Notes
The following material is from Wikipedia.
1953-1957: The Swollen Story: World Cinema Bursting at the Seams
- Rebel Without a Cause (1955) dir. Nicholas Ray
- wide screen, color
- passionate theme of the 50s
- Cairo Station (1958) dir. Youssef Chahine
- youth rebellion
- reflected the era of the melodrama
- Youssef changed film history, with this film he brought Africa into the fold because before they had played no significant part of film history
- first great African/Arab film
- captured the tension of their times
- uses dolly, cut, dolly, cut, method to show emotions
- about social justice
- Paper Flowers (1959) dir. Guru Dutt
- famine, partition, etc. inspired melodrama in India
- uses opposite of Hollywood lighting
- Raja Harishchandra (1913) dir. Dadasaheb Phalke
- first Indian movies, like this one, were about mythical saints
- Sant Tukaram (1936) dir. Vishnupant Govind Damle and Sheikh Fattelal
- realism of film predates Italian neorealism
- Pather Panchali (1955) dir. Satyajit Ray
- imagery changed film history
- cinematography had “texture, luster, tenderness”
- seeing a real Indian village on screen for the first time
- “real not idealized kids”
- no place for artificiality in film
- natural soundscapes
- Devi (1960) dir. Satyajit Ray
- lots of stress on framing and eyes
- main character becomes victim of orthodox mindset
- Mother India (1957) dir. Mehboob Khan
- “bursting at the seams”
- filmed with earthy colors
- combination of romance and struggle
- echoes hollywood musicals and soviet propaganda at the same time
- state of the nation film
- Two Stage Sisters (1964) dir. Xie Jin
- a painful human drama viewed through a gorgeous lens
- highly reflects melodrama of 50s cinema
- later during cultural revolution in China, directors like Jin were unemployed
- Ikiru (1952) dir. Akira Kurosawa
- about self-emergence, self growth
- Stray Dog (1949) dir. Akira Kurosawa
- Seven Samurai (1954) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Akira Kurosawa
- about the beginning of a new era
- interested in atmospheric effects
- Throne of Blood (1957) dir. Akira Kurosawa
- The Godfather (1972) dir. Francis Ford Coppola
- inspired by scene in Throne of Blood, image of body jerking while being shot
- The Magnificent Seven (1960) dir. John Sturges
- remake of seven samurai
- Limite (1931) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Mário Peixoto
- soaring camera reflects woman’s liberty
- Rio 40 Graus (a.k.a. Rio 100 Degrees F.) (1955) dir. Nelson Pereira dos Santos
- brought Brazilian cinema back to the spotlight
- used deep staging
- influenced by neorealism
- filmed in slum locations but used advance visual techniques
- different storylines
- The Life of General Villa (1914) dir. Christy Cabanne
- Doña Bárbara (1943) dir. Fernando de Fuentes and Miguel M. Delgadoq
- helped invent mexican cinema
- themes of rich and pure, feminine suffering, and display
- men are photographed against the sky
- The Wild Bunch (1969) dir. Sam Peckinpah
- La perla (1947) dir. Emilio Fernández
- films were luminous, rounded by light
- had dark human themes
- Mexican film noir
- Los Olvidados (1950) dir. Luis Buñuel
- high contrast film stocks
- went beyond realism
- All That Heaven Allows (1955) dir. Douglas Sirk
- reflected Eisenhower America
- white picket fence, beautiful fall day, clean car, swish of an A-line skirt
- far more innovative than it seems
- society can’t cope with main character’s choices
- used gloss of Hollywood to attack gloss
- I’m a Stranger Here Myself (1975) dir. David Helpern
- Johnny Guitar (1954) dir. Nicholas Ray
- main woman character looks down on other men, new role for a woman to play
- political conflict
- Fireworks (1947) dir. Kenneth Anger
- Scorpio Rising (1964) dir. Kenneth Anger
- first time rock and roll music was added
- Marty (television show) (1953) dir. Delbert Mann
- Marty (1955) dir. Delbert Mann
- led to more character based films
- On the Waterfront (1954) dir. Elia Kazan
- “actors no longer displayed their characters, but tried to hide them”
- Red River (1948) dir. Howard Hawks and Arthur Rosson
- old and new cinema fought it out
- symbolized 50s standing up to 30s and 40s
- broke down masculine norms
- Touch of Evil (1958) dir. Orson Welles
- filmed with wide angle lens to make imagery bulge
- The Searchers (1956) dir. John Ford
- racist motives
- Vertigo (1958) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
- era where families are the norm, none of films follow this norm
- Rio Bravo (1959) (introduced in Episode 5) dir. Howard Hawks
- filmed in warm colors
- closest to filming an ordinary family American cinema got
- Great Expectations (1946) dir. David Lean
- gothic and erotic
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) dir. David Lean
- hints at sexual attraction to Egypt
- O Dreamland (1953) dir. Lindsay Anderson
- director thought human beings were selfish
- full of pity and admiration
- conflict between classes
- Battleship Potemkin (1925) (introduced in Episode 3) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
- …And God Created Woman (1956) dir. Roger Vadim
- started to bring sex out into the open in cinema