Notes
The following material is from Wikipedia. 24:25
1918-1932: The Great Rebel Filmmakers Around the World
- The Thief of Bagdad (1924) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Raoul Walsh
- The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
- Robert and Bertram (1915) dir. Max Mack
- The Oyster Princess (1919) dir. Ernst Lubitsch
- mocks capitalism and “the boss”
- The Mountain Cat (1921) dir. Ernst Lubitsch
- surreal production design
- The Marriage Circle (1924) dir. Ernst Lubitsch
- after moving to Hollywood, Lubitsch portrays sexuality in more subtle ways because of American censorship
- La Roue (1923) dir. Abel Gance
- “a grand work of impressionism”
- not all shots were “readable”, gave the impression of his life flashing before main character’s eyes,
- Napoléon (1927) dir. Abel Gance
- impressionist
- made mainstream romantic cinema look static in comparison
- rethought the camera’s relationship with movement
- at one point he filmed with three cameras pointing at three different directions, audience had to turn their heads to see whole image
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) dir. Robert Wiene
- influenced by expressionist painters
- full of fear, haunting murders, and graphic rooms
- flooded room with flat light and painted shadows on floor, revolutionary new way of filming
- The Tell-Tale Heart (1928) dir. Charles Klein
- The Lodger (1927) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
- A Page of Madness (1926) dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa
- fast cutting, visual overlays
- film itself seems psychotic, not just characters
- combined impressionism and expressionism
- Metropolis (1927) dir. Fritz Lang
- concept of urban paradise
- used 2 million feet of film and 36 thousand extras
- The Crowd (1928) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. King Vidor
- expressionist echos of Metropolis in The Crowd
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) dir. F. W. Murnau
- hints of german romanticism
- voted the best film of all time by French critics
- Murnau could see into the human heart better than most directors
- Opus 1 (1921) dir. Walter Ruttmann
- painted on glass
- one of first abstract animations
- Entr’acte (1924) dir. René Clair
- put camera below a dancer’s feet
- Rien que les heures (1926) dir. Alberto Cavalcanti
- power of imagery to reveal and provoke
- Spellbound (1945) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
- Un Chien Andalou (1929) dir. Luis Buñuel
- attempted to show how the unconscious works
- free associations
- Blue Velvet (1986) dir. David Lynch
- L’Age d’Or (1930) dir. Luis Buñuel
- Kino-Pravda n. 19 (1924) dir. Dziga Vertov
- Glumov’s Diary (1923) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
- Battleship Potemkin (1925) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
- uses steps to make a stage, to show the death of the people
- shots averaging about 3 seconds, different than America and Germany
- iconic scene: baby carriage rolling down the stairs as everyone is being shot
- “the montage of attractions”
- created the idea of innocence slaughtered by the state, the tsar
- humanism
- The Untouchables (1987) dir. Brian De Palma
- influenced by the stairs scene
- Arsenal (1929) dir. Alexander Dovzhenko
- disturbing image of a soldier dead but smiling
- “evocative and atmospheric”
- Earth (1930) dir. Alexander Dovzhenko
- I Was Born, But… (1932) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
- Japan fought most of the world in 30s and 40s, killed millions, and as if to compensate made most humanistic films of their times
- Ozu was a philosopher and possibly the greatest director who ever lived
- dark comedy
- “extraordinarily honest film” that tells a lot about children and families
- Ozu didn’t believe in heroes
- Tokyo Story (1953) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
- created new norms for where actors eyes would be
- had very balanced, pictorial worlds
- Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) dir. Chantal Akerman
- The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
- gave natural pauses in-between shots
- Osaka Elegy (1936) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
- “attacked the arrogance of Japan”
- focused on Japanese women whose lives were made of misery
- Citizen Kane (1941) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Orson Welles
- uses similar staging found in Osaka 5 years prior
- Chikamatsu Monogatari (1954) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
- cuts away from actress’s distraught emotions, different from romantic cinema, is meant to make audience feel moral indignation at her plight
- Mildred Pierce (1945) dir. Michael Curtiz
- Romance of the West Chamber (1927) dir. Hou Yao and Minwei Li
- Scenes of City Life (1935) dir. Yuan Muzhi
- China developed a leftist, realist cinema that challenged Hollywood fantasy
- used inventive camera angles and symbolism
- The Goddess (1934) dir. Wu Yonggang
- reflected how society was, gave Chinese women a character they could relate to
- used body language well
- Center Stage (1991) dir. Stanley Kwan
- New Women (1935) dir. Cai Chusheng
- Ruan was realistic, committed suicide due to tabloids trashing her image