Party in the 1930s but in 1936 got a job as assistant and scriptwriter for a prominent director. - His first films were made during the war and were heavily affected by government censorship. - Kurosawa had a very long career: More than 30 films from the early 1940s to 1990s, many of them both extraordinarily famous and huge box-office successes.

Free Wheeling (1932)

- Produced by Hal Roach/ Directed by Robert F. McGowan - Confined to a neck brace, poor little rich boy Dickie would like to play with the neighborhood kids, but his overprotective mother will not let him. On the sly, however, Dickie sneaks out of his bedroom in search of adventure in the company of his best pal, Stymie. Purchasing a ride on the donkey-driven "taxicab" piloted by Breezy Brisbane, the boys, along with hitchhikers Spanky and Jacquie Lyn, experience enough thrills and excitement to last a lifetime when the taxi begins rolling down a steep hill minus brakes.

Shirley Temple

- She made two additional child films in 1939, but she was on her way out. She made several films as a teenager, but they were not particularly successful. - Temple retired from acting in 1949. A first marriage to actor John Agar was unsuccessful. A second with businessman Charles Black worked. - In the 1970s and 1980s, Shirley Temple Black became a important person in the Republican party. After a failed run for Congress, she was appointed Ambassador to Ghana by Richard Nixon. She later served in the Ford and Reagan administrations.

Little Miss Broadway, 1938 - Directed by Ian Cummings - Shirley Temple

- Shirley Temple (1928-2014) was one of the first and one of the most successful of the Hollywood child stars. She took her first role when she was 3 and the four films she made in 1934, when she was 6, got her a special academy award. The height of her popularity was from 1935-1938. During those years, she was Hollywood's biggest attraction. At the time Little Miss Broadway was made, her producers were afraid that she was getting too old for the kind of roles she was playing. They were right. - Shirley Temple films were ideal Depression entertainment. She was the little girl who could fix all the problems the grown-ups couldn't solve because she had a good attitude, energy, and was just so damn cute. - Not only that but in this movie she dances with George Murphy (1902-1992), who later becomes US Senator from California. Both Temple and Murphy were Republicans, and in a sense the Shirley Temple movies, with their focus on self reliance and their examples of "nice" rich people (in this movie Sarah Wendling isn't, at least at the beginning, but Roger and Willoughby Wendling very much are) are rather conservative films. - The picture was directed by Irving Cummings, born Irving Camisky in New York City, New York was an American movie actor, director, producer and writer. Cummings was known for the big splashy 1930s Technicolor musicals with popular leading ladies such as Betty Grable, Alice Faye, and Shirley Temple. he directed at 20th Century Fox.

Short Subjects

- Short Subject films were a common part of the movie going experience in the United States from the earliest days of film until the 1960s. - In addition to Chaplin, Keaton, some of the best known shorts were Laurel and Hardy, Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies, The Three Stooges, and Pete Smith Specialties (although there were a great many others).

The downfall of shorts

- Shorts began declining during the depression when movie studios began to exercise greater control over what theater owners could show. This decline was more or less continuous until they virtually disappeared. - However, many short subjects, particularly comedies and cartoons had a second life on television, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s.

Singing in the Rain, 1952 - Directed by Arthur Freed - Gene Kelly, Donald O'Conner, Debbie Reynolds

- Singing in the Rain was perhaps the most successful musical of its kind and one of the last musicals that wasn't simply an adaptation of a stage play. In a sense it's the last "true Hollywood musical" for many years (almost all the musicals that followed from the 50s to the current day are New York rather than Hollywood...they were adaptations of successful Broadway shows rather than stories made for the movies). - Singing was made by the Freed unit of MGM. The unit was headed by Arthur Freed, and it produced 40 MGM musicals including Meet Me in St. Louis, Annie Get Your Gun, Showboat, An American in Paris, Brigadoon, Gigi. Although other studios and other units made musicals, MGM's Freed unit was the most successful and best known musical production unit. Originally a piano player and lyricist, Freed had worked with the Marx Brothers. He was hired by MGM in the 1930s. His first big gig was as an assistant producer on Gone With The Wind. Freed was given his own "unit" in 1939. It's hugely successful after the 1939 production of Babes in Arms. Freed drew critical talent to MGM musicals including directors Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen, Busby Berkeley, and Charles Walters and actors Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Lena Horne and many others. - Singing in the Rain relied almost entirely on recycled material from shows of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Set in the late 20s, it describes Hollywood's transition from silents to talkies. It's colorful, witty, and satirical and, although it is upbeat, it shares some of the traits of the film noir that were being produced at about the same time.

South Pacific, 1958 - Directed by Joshua Logan - Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor

- South Pacific was the fourth Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration and opened on Broadway in 1949. It might be the most politically charged of the R and H musicals and it certainly had some of the most famous music including "Some Enchanted Evening," which was frequently covered and was a #1 hit in 1949 and "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" - Although the film is set among American sailors stationed in the South Pacific during World War II, it's fundamentally about race. The plot concerns two love stories: an American nurse from Arkansas (Nellie Forbush, played by Mitzie Gaynor) falls in love with a French plantation owner (Emile De Becque, played by Rossano Barzzi) but cannot (at least initially) accept his mixed race children. A secondary love story concerns Marine Lieutenant Joseph Cable and his love for a Polynesian girl. (spoiler: Forbush and De Becque overcome their problems and marry, Cable is killed in the war). - In the scene we play, Forbush rejects de Becque because she can't accept that he was married to a Polynesian. Cable sings that racial prejudice is not innate but must be "carefully taught." That it's so difficult (and unintentionally funny) to watch a scene that is very emotional, quite serious, and explores a social problem from a perspective almost all of us are likely to agree with, shows just how different styles were in the 1950s. I love the way John Kerr, playing Cable goes in and out of "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught...cracks me up every time. - The play (and film) created enormous controversy, particularly in the South where in 1953, in Atlanta legislators tried to outlaw it as having "an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow" and State Representative David C. Jones claimed that a song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life. Note that to make race a focus of the play and film was a very specific conscious decision by R and H. It wasn't really the focus of the Mitchner short stories (Tales of the South Pacific) on which the show is based. In context, it was part of a broader effort by Northeastern liberal intellectuals to tie the civil rights struggle to anti-communism.

Three Stooges

- The Horwitz "Howard" brothers, Moses "Moe" (1897-1975), Samuel "Shemp" (1895-1955), and Jerome "Curly" (1903-1952) from Brooklyn along with Larry Feinberg (1902-1975) from Philly beat each other up in 190 two-reel comedies that remain popular. - Originally part of an act called "Ted Healy and His Southern Gentlemen" They were in and out of vaudeville and movies during the 1920s and early 30s.

The Stooges move to Columbia

- The Stooges moved to Columbia in 1934/1935 and remained there until '58, one of the longest collaborations in film history. - Columbia in that era was low budget in general, and cheap to the Stooges in particular. Although they made a good living, The Stooges didn't get rich and went for many years without pay raises.

New Wave differences

- The idea of Hollywood continuity style was to make viewers forget that they were watching a film BUT New Wave filmmakers often did exactly the opposite. - They used disjointed images, attempts to show disunity, odd changes of character, the use of people on the street, and other devices to constantly remind the audience that it was watching a film.

Early Japanese Film making

- There were historical differences between the Japanese and Western film industries. - The Japanese were about a decade behind the technological advances made in Europe and the US. Silents continued to the late 1930s. - There was no real tradition of popular novels but there was a strong tradition of highly stylized theater. - Silent Japanese films used benshi (professional narrators.) This left directors free to invent an extremely abstract vocabulary of film.

The Musicals

- There were some forerunners of musicals in the 1920s. These relied on live pit orchestras. One good example of this early genre was The Merry Widow filmed in 1925 - Over time, musicals came to depend on dance as much as on song. - Many of the early musicals were reviews. These flourished during the 30s but disappeared after the war. - Another critical form of the musical was the "Backstage Musical." There were many versions of this but the general idea is that the key characters are actors and there is always a play presented. --- The leading early proponent of the genre was Busby Berkeley

Yojimbo (1961) "Bodyguard"

- Written and directed by Kurosawa. - It tells the story of a rōnin, portrayed by Toshiro Mifune, who arrives in a small town where competing crime lords vie for supremacy. The two bosses each try to hire the newcomer as a bodyguard.

Tatsuya Nakadai (Unosuke) (1932-):

- another of Japan's best known actors. Nakadai appeared frequently in films for both Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi, another of Japan's most famous directors. - After Mifune and Kurosawa became estranged, Nakadai took roles in Kurosawa films that Mifune might otherwise have taken, including great performances in Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985). Nakadai - born in 1932, continues to be active in Japanese movies and TV.

Jackie Cooper & other cast members

- by far the longest lived and most successful of the Our Gang actors mentioned here. IMDB gives him 131 acting credits from the 3 late 70s early 80s Superman movies to Murder She wrote. He has 42 directoral credits and 10 as producer.

Takashi Shimura (Tokuemon) (1905-1982):

- collaborated with Kurosawa most of his life: from Drunken Angel (1948) to Kagemusha (1980). - Also played the scientist in early Godzilla films.

A Plumbing We Will Go (1940)

- considered the quintessential Stooge film -mildly criminal behavior, disrespect for authority figures, violence toward each other, the puncturing of the pompous, and the timing and antics of Curly - A Plumbing is class based humor. The Stooges are working class guys. They beat on each other constantly but none of them are ever visibly hurt. - - The people they work for are members of the upper class. Their dignity and their property are destroyed.

Stooge humor

- had a very strong appeal for immigrant audiences. The Horwitz brothers and Feinberg were sons of immigrants. Their humor is primarily visual, easily comprehensible to non-English speaking audiences. - More importantly, they express an aspect of the immigrant experience: they are outsiders, constantly being beaten down, but always getting back up. At the end of A Plumbing the house is left in ruins, and The Stooges are running from the police. But we know they will go on to wreck havoc elsewhere.

New Wave films

- tended to take their look from neo-realism: non-studio, unpolished, the use of on-site locations, use of amateurs. - they often used non-sequential time, camera motion designed to track a character's consciousness, intense and direct conversation about politics or philosophy. - Many were shot on extremely low budgets. - Friends and neighbors played important production roles.

Cahiers critics

- were young and highly critical of French film which they found to be unspontaneous, literary, talky, too concerned with tastefulness and too polished. - they were inspired by the Italian neo-realists, particularly Roberto Rossellini. However, Rossellini urged them to stop writing about film and start making film. - In 1959, they started.

4 genres developed:

1) the story of resistance to the Nazis 2) the historical drama 3) the film of every-day life 4) the surreal or futurist film.

"Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century,"

1953 Merrie Melodies, Chuck Jones. A parody of the comic book Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. A cold war film about nuclear weapons.

"Duck Amuck"

1953, Merrie Melodies, Chuck Jones, a surreal cartoon that deconstructs the idea of cartoons and film. A different take on Bugs as trickster.

"What's Opera Doc?"

1957, Chuck Jones. Merrie Melodies. A parody of Wagnarian opera, particularly The Ring. General attack on everything: opera, ballet, Disney, and itself.

"Rabbit of Seville"

A 1950 Looney Tunes cartoon by Chuck Jones. Composer Carl Stalling keeps the structure of Rossini's overture to the opera The Barber of Seville relatively intact. A classic Bugs cartoon.

Carousel - Directed by Henry King - Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones

After Hart's death, Rodgers and Hammerstein produced many of the most famous musicals of their era including: Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific, Flower Drum Song and The Sound of Music. Each of these were successful stage shows before they were movies. The Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration produced a great many memorable songs but the shows and music was far more sentimental, sweet, and sincere than those of the Rodgers and Hart collaboration. Rodgers and Hammerstein's work was perfectly adapted to the cultural currents of the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s (though note that all their work was done in the 1940s and 1950s...Hammerstein died in '60.). Carousel was based on the 1909 tragic play Liliom by Hungarian author Ferenc Molnar. It's a pretty odd story by modern standards (you can read a plot summary here). It was revived with some success in the mid 90s. A 2008 revival failed despite generally positive reviews. The 1956 film makes difficult viewing for a modern audience. Critical changes were made first between the original play and R and H's stage version and then between the stage and film versions. In both cases, the changes were to soften the original play and make it a bit less tragic. Among these is that the key character suicides on stage but dies in an accident on film. The same character, allowed to return to earth after his death, fails to help his daughter in the original play but succeeds in the American version. Watching "Clambake" after seeing extracts from 42nd Street and Singing in the Rain is pretty hard. The scene seems much more artificial, the music over sweet, the lyrics cringe-worthy ("The victuals we et were good you bet/the company was the same"). However, keep in mind that although "Clambake" isn't perhaps the greatest R&H song, it was a popular one from the show. Carousel is a tragedy that could have been filmed in an edgy avant-garde way, but here it is made a sweet, bland, and colorful tear-jerker. The original hard ending was softened and the tragedy made into a feel-good film. This gives us a insight into the ways in which popular taste was changing in the 1950s. Despite the tearful ending of Carousel, in general the musicals that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s were far less cynical and satirical and far more conformist and optimistic than the musicals of the 1930s and 1940s.

Fredrick Bean (Tex) Avery

Although numerous people were involved in creating the Warner characters and in producing the films, Avery is probably most responsible for key characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig.

Jean Luc Godard & Francois Truffaut

Among the best known of the New Wave filmmakers. Godard came from a middle class family and Truffaut was a child of the streets.

Nimaime male character:

An undependable often pathetic character but also one who through dependence on others denies heroism and advocates mutual cooperation.

"One Froggy Evening"

Chuck Jones, a Merrie Melodies film without any famous character. Spielberg says "The Citizen Kane of animated film." The only appearance of Michigan J. Frog.

Replacing Curly

Curly had a stroke in '46 and never performed again (he died in '52). He was replaced by Shemp who died in '55 and was replaced by Joe Besser who finished their last Columbia contract and was replaced by still others in the 1960s.

Film and Protest

Four genres of film developed. These genres offered film-makers a way to use symbolism and allegory to talk about politics.

Cahiers critics names

Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette. All of (particularly the first two) became film makers associated with New Wave.

Tragic comedy in Czech cinema

Frequently, a key marker of the Czech cinema is tragic-comedy. Humorous situations and absurdity abound but so does death and disaster. This reflects the absurdity and the horror of living under a tyrannical system

Cahiers du Cinema

In 1951, Andre Bazin founded Cahiers du Cinema. Bazin is best noted for auteur theory: the idea that films represent the personal vision of their directors (you will realize that Bazin's notions run through this class).

Japanese Genre

Japanese film has somewhat different genres and different stock characters than Western film.

Kurosawa's films convey..

Kurosawa's films send emotionally mixed messages. Many are battles with despair. The search for truth always leads to ambiguity.

Mel Blanc

Most of the voice work in these cartoons was done by Mel Blanc, "The Man of 1000 Voices." Blanc voiced Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepe Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales and many others.

Charles Martin (Chuck) Jones

Of the three directors, Jones' work is the most often seen today. Jones worked for Avery and Clampett in the 1930s but did his best known work in the 1950s. Jones' early work is "cute" but his better known work is hard-edged.

Themes of New Wave

Often strongly existential, stressing oddity and absurdity of life.

Jidai-geki genre:

Period or costume films. Jidaigeki "proper" treat the Tokugawa era (1615-1868) sub-genres treat other eras (for example Meiji-mono treats 1868-1912)

The first real musical

The Jazz Singer in 1929. also the first sound picture

Warner Directors

The best known of Warner's animators were Fredrick Bean (Tex) Avery (from Taylor, TX) Charles Martin (Chuck) Jones, and Bob Clampett.

Our Gang's casting

The films were notable for children behaving in relatively naturalistic ways and the series produced several cultural icons of the era including Alfalfa (Carl Dean Switzer 1927-1959), Spanky (George McFarland 1928-1993), Stymie (Matthew Beard 1925-1981) Buckwheat (William Thomas 1931-1980), Porky (Eugene Gordon Lee 1933-2005), and Jackie (Jackie Cooper 1922-2011). With the exception of Cooper, few went on to successful acting careers. Some, like Switzer had tragic ends (he was shot to death trying to collect a $50 debt).*

Stereotypes in Our Gang

The series is full of stereotypes of various kinds. The degree to which it is racist is hotly debated. On the one hand, some of the portrayals are hard to watch. On the other, the films also shows black and white (and very occasionally Asian) kids as truly friends and truly equals. And was just about the only place that happened in American film of that era.

Godard in the 60s

Throughout the 1960s, Godard continued to make generally well received (and often politically controversial) films. -Band of Outsiders (1964) -A Married Woman (1964) -Week End (1967).

Gendai-geki genre:

films of modern life. Sub-genres include middle-class drama or comedy, mother picture, wife picture, non-sense picture, gangster picture, youth picture, J-horror...

Postwar French Cinema

largely concerned with style and form. Many films combined fantasy, song, and social satire. The industry was also heavily controlled by the studios.

Tateyaku male character:

modeled on the ideal samurai; the man of few words who choses loyalty above all.