Notes
The following material is from Wikipedia.
1939-1952: The Devastation of War…And a New Movie Language
- Rome, Open City (1945) dir. Roberto Rossellini
- started neorealism movement, dealt with the aftermath of the war
- urgent and tragic
- movies got this raw because life was this raw
- known as a first rubble movie
- portrait of city struggling to resist facism
- used 50mm lense to make shots appear plain
- had tripod loosened to give movement
- Rossellini said that if he made a beautiful shot he would cut it out
- Stagecoach (1939) dir. John Ford
- movie legend
- contrasts claustrophobia of coach with western landscape
- created a new visual fashion for deep space and deep focus combined
- allowed audience to choose where to look, lets eyes do the editing
- Directed by John Ford (1971) dir. Peter Bogdanovich
- Osaka Elegy (1936) (introduced in Episode 3) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
- Flesh and the Devil (1926) dir. Clarence Brown
- trend had been long lenses which creates shallow focus, like in this film
- Follow the Boys (1944) dir. A. Edward Sutherland
- Citizen Kane (1941) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Orson Welles
- pushes deep staging as far as it will go
- inspired by Stagecoach
- expressionistic
- denounced the grandeur and cinematic hubris in movie like The General and Intolerance
- Me and Orson Welles (2008) dir. Richard Linklater
- Chimes at Midnight (1965) dir. Orson Welles
- inspired by Shakespeare
- Cabiria (1914) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Giovanni Pastrone
- Intolerance (1916) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. D. W. Griffith
- The General (1926) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton
- The Maltese Falcon (1941) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. John Huston
- inspired by deep space in Citizen Kane
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) dir. William Wyler
- inspired by deep space in Citizen Kane
- Code Unknown (2000) dir. Michael Haneke
- inspired by deep space in Citizen Kane
- Sátántangó (1994) dir. Béla Tarr
- How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) dir. Jean Negulesco
- Un Homme et une Femme (1966) dir. Claude Lelouch
- used very long lens to create shallow focus
- Heat (1995) dir. Michael Mann
- used shallow focus
- Raging Bull (1980) dir. Martin Scorsese
- Bicycle Thieves (1948) dir. Vittorio De Sica
- de-dramatization
- not afraid of conventional filmmaking
- Italian neorealism changed the norm of cause and effect, as seen in this movie with the boy who is almost hit by a car
- Pin Up Girl (1944) dir. H. Bruce Humberstone
- Double Indemnity (1944) dir. Billy Wilder
- one of early and most influential of film noir in Hollywood
- showed how Hollywood shifted to a wave of “dark films”
- Portrait of a 66% Perfect Man: Billy Wilder (1982) dir. Annie Tresgot
- The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) dir. Fritz Lang
- German expressionism shown in the shadows of shots
- The Big Sleep (1946) dir. Howard Hawks
- snappy dialogue
- Rio Bravo (1959) dir. Howard Hawks
- cowritten by Brackett
- woman gets best lines
- The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Irvin Kershner
- Brackett brings traditional filmmaking to the 70s
- Out of the Past (1947) dir. Jacques Tourneur
- “immoral advantage”
- The Hitch-Hiker (1953) dir. Ida Lupino
- only noir directed by a woman
- used spot lighting and subjective camera
- “a film with downturned eyes”
- Little Caesar (1931) dir. Mervyn LeRoy
- Le Quai des brumes (1938) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Marcel Carné
- La Chienne (1931) dir. Jean Renoir
- Scarlet Street (1945) dir. Fritz Lang
- highly influenced by La Chienne
- American Cinema: Film Noir (1995) dir. Alain Klarer
- Gun Crazy (1950) dir. Joseph H. Lewis
- included an unbroken shot that covered 2 miles
- didn’t follow conventions of normal noirs
- deadly passion and stylistic innovation later influenced Bonnie and Clyde
- Bonnie and Clyde (1967) dir. Arthur Penn
- L.A. Confidential (1997) dir. Curtis Hanson
- influenced by noir
- Blade Runner (1982) dir. Ridley Scott
- influenced by noir
- The Dark Knight (2008) dir. Christopher Nolan
- influenced by noir
- Siva (1989) dir. Ram Gopal Varma
- influenced by noir
- Titanic (1997) dir. James Cameron
- 71st Academy Awards (1999) dir. Louis J. Horvitz
- An American in Paris (1951) dir. Vincente Minnelli
- studio system was dying, so films like this were created to show that films still could have joy and beauty
- The Red Shoes (1948) dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
- Singin’ in the Rain (1952) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
- kaleidoscopic sequence meant to poke fun
- Flying Down to Rio (1933) dir. Thornton Freeland
- Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Mervyn LeRoy
- Indiscreet (1958) dir. Stanley Donen
- change in Donen’s work shows the change in Hollywood
- innovative away to avoid censorship, had split screen to make actors appear to be in the same bed
- Two for the Road (1967) dir. Stanley Donen
- melancholia enters Donen’s cinema
- hard look at marriage
- A Matter of Life and Death (1946) dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
- sums up complexities of cinema during this time
- searing drama, romantic dialogue, shallow focus, rich color, and lighting that hides tears
- showed romantic cinema and trauma of war could be combined
- Post Haste (1933) dir. Humphrey Jennings
- Listen to Britain (1942) dir. Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister
- The Third Man (1949) dir. Carol Reed
- perfectly summed up the changes in western cinema, the trauma, poetics, expressionism, and shadow play of the era
- filmed shots off the horizontal axis to show the moral imbalance
- uses deep staging
- Italian neorealism shown
- had one of most daring endings in film history
- The True Glory (1945) dir. Carol Reed and Garson Kanin
- wartime documentary
- Taxi Driver (1976) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Martin Scorsese