Rida Salman & Faizan Sheikh
BS MS 2B
Its an interesting way of conveying the history of cinema.
The blog is really informative, specially for the students who have just joined Media Sciences.
About Cine Fair 09: Fantastic Projects, Amazing Atmosphere, Great Event!
The best thing about this is that its the last day of our 2nd Semester ;)
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Maria Mumtaz
BS MS 2A
I think this is a very interactive and creative project. We can follow up on it even after we get over with the exhibition. Good job!
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Summaiya Noor Ali
BSMS 2B
So Very Kool! :D
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Rafay
BS MS 6
I think this would prove to be great source of info for HOC students they wnt have to go theorough the crPPY nd torn off notes usually give to us.
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Yousuf Zia Ali Naqvi
BSMS2A
An innovative initiative for using cinema as a tool of education. it will provide all suitable information to any cinemaniac. Wishing Farah and Raza All the best for this initiative. King Regards........!!!
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Mohammad Saqib
0615124
Innovative and creative, would have loved if pictures and videos may have been used.
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Very nice. i like teh sound track. A. Aziz
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Interesting blog =P Good work... Azmeena Rehmatullah
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l think it's an excellent website...full of info! Sirah Haq, Geo TV
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The concept was good and so was the effort, I think you guys have done a great job... And you need to be congratulated for that. Doing such effort atyour level i.e. learners, is a very good sign... This country is getting some very good professionals in the future. Best of luck!!!!!
Regards
M.Bilawal
Regards
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The Inner Eye--Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray, standing 6'-4" tall, was a towering figure in the world of cinema. He studied at the university in Calcutta and later joined Shantiniketan, Rabindranath Tagore's university to study art. He began his career as a commercial artist (1943-56). He founded Calcutta's first film society in 1947 and made his first film, Pather Panchali (1955) while working at an advertising agency. Pather Panchali was an immediate success and won Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival. Pather Panchali with his Aparajito (1956, The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (1959, The World of Apu) are known as 'Apu Trilogy'. His later films include Jalsaghar (1958, The Music Room), Kanchenjunga (1962), Charulata (1964, The Lonely Wife), Ashanti Sanket (1973, Distant Thunder), The Chess Players (1977), The Home and The World (1984), Ganashatru (1989, Public Enemy), and Agantuk (1990, The Stranger).Ray also edited Sandesh, a children's magazine and wrote numerous fiction and nonfiction works. In 1992 he received an honorary Academy Award.
Ray's films create an authentic atmosphere through their unobtrusive camera work and lighting. While shooting Pather Panchali, he had to use a new cameraman, Subrata Mitra, who was a still photographer and had never handled a movie camera before. That was because all the professionals said that they could not shoot in rain and outdoors with continuously changing light.He had an intense dislike of "slick" light effects and became devoted to "bounce lighting", originally developed by his cinematographer -Subroto Mitra. Rejecting the methods of studio lighting then accepted world-over, Ray and Mitra evolved this lighting style which we take for granted today.Ray described it in an article - "Subroto, my cameraman, has evolved, elaborated and perfected a system of diffused lighting whereby natural daylight can be simulated to a remarkable degree. This results in a photographic style which is truthful, unobtrusive and modern. I have no doubt that for films in the realistic genre, this is a most admirable system." Mitra also operated the camera until Charulata when Ray himself decided to take over. Soon after that Ray and Mitra parted company and Mitra's assistant Soumendu Roy took over the lighting. The last film Mitra photographed for Ray was Nayak. (Unlike in Hollywood, in India almost all the cinematographers also operate the camera.)Since Charulata, Ray operated the camera himself. This was because he wanted "to know exactly at all times how a shot is going, not only in terms of acting, but of acting viewed from a chosen set-up which imposes a particular spatial relationship between the actors. This relationship may keep changing in the shot through movement of the actors, or of the camera, or both. Through the lens is the only position from which these changes can be precisely gauged.""The style of photography should grow out of the story, and the director should be aware of what he wants and be able to convey it in precise terms to the cameraman," he wrote. He believed that the director should be his own cameraman or at least be able to impose a visual approach on his cameraman. To him, there was no such thing as good photography per se. It was either right for a certain kind of film or wrong.He warned the over enthusiastic cinematographers, "It is dangerous for a cameraman to put forward creative suggestions unless he has the full emotional and visual sweep of the film in his head. If he does not, he should be content to do as the director tells him. Coutard is a good cameraman if only because he is willing to sacrifice his ego and submit to Godard, whose ideas, if unconventional, are at all times striking, and therefore worthy of respect."He used color very carefully. He preferred the colors to be closest to what he had used at the shoot. He chose the costumes and the décor very carefully and did not like the laboratory to do any color correctionsHis camera moves as per the needs of the situation, rather than out of any fixed notions of style. It is this conviction that makes the opening of Charulata so exceptional. The camera movements, use of zooms and close-ups correspond with the playful, restless and bored Charulata. Ray does not call attention to the camerawork; the cinematography acts on the mind as part of a complete form.
Ray's films create an authentic atmosphere through their unobtrusive camera work and lighting. While shooting Pather Panchali, he had to use a new cameraman, Subrata Mitra, who was a still photographer and had never handled a movie camera before. That was because all the professionals said that they could not shoot in rain and outdoors with continuously changing light.He had an intense dislike of "slick" light effects and became devoted to "bounce lighting", originally developed by his cinematographer -Subroto Mitra. Rejecting the methods of studio lighting then accepted world-over, Ray and Mitra evolved this lighting style which we take for granted today.Ray described it in an article - "Subroto, my cameraman, has evolved, elaborated and perfected a system of diffused lighting whereby natural daylight can be simulated to a remarkable degree. This results in a photographic style which is truthful, unobtrusive and modern. I have no doubt that for films in the realistic genre, this is a most admirable system." Mitra also operated the camera until Charulata when Ray himself decided to take over. Soon after that Ray and Mitra parted company and Mitra's assistant Soumendu Roy took over the lighting. The last film Mitra photographed for Ray was Nayak. (Unlike in Hollywood, in India almost all the cinematographers also operate the camera.)Since Charulata, Ray operated the camera himself. This was because he wanted "to know exactly at all times how a shot is going, not only in terms of acting, but of acting viewed from a chosen set-up which imposes a particular spatial relationship between the actors. This relationship may keep changing in the shot through movement of the actors, or of the camera, or both. Through the lens is the only position from which these changes can be precisely gauged.""The style of photography should grow out of the story, and the director should be aware of what he wants and be able to convey it in precise terms to the cameraman," he wrote. He believed that the director should be his own cameraman or at least be able to impose a visual approach on his cameraman. To him, there was no such thing as good photography per se. It was either right for a certain kind of film or wrong.He warned the over enthusiastic cinematographers, "It is dangerous for a cameraman to put forward creative suggestions unless he has the full emotional and visual sweep of the film in his head. If he does not, he should be content to do as the director tells him. Coutard is a good cameraman if only because he is willing to sacrifice his ego and submit to Godard, whose ideas, if unconventional, are at all times striking, and therefore worthy of respect."He used color very carefully. He preferred the colors to be closest to what he had used at the shoot. He chose the costumes and the décor very carefully and did not like the laboratory to do any color correctionsHis camera moves as per the needs of the situation, rather than out of any fixed notions of style. It is this conviction that makes the opening of Charulata so exceptional. The camera movements, use of zooms and close-ups correspond with the playful, restless and bored Charulata. Ray does not call attention to the camerawork; the cinematography acts on the mind as part of a complete form.
Khuda Ke Liye-
Khuda Kay Liye is a Pakistani Urdu language movie written, directed and produced by Shoaib Mansoor. It stars Shaan, Iman Ali and Fawad Khan as its main characters.
Three different people from different continents have problems that relate to on going issues and Islam.
Two brothers who are both singers, Mansoor (Shaan) & Sarmad (Fawad), become the best singers in Lahore. Sarmad becomes influenced by an Islamic activist. He begins to practice the extremist interpretation of Islam, grows a beard and goes against music, also putting pressure on his free-spirited family to comply. Those parties interpret certain verses of the Quran and Hadith (Islamic religious texts) to call for a ban on music and pictures.
In England, a girl Mary/Mariam (played by actor-model Iman Ali) is a westernized girl in love with a white person called Dave. Her hypocritical father disapproves, despite the fact that he is living with a British woman to whom he is not married. He tells Mary that they are going to Pakistan for a trip and that once they return she can marry Dave. This, however is a trap. While touring Afghanistan, he has her forcibly married to Sarmad, who is her cousin. Mary is then abandoned in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Mansoor goes to music school in Chicago. There, he meets a girl called Janie and instantly falls in love with her. She quits alcohol for him, and they eventually get married. After 9/11, FBI officers capture him when someone overhears a drunk man accusing Mansoor of being a terrorist. Subsequently, he is tortured for a year in custody just because of his Islamic background.
Meanwhile, Mary manages to run away, but is caught by Sarmad in the process. She is kept under strict supervision and due to this incident, Sarmad eventually consummates their marriage by force. She doesn't lose hope, managing to sneak a letter to Dave under the guise of writing to her father. Mansoor and Sarmad's parents finally come to her rescue under the protection of the British Government, but Mary, driven by vengeance, then takes her father and cousin to court in Pakistan. There, a wise Maulana (Naseeruddin Shah) explains to the court how Islam is being butchered in the name of war and hatred, bringing the religion forward in a believable and peaceful manner.
Traumatized by all the suffering he has seen and caused, Sarmad withdraws from the case. He also realizes the damage that he was made to do in the name of religion. Mary is now free, but decides to return to the village where she was kept prisoner, so she can educate the girls there. Meanwhile, Mansoor is still in U.S. custody after a year of torment; the last torture session having inflicted permanent brain damage. After a failed rehab attempt, he is deported and reunited with his family in Pakistan where, thanks to the hope of his family, he begins to slowly recover.
Reception and Implications
Khuda Kay Liye was released on July 20, 2007.
It is important to note that this is one of very few, if any, independent motion pictures to be released to a cinema-going Pakistani market. The general trend in local cinema revolves around formulaic song and dance numbers, reminiscent of Lollywood musicals. Independent films, or films that break this formula, are rare if not entirely absent.
Khuda Kay Liye was produced in conjunction with the film division of the popular TV network, Geo TV. The film is a joint venture of Pakistan, United Kingdom, and the United States.
The film opened to generally Positive Reviews . There was tremendous curiosity around the film. All the critics gave it a positive review. Presence of Big Names and Naseeruddin Shah resulted in a grand opening and the film turned out to be a huge commercial as well as critical success.
The movie was later realeased Internationally in UK , UAE , US and India generating critical reviews everywhere and was called a Hit in every country.
Team & Crew
Director, Writer & Producer: Shoaib Mansoor
Production Manager: Rizwaan Chowdhri
Production Designer: Rizwaan Chowdhri
Assistant Director: Rizwaan Chowdhri, Bilal, Ali J.,
Line Producer: Rizwaan Chowdhri, Adeel Hashmee
Awards and Accolades
Khuda Kay Liye is the second highest grossing film of Pakistan of all time with a gross of $3 million. Iman Ali makes her cinematic debut with this film, playing an Anglo-Pakistani. Shaan's wife is played by Austin Sayre. Ahmed Jahanzeb and Shuja Haider produced the film's soundtrack. The film has won the following awards since its release:
31st Cairo International Film Festival
Silver Pyramid Award for Best Picture
Roberto Rossellini Award (Italian film industry)
Best Film
Fukuoka Audience Award (Japan)
Best Film
Asian Festival of First Films
Swarovski Trophy for Best Cinematography
Lux Style Awards 2008
Best Film
Best Actor - Shaan
Best Actress - Iman Ali
Best Soundtrack
Three different people from different continents have problems that relate to on going issues and Islam.
Two brothers who are both singers, Mansoor (Shaan) & Sarmad (Fawad), become the best singers in Lahore. Sarmad becomes influenced by an Islamic activist. He begins to practice the extremist interpretation of Islam, grows a beard and goes against music, also putting pressure on his free-spirited family to comply. Those parties interpret certain verses of the Quran and Hadith (Islamic religious texts) to call for a ban on music and pictures.
In England, a girl Mary/Mariam (played by actor-model Iman Ali) is a westernized girl in love with a white person called Dave. Her hypocritical father disapproves, despite the fact that he is living with a British woman to whom he is not married. He tells Mary that they are going to Pakistan for a trip and that once they return she can marry Dave. This, however is a trap. While touring Afghanistan, he has her forcibly married to Sarmad, who is her cousin. Mary is then abandoned in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Mansoor goes to music school in Chicago. There, he meets a girl called Janie and instantly falls in love with her. She quits alcohol for him, and they eventually get married. After 9/11, FBI officers capture him when someone overhears a drunk man accusing Mansoor of being a terrorist. Subsequently, he is tortured for a year in custody just because of his Islamic background.
Meanwhile, Mary manages to run away, but is caught by Sarmad in the process. She is kept under strict supervision and due to this incident, Sarmad eventually consummates their marriage by force. She doesn't lose hope, managing to sneak a letter to Dave under the guise of writing to her father. Mansoor and Sarmad's parents finally come to her rescue under the protection of the British Government, but Mary, driven by vengeance, then takes her father and cousin to court in Pakistan. There, a wise Maulana (Naseeruddin Shah) explains to the court how Islam is being butchered in the name of war and hatred, bringing the religion forward in a believable and peaceful manner.
Traumatized by all the suffering he has seen and caused, Sarmad withdraws from the case. He also realizes the damage that he was made to do in the name of religion. Mary is now free, but decides to return to the village where she was kept prisoner, so she can educate the girls there. Meanwhile, Mansoor is still in U.S. custody after a year of torment; the last torture session having inflicted permanent brain damage. After a failed rehab attempt, he is deported and reunited with his family in Pakistan where, thanks to the hope of his family, he begins to slowly recover.
Reception and Implications
Khuda Kay Liye was released on July 20, 2007.
It is important to note that this is one of very few, if any, independent motion pictures to be released to a cinema-going Pakistani market. The general trend in local cinema revolves around formulaic song and dance numbers, reminiscent of Lollywood musicals. Independent films, or films that break this formula, are rare if not entirely absent.
Khuda Kay Liye was produced in conjunction with the film division of the popular TV network, Geo TV. The film is a joint venture of Pakistan, United Kingdom, and the United States.
The film opened to generally Positive Reviews . There was tremendous curiosity around the film. All the critics gave it a positive review. Presence of Big Names and Naseeruddin Shah resulted in a grand opening and the film turned out to be a huge commercial as well as critical success.
The movie was later realeased Internationally in UK , UAE , US and India generating critical reviews everywhere and was called a Hit in every country.
Team & Crew
Director, Writer & Producer: Shoaib Mansoor
Production Manager: Rizwaan Chowdhri
Production Designer: Rizwaan Chowdhri
Assistant Director: Rizwaan Chowdhri, Bilal, Ali J.,
Line Producer: Rizwaan Chowdhri, Adeel Hashmee
Awards and Accolades
Khuda Kay Liye is the second highest grossing film of Pakistan of all time with a gross of $3 million. Iman Ali makes her cinematic debut with this film, playing an Anglo-Pakistani. Shaan's wife is played by Austin Sayre. Ahmed Jahanzeb and Shuja Haider produced the film's soundtrack. The film has won the following awards since its release:
31st Cairo International Film Festival
Silver Pyramid Award for Best Picture
Roberto Rossellini Award (Italian film industry)
Best Film
Fukuoka Audience Award (Japan)
Best Film
Asian Festival of First Films
Swarovski Trophy for Best Cinematography
Lux Style Awards 2008
Best Film
Best Actor - Shaan
Best Actress - Iman Ali
Best Soundtrack
Celebrating Young Filmmakers!
Organized under the aegis of the KaraFilm Society, a grouping of committed young filmmakers, the KaraFilm Festival is a celebration of the moving image and of storytelling. Our goal is to promote an appreciation of the art and craft of filmmaking among a wide population as well as to encourage creativity and high standards among filmmakers. We hope that this will have a salutary effect on the development of the motion picture industry in Pakistan and elsewhere.
Many years ago, international film festivals in Karachi attracted large audiences and some of the best filmmakers in the world. Satyajit Ray, for example, was one of a host of world renowned directors screening films in Karachi in the 1960s.
With this festival we hope to create, once again, a space for alternative and independent cinema in Pakistan, where both experienced and new filmmakers can exhibit their creative endeavours and where work is recognized on the basis of merit. In addition, the festival also provides an excellent opportunity for filmmakers to meet and learn from each other.
The KaraFilm Society has been established to promote, develop, improve and protect film as an art form in Pakistan. It seeks to encourage creativity and quality in filmmaking, to promote alternative voices and lobby for the interests of filmmakers in general, and to educate audiences about film through exposure to world cinema. It also aims to create spaces for cultural expression and debate and to foster greater tolerance among different cultures and nationalities through increased exchange and interaction between filmmakers and other artists working in the visual medium. It strongly believes in the power of the visual media to interpret and influence society and in using that power to nurture a more vibrant, just and enlightened social environment.
The Society organizes the annual KaraFilm Festival - the Karachi International Film Festival; as well as various screenings, talks and workshops throughout the year.
The KaraFilm Society is registered as a not-for-profit, non-political, non-governmental body under the Societies Registration Act, XXI of 1860. Its Executive Committee consists of Mr. Hasan Zaidi, Ms. Mehreen Jabbar, Ms. Maheen Zia, Ms. Tahera Hasan, Ms. Tamkeen Zia, Ms. Mussarat Jabeen and Ms. Shabnam Jabbar.
Many years ago, international film festivals in Karachi attracted large audiences and some of the best filmmakers in the world. Satyajit Ray, for example, was one of a host of world renowned directors screening films in Karachi in the 1960s.
With this festival we hope to create, once again, a space for alternative and independent cinema in Pakistan, where both experienced and new filmmakers can exhibit their creative endeavours and where work is recognized on the basis of merit. In addition, the festival also provides an excellent opportunity for filmmakers to meet and learn from each other.
The KaraFilm Society has been established to promote, develop, improve and protect film as an art form in Pakistan. It seeks to encourage creativity and quality in filmmaking, to promote alternative voices and lobby for the interests of filmmakers in general, and to educate audiences about film through exposure to world cinema. It also aims to create spaces for cultural expression and debate and to foster greater tolerance among different cultures and nationalities through increased exchange and interaction between filmmakers and other artists working in the visual medium. It strongly believes in the power of the visual media to interpret and influence society and in using that power to nurture a more vibrant, just and enlightened social environment.
The Society organizes the annual KaraFilm Festival - the Karachi International Film Festival; as well as various screenings, talks and workshops throughout the year.
The KaraFilm Society is registered as a not-for-profit, non-political, non-governmental body under the Societies Registration Act, XXI of 1860. Its Executive Committee consists of Mr. Hasan Zaidi, Ms. Mehreen Jabbar, Ms. Maheen Zia, Ms. Tahera Hasan, Ms. Tamkeen Zia, Ms. Mussarat Jabeen and Ms. Shabnam Jabbar.
Aaina
In its prime days, Pakistan’s Urdu cinema has produced many big hit movies. The biggest blockbuster of the golden era was the movie Aina.
The movie title Aina is pronounced aaina and the english translation of the title is a mirror. This movie was so popular that it was shown in a Karachi Cinema for almost 8 consecutive years (400 consecutive weeks). The story of Aina is a formula love story but what made this movie special was the quality of direction as well as the superhit music of Robin Ghosh. The songs of this movie are still popoular.
The movie title Aina is pronounced aaina and the english translation of the title is a mirror. This movie was so popular that it was shown in a Karachi Cinema for almost 8 consecutive years (400 consecutive weeks). The story of Aina is a formula love story but what made this movie special was the quality of direction as well as the superhit music of Robin Ghosh. The songs of this movie are still popoular.
Perhaps one of the most popular songs of Aina is ‘rooThay ho tum’ by Nayyara Noor.
Release Date: March 18, 1977
Director: Nazr-ul-Islam
Writer: Bashir Niaz
Musician: Robin Ghosh
Song Writer: Tasleem Fazli, Akhtar Yousuf
Cameraman: Afzal Chaudhry
Producer: A.R. Shamsi
Stars: Nadeem, Shabnam, Qavi, Khalid Salim Mota, Zarqa, Bahar, Rehan, Parveen Bobby, Nimmo, Nena and Nasra.
It is said the movie was so popular that it was copied as a Bollywood movie with the name ‘Pyar jhukta nahi’.
Aina is the only Urdu movie which has won a record number of Nigar Awards. That record number is 12.
Following is the detail of 12 Nigar Awards which went to Aina team. Nigar Awards are Pakistan’s premier movie awards. Consider them Pakistani Oscar awards:
(1) Best Movie of the Year 1977: aina
(2) Best Director: Nazr-ul-Islam for aina
(3) Best Dialogs: Bashir Niaz for aina
(4) Best Actress: Shabnam in aina
(5) Best Actor: Nadeem in aina
(6) Best Supporting Actor: Rehan in aina
(7) Best Musician: Robin Ghosh for aina
(8) Best Song Writer: Tasleem Fazli (for aina movie song: ‘mujhay dil se na bhulana’)
(9) Best photography: Afzal Chaudhry in aina
(10) Best Singer: Mehdi Hassan (for aina theme song: ‘mujhay dil se na bhulana’)
(11) Best Upcoming Singer: Alamgir (for aina song: ‘bichReN ge na hum kabhi’)
(12) Special Award for Child Star: Shahzeb in aina
Director Nazr-ul-Islam made almost 50 movies in his career but Aina was by far his best production. A lot of hardwork went behind every scene. Outdoor shooting that went around Karachi was also considered a masterpiece for 1977 standards. In 1980s Aina was screened in China and proved very popular there too.
Another mega hit song of ‘aina’ sung by legendary Mehdi Hasan was ‘kabhi meiN sochta hooN’.
The Nigar Awards
The Nigar Awards, the official awards of Pakistani film industry, are the oldest awards to honour the show business personalities of Pakistan. The awards were first introduced in 1958 by Ilyas Rasheedi,[ the editor of weekly Nigar magazine, with a purpose to recognize the achievements of those who worked in the film industry. Since then, the awards are presented annually. During the 1990s the prominence of awards was eclipsed by the National Awards. However, over the years the awards have gradually regained their eminence as the premier movie awards of the country.
History
Ilyas Rashidi had acquired experience in the field of entertainment journalism through his association with his elder brother Umer Azad's daily newspaper Anjum, which had just shifted its offices from Delhi to Karachi after independence of Pakistan. Ilyas Rasheedi was inspired by the Indian film magazine 'Filmfare', so he purchased a children magazine Monthly Nigar from his friend Ibne Hassan Nigar, and publish it as Pakistan's first ever film weekly from Karachi.
The first award distribution ceremony was held on July 17th, 1958 at Lahore's Evernew Studios. The first Nigar award was given for the best movie Saath lakh, for the best director W.Z. Ahmed for the film Waada, for the best actor Santosh Kumar and for the best actress Sabiha Khanam.
The male artist who has received the highest number of Nigar awards is Nadeem, who had started his career in Chakori (1967), got his first award for the same movie as the best actor. The female artist who has received the highest number of Nigar awards is Shabnam, who had started her career in Urdu films in Akhri station (1965), got her first award for the same movie as the best supporting actress. The Melody Queen Noor Jahan got a total of 13 Nigar awards in her career. It is very interesting to note that she got her first Nigar Award for the best playback singer in 1960, after 3 years the awards started.
Arrangements
Instead of the usual practice of envelope opening, the award committee prints the names of the winners on the back of the invitation cards that are sent to all invitees. This removes the charm of the suspenseful moments to the attendees.
Despite of this, the award committee has strict rules of only considering the candidacy of those films and television shows that are nominated for the awards and their copies are provided by the film makers or distributors to the committee.
The awards are also known for their impartial assessment and unbiased attitude as compared with other high-level awards for the media. Another prominent factor of the awards is that, over the time, various categories from both television and film industry that have been included to cover such subsets as the Urdu, Punjabi and Pushto language films.
History
Ilyas Rashidi had acquired experience in the field of entertainment journalism through his association with his elder brother Umer Azad's daily newspaper Anjum, which had just shifted its offices from Delhi to Karachi after independence of Pakistan. Ilyas Rasheedi was inspired by the Indian film magazine 'Filmfare', so he purchased a children magazine Monthly Nigar from his friend Ibne Hassan Nigar, and publish it as Pakistan's first ever film weekly from Karachi.
The first award distribution ceremony was held on July 17th, 1958 at Lahore's Evernew Studios. The first Nigar award was given for the best movie Saath lakh, for the best director W.Z. Ahmed for the film Waada, for the best actor Santosh Kumar and for the best actress Sabiha Khanam.
The male artist who has received the highest number of Nigar awards is Nadeem, who had started his career in Chakori (1967), got his first award for the same movie as the best actor. The female artist who has received the highest number of Nigar awards is Shabnam, who had started her career in Urdu films in Akhri station (1965), got her first award for the same movie as the best supporting actress. The Melody Queen Noor Jahan got a total of 13 Nigar awards in her career. It is very interesting to note that she got her first Nigar Award for the best playback singer in 1960, after 3 years the awards started.
Arrangements
Instead of the usual practice of envelope opening, the award committee prints the names of the winners on the back of the invitation cards that are sent to all invitees. This removes the charm of the suspenseful moments to the attendees.
Despite of this, the award committee has strict rules of only considering the candidacy of those films and television shows that are nominated for the awards and their copies are provided by the film makers or distributors to the committee.
The awards are also known for their impartial assessment and unbiased attitude as compared with other high-level awards for the media. Another prominent factor of the awards is that, over the time, various categories from both television and film industry that have been included to cover such subsets as the Urdu, Punjabi and Pushto language films.
Teri Yaad
Teri Yaad is the first-ever feature film released in Pakistan after the partition of India on 7 August 1948, on Eid day. It was the first film released after the birth of Pakistan, but certainly not the first to be produced indigenously in the newly-found land.
The year 1947 saw the partition of India and the birth of the nation of Pakistan. During this time, the Indian film industry was segregated and the only film production centre left in Pakistan was the one at Lahore. While the industry was still reeling in its infancy, it was hard to work on film productions that had initiated before the partition as much of the filmmakers and actors working on projects had left for the newly-found country of India.
With much hardships faced, the new film industry was able to release its first feature film, Teri Yaad on 7 August 1948, premièring at the Parbhat Theatre in Lahore. It starred Asha Posley and Nasir Khan, brother of renowned Indian actor Dilip Kumar who had travelled off to India. With the film came playback soundtrack written and composed by Inayat Ali Nath. Produced by Dewan Sardari Lal's Dewan Pictures and directed by Daud Chand, the film stayed for a significant time on the celluloid screens in Lahore, Quetta and Dhaka.
The year 1947 saw the partition of India and the birth of the nation of Pakistan. During this time, the Indian film industry was segregated and the only film production centre left in Pakistan was the one at Lahore. While the industry was still reeling in its infancy, it was hard to work on film productions that had initiated before the partition as much of the filmmakers and actors working on projects had left for the newly-found country of India.
With much hardships faced, the new film industry was able to release its first feature film, Teri Yaad on 7 August 1948, premièring at the Parbhat Theatre in Lahore. It starred Asha Posley and Nasir Khan, brother of renowned Indian actor Dilip Kumar who had travelled off to India. With the film came playback soundtrack written and composed by Inayat Ali Nath. Produced by Dewan Sardari Lal's Dewan Pictures and directed by Daud Chand, the film stayed for a significant time on the celluloid screens in Lahore, Quetta and Dhaka.
The New Wave in Iranian Cinema- From Past to Present
Summary: Ahmad Talebinejad, a film critic and writer, has complied and written a book on cinema that tries to evaluate the history of Iranian cinema from a new point of view. The book is called "A Simple Event - A Review of the New Wave Trend in Iranian Cinema."
Q: How did the new wave come about in Iranian cinema?
A: A new trend began in the cinema since 1968. It was due to developments in the cultural arena with origins in the political, social, and cultural developments of the 1950s and 1960s.
The Iranian cinema practically entered a new stage with the making of three films: The Cow (1969 - Dariush Mehrjuyee), Qaysar (1969 - Massoud Kimyayee), and Calm in Front of Others (Naser Taqvaie). It was both serious and received approval from thinkers, specialists, and intellectuals of the society, whereas before that stage, cinema had no fruit to be approved by experts, except for a couple of failed efforts.
Those three films set off a trend distinct from FILMFARSI [a term coined for vulgar Iranian films] which contributed to the growth and dynamic character of a truly artistic and cultural cinema. We should note that FILMFARSI has not disappeared even after the revolution. It still exists and goes on living in specific forms and conditions.
Q: What were other characteristics of the New Wave in Iranian Cinema?
A: The period known as the New Wave is indeed an intellectual cultural trend in the Iranian cinema. Since 1969, nearly 200 films have been made, not all of which are necessarily valuable. The New Wave films are a handful.
Even films influenced by that trend could not be called good New Wave films. For instance, Reza Motori [Motorcyclist] is not a brilliant film on Kimyayee's record. Nor is The Baluch. But those two films were different from the FILMFARSI of that period, even though they had things in common with the New Wave. The New Wave is a trend aiming at a cultural objective. Now if it has not achieved the ultimate aim regarding film production, it has tried to depart from the swamp of FILMFARSI. That effort was properly under way and went along uninterruptedly for a while. Thus you see that from 1969, when those three films were made, until 1972-73 about 40-50 noteworthy films were made. That is not a small figure.
That effort reached a deadlock when the original aim of intellectual films was forgotten for the sake of financial issues and winning a greater audience. It was around 1977 that the Iranian viewer, who had watched relatively good Iranian and foreign films could tell the banal aspects of FILMFARSI. Previously, that comparison was only made with foreign films. But after the New Wave trend, the comparison was made between the domestic cultural-artistic films and the vulgar products. There are works among the vanguard films of that period which still have novelties as far as structure is concerned. For instance, "The Mongols" by Parviz Kimiavi, and "The Spring" by Arbi Avanessian. This is also true about films of Shahid Saless, which if you watch them even today you would see new experiences in them in regards to form and structure.
In other words, the New Wave films not only influenced the Iranian cinema, they raised the expectation of the viewer. The viewers were no longer satisfied by FILMFARSI. Even if the latter rivaled foreign films in nudeness and obscenity, the viewer preferred to watch healthy Iranian films rather than a bad and obscene copy of third and fourth grade Italian films. In those years, many obscene scenes were seen on the stage. But they could not meet the cultural demands of viewers.
I believe that at present, considering that a decade has passed since the emergence of the new Iranian cinema, there are still instances that harm the films like those previous scenes and the viewer is fed-up with them. After the revolution, action films were planned and made quite carefully, and the directors and producers thought that they would be making box office hits. But they failed. "Tavarish" by Mehdi Fakhimzadeh is an example. By contrast, a film like "Under the Olive Trees" sold about 15 million Tomans in a short while and only in two movie theatres, and that is unprecedented in our cinema.
Q: What influence did New Wave Cinema leave on critics?
A: Before the New Wave, nobody considered the director as the creator of the work. There were only two or three directors whose names denoted specific types of films. One was Samuel Khachikian, because people thought he imitated Hitchcock. The other was Siamak Yassami. Viewers considered him to be promoting the Indian film style in Iran. Another was Kooshan who was known as a producer rather than a director because he owned a studio himself.
In that period, the principal representatives of all films were the actors or the so-called stars of those films. Ordinary people did not know that the main creator was somebody else. In fact, perhaps there was no creator, and the people were correct. After the New Wave, the public found out that one person was the principal thinker of the film, and his ideas and plans are made into pictures, and he is called the director. This, of course, does not concern the intellectual and cinema community who knew well who the film creator was.
Apart from this, the New Wave caused the Iranian cinema to be viewed as a cultural category. Cinema was not viewed in that way before. No intellectual, except in the early years of the cinema, was won over to cinema. At the time, FILMFARSI had become a swear word. But after the New Wave, contemporary writers would like their works to be made into films. In the late 1970s, many writers, intellectuals, and persons who only considered literature and drama to be true arts, took a more serious approach to cinema. They wrote valuable criticisms of films in the artistic-cultural publications of the time.
Q: Isn't the origins of the New Wave outside of Iran? And was it not in fact influenced by the intellectual Italian and French films of the 1950's and 1960's?
A: The factors leading to the rise of the New Wave in Iran were, in part, due to internal conditions; that is due to intellectual or even political movements that came into existence at the time. A romantic climate was developing after the 19 August [1953] coup in the sphere of arts. Next to it, a socially committed literature took shape in the 1950's and reached a peak in the 1960's which we may consider as the "golden era" of contemporary Iranian literature.
The importation of some other kind of foreign films, the diffusion of cinema culture and its principles as well as theoretical views on Cinema through translation of works and criticisms in magazines, and above all the starting of the Film Club by Dr. Kavoosi and his friends, on the whole, transmitted the trends of world cinema. Those clubs played an important role in the shaping growth of many directors. For instance, Kimyayee was a consistent member. Nasser Taqvaie was somehow trained there and was a disciple of Ghaffari. That is also the case with Bayzai who once won a contest there.
They are now celebrated film makers and have created a change in our cinema. Gradually, the ordinary viewers tended to watch different films through the clubs. But developments in other countries had their own characteristics. For instance, the New Wave of French cinema did have an influence in my opinion. I do not wish, of course, to look for similarities between the Iranian and French New Wave cinemas. A group of young people came around in France who argued that the cinema of their grandfathers was old and non-scientific and failed to answer the demands of the young generation. A New Wave came about which followed the cinema of Hitchcock and the American classical cinema, and dominated the French cinema.
They then made different films, such as the formalist works of Godard or the films of Truffaut. On the other hand, the Italian neo-realist films influenced Iranian cinema. Films like the Bicycle Thieves or works of Fellini and de Sica that were screened in Iran changed the people's attitudes toward society and especially toward cinema.
In the late 1970's, the neo-realist tendency weakened among directors. But after the revolution, owing to specific social conditions, neo-realism reappeared in stage, this time with a different face.
Q: Did only cinema professionals play a role in shaping the New Wave?
A: We have talked only about the first generation of those involved in the New Wave. But there is a group of dramatists whose names only have been mentioned in the book. We hope to discuss them in more detail in the second edition. The second generation is rooted indeed in theatre. Ali Hatami, Bahram Bayzai, and others were won over to cinema from other literary cultural arenas. Before the New Wave, no producer or studio manager was prepared to permit a young and proud intellectual to work and to make available his money to him. The most important influence of the New Wave people is that they made films by sacrifice and devotion and that is clearly comprehensible from their statements in the book.
Q: A review of the first three films of the New Wave, the Cow, Qaysar and Calm in front of Others would show that the directors of those films were trying to make different films in form and subject, rather than trying to offer a cinema theory like the French. How could one attribute a theory to that tendency?
A: It is best, when reviewing artistic works, to criticize each work with a view to its own particular characteristics in order to reach a general conclusion. Those three films do have affinities, but we do make distinctions among them. The film Qaysar and its director, Kimyayee, [for cinema] are like Akhavan and his poems for Iranian contemporary poetry.
One special quality of Akhavan's poems is thought that he has established a bridge between the Khorassani and Nima Schools. That is what Kimyayee has done in Qaysar; i.e., he established a connection between intellectual and popular films. Mehrjuyee in the Cow used the drama tradition somehow. In particular, he benefited from the people's interest in theatre which was at its peak during at the period. And Nasser Taqvaie borrowed from social literature. In my opinion, that variety of viewpoints distinguished those films from FILMFARSI. One important characteristic of the New Wave films was that they were not repetitions and cliches. But, it is not enough to just mention the function Qaysar performed in that period. Kimyayee, by his work, facilitated the making of films like the Spring and the Mongols. It is true that the formalist films of that period left a negative impact on the public opinion and the critics. But they left a worthy impact on the Iranian cinema culture.
Q: How could New Wave prosper in the present cinema?
A: It is best to pursue the trend of FILMFARSI after the revolution. I am going to pursue the issue in my new book called FILMFARSI. Specific formulae are identifiable in FILMFARSI a number of which are even been noticeable in the post-revolution films.
The commercial aspects, with false attractions which were sex and violence previously, have now been replaced with violence. It is noticed in an over-abundance and at a disgusting level in the present films.
Above all, is the "happy end" which producers are not prepared to let go of easily.
Unfortunately, some government policy makers are also advocates of the "happy end."
"Happy end" is not bad in itself. It is wrong to use it if preparations for it have not been made in the film. Indeed, the end to any film should be realistic and should not be imposed by force.
The present New Wave is the extension of the pre-Revolutionary New Wave in a logical manner. The special value of the New Wave cinema in Iran was its artistic tendencies. They were not copies of any other film and drew their structure from the film subject itself. They were new and unique both in subject and form. This is also true about other principal factors making up a film. For instance, camera, music, editing, acting. For example, in Sarah (by Dariush Mehrjuyee) even though the subject is a cliche drama narrating a conflict between a young husband and wife, through the script, decoupage in directing (using dissolve and color darkening and lighting), conscious refusal to use music and editing, it is given special values which even its repetitive subject fails to influence.
Q: How did the new wave come about in Iranian cinema?
A: A new trend began in the cinema since 1968. It was due to developments in the cultural arena with origins in the political, social, and cultural developments of the 1950s and 1960s.
The Iranian cinema practically entered a new stage with the making of three films: The Cow (1969 - Dariush Mehrjuyee), Qaysar (1969 - Massoud Kimyayee), and Calm in Front of Others (Naser Taqvaie). It was both serious and received approval from thinkers, specialists, and intellectuals of the society, whereas before that stage, cinema had no fruit to be approved by experts, except for a couple of failed efforts.
Those three films set off a trend distinct from FILMFARSI [a term coined for vulgar Iranian films] which contributed to the growth and dynamic character of a truly artistic and cultural cinema. We should note that FILMFARSI has not disappeared even after the revolution. It still exists and goes on living in specific forms and conditions.
Q: What were other characteristics of the New Wave in Iranian Cinema?
A: The period known as the New Wave is indeed an intellectual cultural trend in the Iranian cinema. Since 1969, nearly 200 films have been made, not all of which are necessarily valuable. The New Wave films are a handful.
Even films influenced by that trend could not be called good New Wave films. For instance, Reza Motori [Motorcyclist] is not a brilliant film on Kimyayee's record. Nor is The Baluch. But those two films were different from the FILMFARSI of that period, even though they had things in common with the New Wave. The New Wave is a trend aiming at a cultural objective. Now if it has not achieved the ultimate aim regarding film production, it has tried to depart from the swamp of FILMFARSI. That effort was properly under way and went along uninterruptedly for a while. Thus you see that from 1969, when those three films were made, until 1972-73 about 40-50 noteworthy films were made. That is not a small figure.
That effort reached a deadlock when the original aim of intellectual films was forgotten for the sake of financial issues and winning a greater audience. It was around 1977 that the Iranian viewer, who had watched relatively good Iranian and foreign films could tell the banal aspects of FILMFARSI. Previously, that comparison was only made with foreign films. But after the New Wave trend, the comparison was made between the domestic cultural-artistic films and the vulgar products. There are works among the vanguard films of that period which still have novelties as far as structure is concerned. For instance, "The Mongols" by Parviz Kimiavi, and "The Spring" by Arbi Avanessian. This is also true about films of Shahid Saless, which if you watch them even today you would see new experiences in them in regards to form and structure.
In other words, the New Wave films not only influenced the Iranian cinema, they raised the expectation of the viewer. The viewers were no longer satisfied by FILMFARSI. Even if the latter rivaled foreign films in nudeness and obscenity, the viewer preferred to watch healthy Iranian films rather than a bad and obscene copy of third and fourth grade Italian films. In those years, many obscene scenes were seen on the stage. But they could not meet the cultural demands of viewers.
I believe that at present, considering that a decade has passed since the emergence of the new Iranian cinema, there are still instances that harm the films like those previous scenes and the viewer is fed-up with them. After the revolution, action films were planned and made quite carefully, and the directors and producers thought that they would be making box office hits. But they failed. "Tavarish" by Mehdi Fakhimzadeh is an example. By contrast, a film like "Under the Olive Trees" sold about 15 million Tomans in a short while and only in two movie theatres, and that is unprecedented in our cinema.
Q: What influence did New Wave Cinema leave on critics?
A: Before the New Wave, nobody considered the director as the creator of the work. There were only two or three directors whose names denoted specific types of films. One was Samuel Khachikian, because people thought he imitated Hitchcock. The other was Siamak Yassami. Viewers considered him to be promoting the Indian film style in Iran. Another was Kooshan who was known as a producer rather than a director because he owned a studio himself.
In that period, the principal representatives of all films were the actors or the so-called stars of those films. Ordinary people did not know that the main creator was somebody else. In fact, perhaps there was no creator, and the people were correct. After the New Wave, the public found out that one person was the principal thinker of the film, and his ideas and plans are made into pictures, and he is called the director. This, of course, does not concern the intellectual and cinema community who knew well who the film creator was.
Apart from this, the New Wave caused the Iranian cinema to be viewed as a cultural category. Cinema was not viewed in that way before. No intellectual, except in the early years of the cinema, was won over to cinema. At the time, FILMFARSI had become a swear word. But after the New Wave, contemporary writers would like their works to be made into films. In the late 1970s, many writers, intellectuals, and persons who only considered literature and drama to be true arts, took a more serious approach to cinema. They wrote valuable criticisms of films in the artistic-cultural publications of the time.
Q: Isn't the origins of the New Wave outside of Iran? And was it not in fact influenced by the intellectual Italian and French films of the 1950's and 1960's?
A: The factors leading to the rise of the New Wave in Iran were, in part, due to internal conditions; that is due to intellectual or even political movements that came into existence at the time. A romantic climate was developing after the 19 August [1953] coup in the sphere of arts. Next to it, a socially committed literature took shape in the 1950's and reached a peak in the 1960's which we may consider as the "golden era" of contemporary Iranian literature.
The importation of some other kind of foreign films, the diffusion of cinema culture and its principles as well as theoretical views on Cinema through translation of works and criticisms in magazines, and above all the starting of the Film Club by Dr. Kavoosi and his friends, on the whole, transmitted the trends of world cinema. Those clubs played an important role in the shaping growth of many directors. For instance, Kimyayee was a consistent member. Nasser Taqvaie was somehow trained there and was a disciple of Ghaffari. That is also the case with Bayzai who once won a contest there.
They are now celebrated film makers and have created a change in our cinema. Gradually, the ordinary viewers tended to watch different films through the clubs. But developments in other countries had their own characteristics. For instance, the New Wave of French cinema did have an influence in my opinion. I do not wish, of course, to look for similarities between the Iranian and French New Wave cinemas. A group of young people came around in France who argued that the cinema of their grandfathers was old and non-scientific and failed to answer the demands of the young generation. A New Wave came about which followed the cinema of Hitchcock and the American classical cinema, and dominated the French cinema.
They then made different films, such as the formalist works of Godard or the films of Truffaut. On the other hand, the Italian neo-realist films influenced Iranian cinema. Films like the Bicycle Thieves or works of Fellini and de Sica that were screened in Iran changed the people's attitudes toward society and especially toward cinema.
In the late 1970's, the neo-realist tendency weakened among directors. But after the revolution, owing to specific social conditions, neo-realism reappeared in stage, this time with a different face.
Q: Did only cinema professionals play a role in shaping the New Wave?
A: We have talked only about the first generation of those involved in the New Wave. But there is a group of dramatists whose names only have been mentioned in the book. We hope to discuss them in more detail in the second edition. The second generation is rooted indeed in theatre. Ali Hatami, Bahram Bayzai, and others were won over to cinema from other literary cultural arenas. Before the New Wave, no producer or studio manager was prepared to permit a young and proud intellectual to work and to make available his money to him. The most important influence of the New Wave people is that they made films by sacrifice and devotion and that is clearly comprehensible from their statements in the book.
Q: A review of the first three films of the New Wave, the Cow, Qaysar and Calm in front of Others would show that the directors of those films were trying to make different films in form and subject, rather than trying to offer a cinema theory like the French. How could one attribute a theory to that tendency?
A: It is best, when reviewing artistic works, to criticize each work with a view to its own particular characteristics in order to reach a general conclusion. Those three films do have affinities, but we do make distinctions among them. The film Qaysar and its director, Kimyayee, [for cinema] are like Akhavan and his poems for Iranian contemporary poetry.
One special quality of Akhavan's poems is thought that he has established a bridge between the Khorassani and Nima Schools. That is what Kimyayee has done in Qaysar; i.e., he established a connection between intellectual and popular films. Mehrjuyee in the Cow used the drama tradition somehow. In particular, he benefited from the people's interest in theatre which was at its peak during at the period. And Nasser Taqvaie borrowed from social literature. In my opinion, that variety of viewpoints distinguished those films from FILMFARSI. One important characteristic of the New Wave films was that they were not repetitions and cliches. But, it is not enough to just mention the function Qaysar performed in that period. Kimyayee, by his work, facilitated the making of films like the Spring and the Mongols. It is true that the formalist films of that period left a negative impact on the public opinion and the critics. But they left a worthy impact on the Iranian cinema culture.
Q: How could New Wave prosper in the present cinema?
A: It is best to pursue the trend of FILMFARSI after the revolution. I am going to pursue the issue in my new book called FILMFARSI. Specific formulae are identifiable in FILMFARSI a number of which are even been noticeable in the post-revolution films.
The commercial aspects, with false attractions which were sex and violence previously, have now been replaced with violence. It is noticed in an over-abundance and at a disgusting level in the present films.
Above all, is the "happy end" which producers are not prepared to let go of easily.
Unfortunately, some government policy makers are also advocates of the "happy end."
"Happy end" is not bad in itself. It is wrong to use it if preparations for it have not been made in the film. Indeed, the end to any film should be realistic and should not be imposed by force.
The present New Wave is the extension of the pre-Revolutionary New Wave in a logical manner. The special value of the New Wave cinema in Iran was its artistic tendencies. They were not copies of any other film and drew their structure from the film subject itself. They were new and unique both in subject and form. This is also true about other principal factors making up a film. For instance, camera, music, editing, acting. For example, in Sarah (by Dariush Mehrjuyee) even though the subject is a cliche drama narrating a conflict between a young husband and wife, through the script, decoupage in directing (using dissolve and color darkening and lighting), conscious refusal to use music and editing, it is given special values which even its repetitive subject fails to influence.
The Voice of God
There are many types of documentary films. The most common form of documentary is referred to as Direct Address (aka Voice of God). In such a documentary, the viewer is directly acknowledged, usually through narration and voice-overs. There is very little ambiguity and it is pretty obvious how you're expected to interpret these types of films. Many television and news programs use this style, to varying degrees of success. Ken Burns' infamous Civil War and Baseball series use this format eloquently, but most traditional propaganda films also fall into this category (a small caveat: most films are hybrids, rarely falling exclusively into one category). Such films give the illusion of being an invisible witness to certain events and are thus very persuasive and powerful.
Any documentary is biased in the Truth that it presents, even if the facts are undisputed. In a sense objectivity is impossible, which is why documentary scholar Bill Nichols admires films which seek to contextualize themselves, exposing their limitations and biases to the audience. Reflexive Documentaries use many devices to acknowledge the filmmaker's presence, perspective, and selectivity in constructing the film. It is thought that films like this are much more honest about their subjectivity, and thus provide a much greater service to the audience. An excellent example of a Reflexive documentary is Errol Morris' brilliant film, The Thin Blue Line. The film examines the "truth" around the murder of a Dallas policeman. The use of colored lighting throughout the film eventually correlates with who is innocent or guilty, and Morris is also quite manipulative through his use of editing - deconstructing and reconstructing the case to demonstrate just how problematic finding the truth can be. His use of framing calls attention to itself, daring the audience to question the intents of the filmmakers. The use of interviews in conjunction with editing is carefully structured to demonstrate the subjectivity of the film and its subjects. As you watch the movie, it becomes quite clear that Morris is toying with you, the viewer, and that he wants you to be critical of the "truth" he is presenting. Ironically, a documentary becomes more objective when it acknowledges its own biases and agenda. In other words, a documentary becomes more objective when it admits its own subjectivity. There are many other forms of documentary not covered here (i.e. direct cinema/cinema verité, interview-based, performative, mock-documentaries, etc... most of which mesh together as they did in Morris' Blue Line to form a hybrid). In Bill Nichols' seminal essay, Voice of Documentary (Can't seem to find a version online), he says:
"Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility not to be objective. Objectivity is a concept borrowed from the natural sciences and from journalism, with little place in the social sciences or documentary film."
The media emphatically does not acknowledge their biases. By bias, I don't mean anything as short-sighted as liberal or conservative media bias, I mean structural bias of which political orientation is but a small part (that link contains an excellent essay on the nature of media bias, one that I find presents a more complete picture and is much more useful than the tired old ideological bias we always hear so much about*). Such subjectivity does exist in journalism, yet the media stubbornly persists in their firm belief that they are presenting the objective truth.
Any documentary is biased in the Truth that it presents, even if the facts are undisputed. In a sense objectivity is impossible, which is why documentary scholar Bill Nichols admires films which seek to contextualize themselves, exposing their limitations and biases to the audience. Reflexive Documentaries use many devices to acknowledge the filmmaker's presence, perspective, and selectivity in constructing the film. It is thought that films like this are much more honest about their subjectivity, and thus provide a much greater service to the audience. An excellent example of a Reflexive documentary is Errol Morris' brilliant film, The Thin Blue Line. The film examines the "truth" around the murder of a Dallas policeman. The use of colored lighting throughout the film eventually correlates with who is innocent or guilty, and Morris is also quite manipulative through his use of editing - deconstructing and reconstructing the case to demonstrate just how problematic finding the truth can be. His use of framing calls attention to itself, daring the audience to question the intents of the filmmakers. The use of interviews in conjunction with editing is carefully structured to demonstrate the subjectivity of the film and its subjects. As you watch the movie, it becomes quite clear that Morris is toying with you, the viewer, and that he wants you to be critical of the "truth" he is presenting. Ironically, a documentary becomes more objective when it acknowledges its own biases and agenda. In other words, a documentary becomes more objective when it admits its own subjectivity. There are many other forms of documentary not covered here (i.e. direct cinema/cinema verité, interview-based, performative, mock-documentaries, etc... most of which mesh together as they did in Morris' Blue Line to form a hybrid). In Bill Nichols' seminal essay, Voice of Documentary (Can't seem to find a version online), he says:
"Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility not to be objective. Objectivity is a concept borrowed from the natural sciences and from journalism, with little place in the social sciences or documentary film."
The media emphatically does not acknowledge their biases. By bias, I don't mean anything as short-sighted as liberal or conservative media bias, I mean structural bias of which political orientation is but a small part (that link contains an excellent essay on the nature of media bias, one that I find presents a more complete picture and is much more useful than the tired old ideological bias we always hear so much about*). Such subjectivity does exist in journalism, yet the media stubbornly persists in their firm belief that they are presenting the objective truth.
Godfather of Indie Films
John Cassavetes was born in New York City on December 9th, 1929. After graduating from high school, he attended Mohawk College and Colgate University before graduating from the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1950. Throughout the early 1950s he worked as an actor in films including FOURTEEN HOURS (1951) and TAXI (1953). By the late 1950s he had made a name for himself, with roles in a number of movies including 1958’s SADDLE THE WIND. His big break came with a regular role on the television series "Johnny Staccato" between 1959 and 1960.
Financing his first film with the money he had made in television, Cassavetes embarked on his directorial debut. Working from only a skeleton script, SHADOWS was an experiment in improvisational acting and directing. A low-budget sixteen millimeter production with a jazz soundtrack by Charles Mingus, the film appealed to an audience longing for less mediated art forms.
Winning five awards from the Venice Film Festival, Cassavetes found himself suddenly in the position of making higher-budget films within the studio system. In 1961 he made TOO LATE BLUES followed in 1962 by A CHILD IS WAITING, but neither had the excitement or improvisational energy of SHADOWS. Resentful of studio interference in his work, Cassavetes went back to acting, appearing in a number of films including THE KILLERS (1964), THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967), and ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968). By 1968, however, Cassavetes returned to directing, this time working independently.
FACES, a film about the difficulties in a suburban marriage, continued in the vein of SHADOWS, with a loosely drawn script and cinematography that worked in response to the improvised method of the actors. Though some found the work tedious (unscripted scenes going on far longer than Hollywood would have allowed), many realized in Cassavetes the possibility for more genuine and moving moments. After FACES, Cassavetes embarked on HUSBANDS, in which he starred with Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. The film centered around three friends dealing with life and mortality after the death of a mutual friend.
Though neither FACES nor HUSBANDS were very popular with the mainstream moviegoing audience, both were pivotal in the integration of cinema verité traditions in future Hollywood films. This crossover of the experimental and popular was clear in Cassavetes most successful film. Though A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974) was produced with a complete script, it retained much of the intuitive and spontaneous acting of Cassavetes’ earlier films. Staring Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk, the film investigated the mental illness of a woman and the disintegration of her marriage. Financed independently by the cast and crew, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE was a popular and critical success.
Throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Cassavetes continued to work as both an actor and director. He directed THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (1976), OPENING NIGHT (1977), and the 1980 film GLORIA which again starred Gena Rowlands, and which many believe was one of her finest performances. By the time of his death in 1989, Cassavetes had directed twelve films, creating a body of work that addressed serious topics and paved the way for a more vibrant American cinema.
Financing his first film with the money he had made in television, Cassavetes embarked on his directorial debut. Working from only a skeleton script, SHADOWS was an experiment in improvisational acting and directing. A low-budget sixteen millimeter production with a jazz soundtrack by Charles Mingus, the film appealed to an audience longing for less mediated art forms.
Winning five awards from the Venice Film Festival, Cassavetes found himself suddenly in the position of making higher-budget films within the studio system. In 1961 he made TOO LATE BLUES followed in 1962 by A CHILD IS WAITING, but neither had the excitement or improvisational energy of SHADOWS. Resentful of studio interference in his work, Cassavetes went back to acting, appearing in a number of films including THE KILLERS (1964), THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967), and ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968). By 1968, however, Cassavetes returned to directing, this time working independently.
FACES, a film about the difficulties in a suburban marriage, continued in the vein of SHADOWS, with a loosely drawn script and cinematography that worked in response to the improvised method of the actors. Though some found the work tedious (unscripted scenes going on far longer than Hollywood would have allowed), many realized in Cassavetes the possibility for more genuine and moving moments. After FACES, Cassavetes embarked on HUSBANDS, in which he starred with Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. The film centered around three friends dealing with life and mortality after the death of a mutual friend.
Though neither FACES nor HUSBANDS were very popular with the mainstream moviegoing audience, both were pivotal in the integration of cinema verité traditions in future Hollywood films. This crossover of the experimental and popular was clear in Cassavetes most successful film. Though A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974) was produced with a complete script, it retained much of the intuitive and spontaneous acting of Cassavetes’ earlier films. Staring Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk, the film investigated the mental illness of a woman and the disintegration of her marriage. Financed independently by the cast and crew, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE was a popular and critical success.
Throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Cassavetes continued to work as both an actor and director. He directed THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (1976), OPENING NIGHT (1977), and the 1980 film GLORIA which again starred Gena Rowlands, and which many believe was one of her finest performances. By the time of his death in 1989, Cassavetes had directed twelve films, creating a body of work that addressed serious topics and paved the way for a more vibrant American cinema.
Breathless
The epitome of cinematic cool, Jean Luc Godard's debut, Breathless (A Bout De Souffle) is a stylistic tour-de-force from beginning to end. Upon its initial release, back in 1959, both audiences and critics alike applauded its unconventional and rare approach to filmmaking, while at the same time admiring the burst of power it gave to French cinema; it won various international awards and became an unexpected box-office triumph. What it did for film it did for its director: not only did it help in further weaving the French New Wave movement, it also introduced Godard to a new generation and confirmed him as one of the most talented and creative foreign directors. It completely changed the face of cinema and, even today, stands as one of the most influential and greatest films ever made.
Jean Luc Godard was a former Les Cahiers du Cinema critic, a French film magazine to which artists such as Truffaut and Rohmer contributed. They watched approximately 1,000 films a year and thus Godard had a source to find all the cinema-related knowledge from. There is no denying that with Breathless, Godard didn't only pay tribute to American films, as he used everything he knew about filmmaking to great effect.
Godard was once famously quoted as saying, "All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun." And that's precisely what we have here. A girl. And a gun. Throw in a man whos' interested in the girl and there you go, we have a film that's now all then more complex. One can't say that the plot of Breathless is exactly what one could call complicated. Indeed, it's incredibly simple and the less you know, the better: it's a fast tale of a young man on the run in Paris at the end of the '50s who meets the stunning Jean Seberg, a 20-year old New Yorker who sells the International Herald Tribune along the boulevards of Paris. As the film goes, their relationship develops, reaching what is an indescribably tragic ending.
While watching Breathless for the first time, I could not help but think that what I was watching was a real spectacle. There is nothing colossal or monumental about the picture; on the other hand, it's rather straightforward, simple and intimate. What turns it into spectacle, however, is the way it's told. The narrative structure is loose and disorganised - it's not that its broken, told in reverse or anything; you just get that strange feeling of non-linearity. Shot in a grainy, stark black and white with a hand-held camera in natural light, the picture has a documentary-like feel to it, meaning that, despite being a film, it often feels like it's not. We are transported to the streets of Paris, or to the bedroom of two lovers and not even once did I feel as though they were standing on a set. It all felt so real, so authentic and genuine. This visual style has often been compared to Italian Neo-realist classics like The Bicycle Thief or Miracle in Milan, but what turns it into a completely different thing is that the film has no rules, really. The film does not have any rules. It does not follow a How to Make a Good Film pocket book. There are no cinematic regulations, no laws and no order - they're not broken; they simply do not exist. Characters and walking-by pedestrians stare directly into the camera, constant, sudden jump cuts occur in midshots, the camera restlessly moves to an fro, back and front, left to right, capturing the characters' emotions with great ease while at the same time providing them with more freedom to act and adapt to the circumstances. Improvising took place a lot too, and this is clearly visible during some of the film's scenes. It all helps in constructing a sense of palpable reality, even though Godard constantly reminds us that we're just watching a film, nothing more and nothing less.
There is a lot to admire in Breathless. The acting, for example, is extraordinary: Jean Paul Belmondo is sensational as the foul-mouthed Michel Poiccard, portraying him with bizarre finesse and classy sexual magnetism. He plays a woman hunter, a ruthless thug who tries to be like Humphrey Bogart, kills for no reason and constantly beds different women, both for sheer pleasure and (supposedly) for love. He's a despicable personage, worthy of any American film-noir film, an individual who likes to talk about love yet seldom truly finds it, despite his interminable search for it. Cigarettes, hats, sunglasses and determined unconformity make Michel Poiccard a real cinematic icon.
Jean Seberg is phenomenal as Patricia Franchini; sweet-looking, innocent and with no real direction or path in life, her performance is as great as it is unique - Breathless was one of the very few highlights of her poor career that apart from Lillith made her slightly famous. Patricia is a character looking for something; what exactly she does not know, but there is something in her heart which she somehow has to obtain. Is it love? Is it an escape? Is it death, friendship, sex? She;s possibly pregnant, and despite the usual press conferences she does for the paper she has no real goal. Her internal uncertainty is as uncertain for her as it is for us, as we never get to know what she truly was seeking, not even at the end. Even so, she does not refuse Michel, though she won't commit to him, she will not give herself to him. All we know is that she;s not entirely comfortable with her life, as though something was missing, like a chain that lacks a link.
Breathless is essentially a character study. It;s a film about psychology. It deals with people and the situations they often find themselves immersed in. It;s a film about the human character, nice and clear. Though we may not necessarily like the characters, there simply is no denying that we might somehow relate to them and their emotions. Michel and Patricia are both trapped in a cage. One;s running away from the cops, the other is running away from the harsh reality of life. Breathless is about running away. No matter what it may be, it;s something we;re all constantly doing. Aren;t we all? Is it not true that we often try to escape and plunge ourselves into something completely different, into a world of our own? Godard weaves the pains and pleasures of the characters' lives with attention to detail and impressive delicacy; he does it all masterfully.
Jean Luc Godard was a former Les Cahiers du Cinema critic, a French film magazine to which artists such as Truffaut and Rohmer contributed. They watched approximately 1,000 films a year and thus Godard had a source to find all the cinema-related knowledge from. There is no denying that with Breathless, Godard didn't only pay tribute to American films, as he used everything he knew about filmmaking to great effect.
Godard was once famously quoted as saying, "All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun." And that's precisely what we have here. A girl. And a gun. Throw in a man whos' interested in the girl and there you go, we have a film that's now all then more complex. One can't say that the plot of Breathless is exactly what one could call complicated. Indeed, it's incredibly simple and the less you know, the better: it's a fast tale of a young man on the run in Paris at the end of the '50s who meets the stunning Jean Seberg, a 20-year old New Yorker who sells the International Herald Tribune along the boulevards of Paris. As the film goes, their relationship develops, reaching what is an indescribably tragic ending.
While watching Breathless for the first time, I could not help but think that what I was watching was a real spectacle. There is nothing colossal or monumental about the picture; on the other hand, it's rather straightforward, simple and intimate. What turns it into spectacle, however, is the way it's told. The narrative structure is loose and disorganised - it's not that its broken, told in reverse or anything; you just get that strange feeling of non-linearity. Shot in a grainy, stark black and white with a hand-held camera in natural light, the picture has a documentary-like feel to it, meaning that, despite being a film, it often feels like it's not. We are transported to the streets of Paris, or to the bedroom of two lovers and not even once did I feel as though they were standing on a set. It all felt so real, so authentic and genuine. This visual style has often been compared to Italian Neo-realist classics like The Bicycle Thief or Miracle in Milan, but what turns it into a completely different thing is that the film has no rules, really. The film does not have any rules. It does not follow a How to Make a Good Film pocket book. There are no cinematic regulations, no laws and no order - they're not broken; they simply do not exist. Characters and walking-by pedestrians stare directly into the camera, constant, sudden jump cuts occur in midshots, the camera restlessly moves to an fro, back and front, left to right, capturing the characters' emotions with great ease while at the same time providing them with more freedom to act and adapt to the circumstances. Improvising took place a lot too, and this is clearly visible during some of the film's scenes. It all helps in constructing a sense of palpable reality, even though Godard constantly reminds us that we're just watching a film, nothing more and nothing less.
There is a lot to admire in Breathless. The acting, for example, is extraordinary: Jean Paul Belmondo is sensational as the foul-mouthed Michel Poiccard, portraying him with bizarre finesse and classy sexual magnetism. He plays a woman hunter, a ruthless thug who tries to be like Humphrey Bogart, kills for no reason and constantly beds different women, both for sheer pleasure and (supposedly) for love. He's a despicable personage, worthy of any American film-noir film, an individual who likes to talk about love yet seldom truly finds it, despite his interminable search for it. Cigarettes, hats, sunglasses and determined unconformity make Michel Poiccard a real cinematic icon.
Jean Seberg is phenomenal as Patricia Franchini; sweet-looking, innocent and with no real direction or path in life, her performance is as great as it is unique - Breathless was one of the very few highlights of her poor career that apart from Lillith made her slightly famous. Patricia is a character looking for something; what exactly she does not know, but there is something in her heart which she somehow has to obtain. Is it love? Is it an escape? Is it death, friendship, sex? She;s possibly pregnant, and despite the usual press conferences she does for the paper she has no real goal. Her internal uncertainty is as uncertain for her as it is for us, as we never get to know what she truly was seeking, not even at the end. Even so, she does not refuse Michel, though she won't commit to him, she will not give herself to him. All we know is that she;s not entirely comfortable with her life, as though something was missing, like a chain that lacks a link.
Breathless is essentially a character study. It;s a film about psychology. It deals with people and the situations they often find themselves immersed in. It;s a film about the human character, nice and clear. Though we may not necessarily like the characters, there simply is no denying that we might somehow relate to them and their emotions. Michel and Patricia are both trapped in a cage. One;s running away from the cops, the other is running away from the harsh reality of life. Breathless is about running away. No matter what it may be, it;s something we;re all constantly doing. Aren;t we all? Is it not true that we often try to escape and plunge ourselves into something completely different, into a world of our own? Godard weaves the pains and pleasures of the characters' lives with attention to detail and impressive delicacy; he does it all masterfully.
Silent Films
History
The first film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a two second film of people walking around in Oakwood Grange garden, titled Roundhay Garden Scene.The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the "silent era" before silent films were replaced by "talking pictures" in the late 1920s. Many film scholars and buffs argue that the aesthetic quality of cinema decreased for several years until directors, actors, and production staff adapted to the new "talkies".
The visual quality of silent movies — especially those produced during the 1920s — was often extremely high. However, there is a widely held misconception that these films were primitive and barely watchable by modern standards. This misconception is due to technical errors (such as films being played back at wrong speed) and due to the deteriorated condition of many silent films (many silent films exist only in second or even third generation copies which were often copied from already damaged and neglected film stock).
Because silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen intertitles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and sometimes even comment on the action for the cinema audience. The title writer became a key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Intertitles (or titles as they were generally called at the time) often became graphic elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decoration that commented on the action.
Live music and sound
Showings of silent films almost always featured live music, starting with the pianist at the first public projection of movies by the Lumière Brothers on December 28, 1895 in Paris.From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing to the atmosphere and giving the audience vital emotional cues (musicians sometimes played on film sets during shooting for similar reasons). Small town and neighborhood movie theaters usually had a pianist. From the mid-teens onward, large city theaters tended to have organists or entire orchestras. Massive theater organs were designed to fill a gap between a simple piano soloist and a larger orchestra. Theater organs had a wide range of special effects, and used actual percussion. theatrical organs such as the famous "Mighty Wurlitzer" could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of percussion effects such as bass drums and cymbals and sound effects ranging from galloping horses to rolling thunder.
The scores for silents were often more or less improvised early in the medium's history. Once full features became commonplace, however, music was compiled from photoplay music by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio itself, which would send out a cue sheet with the film. These sheets were often very lengthy. Starting with mostly original score composed by Joseph Carl Breil for D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking epic The Birth of a Nation (USA, 1915) it became relatively common for films to arrive at the exhibiting theater with original, specially composed scores.When an organist or pianist used sheet music, they would still add in improvisatory flourishes to heighten the drama onscreen. As well, even if special effects were not indicated in the score, if an organist was playing a theater organ with an unusual sound effect, such as a "galloping horses" effect, they would use it during a dramatic horseback chase. By the height of the silent era, movies were the single largest source of employment for instrumental musicians (at least in America). But the introduction of talkies, which happened simultaneously with the onset of the Great Depression, was devastating to many musicians.
Some countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silent films. The early cinema of Brazil featured fitas cantatas: filmed operettas with singers performing behind the screen. In Japan, films had not only live music but also the benshi, a live narrator who provided commentary and character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film form, as well as providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies. Their popularity was one reason why silents persisted well into the 1930s in Japan.
Few film scores have survived intact from this period, and musicologists are still confronted by questions in attempting a precise reconstruction of those which remain. Scores can be distinguished as complete reconstructions of composed scores, newly composed for the occasion, assembled from already existing music libraries, or even improvised. Interest in the scoring of silent films fell somewhat out of fashion during the 1960s and 1970s. There was a belief current in many college film programs and repertory cinemas that audiences should experience silent film as a pure visual medium, undistracted by music. This belief may have been encouraged by the poor quality of the music tracks found on many silent film reprints of the time. More recently, there has been a revival of interest in presenting silent films with quality musical scores, either reworkings of period scores or cue sheets, or composition of appropriate original scores. A watershed event in this context was Francis Ford Coppola's 1980 restoration of Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927) with a live orchestral score composed by his father Carmine Coppola.
Notable current specialists in the art of arranging and performing silent film scores include Steven Ball (of Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater); Rosa Rio (organist at the Brooklyn Fox during the silent era and now at the Tampa Theater), Ben Model, Neil Brand, John Sweeney, Phillip C. Carli, Jon Mirsalis, Dennis James, and Donald Sosin. Carl Davis has created entirely new scores for silent era classics. Robert Israel has written new scores for the comedies of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. In addition to composing original film scores Timothy Brock has restored many of Charlie Chaplin's scores.
Acting techniques
Silent film actors emphasized body language and facial expression so that the audience could better understand what an actor was feeling and portraying on screen. Much silent film acting is apt to strike modern-day audiences as simplistic or campy. For this reason, silent comedies tend to be more popular in the modern era than drama, partly because overacting is more natural in comedy. The melodramatic acting style was in some cases a habit actors transferred from their former stage experience. The pervading presence of stage actors in film was the cause of this outburst from director Marshall Neilan in 1917: "The sooner the stage people who have come into pictures get out, the better for the pictures." In other cases, directors such as John Griffith Wray required their actors to deliver larger-than-life expressions for emphasis. As early as 1914, American viewers had begun to make known their preference for greater naturalness on screen.
In any case, the large image size and unprecedented intimacy the actor enjoyed with the audience began to affect acting style, making for more subtlety of expression. Actresses such as Mary Pickford in all her films, Eleanora Duse in the Italian film Cenere (1916), Janet Gaynor in Sunrise, Priscilla Dean in The Dice Woman and Lillian Gish in most of her performances made restraint and easy naturalism in acting a virtue. Directors such as Albert Capellani (a French import who directed several Alla Nazimova films) and Maurice Tourneur insisted on naturalism in their films; Tourneur had been just such a minimalist in his prior stage productions. Many mid-20s American silent films were quite thoughtfully acted, though as late as 1927 such patently overacted movies as Metropolis were still being released. Some viewers liked the flamboyant acting for its escape value, and some countries were later than the United States in embracing naturalness in their films. Just like today, a film's success depended upon the setting, the mood, the script, the skills of the director, and the overall talent of the cast.
Projection speed
Until the standardization of the projection speed of 24 frames per second (fps) for sound films in 1926, silent films were shot at variable speeds (or "frame rates"), typically anywhere from 16 to 23 frames per second or faster, depending on the year and studio. Unless carefully shown at their original speeds they can appear unnaturally fast and jerky, which reinforces their alien appearance to modern viewers. At the same time, some scenes were intentionally undercranked during shooting in order to accelerate the action, particularly in the case of slapstick comedies. The intended frame rate of a silent film can be ambiguous and since they were usually hand cranked there can even be variation within one film. Film speed is often a vexed issue among scholars and film buffs in the presentation of silents today, especially when it comes to DVD releases of "restored" films; the 2002 restoration of Metropolis (Germany, 1927) may be the most fiercely debated example.
Projectionists frequently ran silent films at speeds which were slightly faster than the rate at which they were shot. Most films seem to have been shown at 18 fps or higher - some even faster than what would become sound film speed (24 fps, or 90 feet per minute). Even if shot at 16 fps (often cited as "silent speed"), the projection of a cellulose nitrate base film at such a slow speed carried a considerable risk of fire. Often projectionists would receive very general instructions from the distributors as to how fast particular reels or scenes should be projected on the musical director's cue sheet. In rare instances, usually for larger productions, detailed cue sheets specifically for the projectionist would carry a detailed guide in how to present the film. Theaters also sometimes varied their projection speeds depending on the time of day or popularity of a film in order to maximize profit.
Tinting
With the lack of natural color processing available, films of the silent era were frequently dipped in dyestuffs and dyed various shades and hues in order to signal a mood or represent a specific time of day. Blue represented night scenes, yellow or amber meant day. Red represented fire and green represented a mysterious mood. Similarly, toning of film (such as the common silent film generalization of sepia-toning) with special solutions replaced the silver particles in the film stock with salts or dyes of various colors. A combination of tinting and toning could be used as an effect that could be very striking.
Some films were hand-tinted, such as Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895), from Edison Studios. In it, Annabelle Moore, a young dancer from Broadway, is dressed in white veils that appear to change colors as she dances. Hand coloring was often used in early "trick" and fantasy films from Europe, especially those by Georges Méliès.
By the early teens, with the onset of feature-length films, tinting was expanded upon as another mood setter, just as commonplace as music. The director D.W. Griffith displayed a constant interest and concern about color, and used tinting to a unique effect in many of his films. His 1915 epic, The Birth of a Nation, utilized a number of colors, including amber, blue, lavender, and a striking red tint for scenes such as the "burning of Atlanta" and the ride of the Ku Klux Klan at the climax of the picture. Griffith later invented a color system in which colored lights flashed on areas of the screen to achieve a color effect.
The first film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a two second film of people walking around in Oakwood Grange garden, titled Roundhay Garden Scene.The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the "silent era" before silent films were replaced by "talking pictures" in the late 1920s. Many film scholars and buffs argue that the aesthetic quality of cinema decreased for several years until directors, actors, and production staff adapted to the new "talkies".
The visual quality of silent movies — especially those produced during the 1920s — was often extremely high. However, there is a widely held misconception that these films were primitive and barely watchable by modern standards. This misconception is due to technical errors (such as films being played back at wrong speed) and due to the deteriorated condition of many silent films (many silent films exist only in second or even third generation copies which were often copied from already damaged and neglected film stock).
Because silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen intertitles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and sometimes even comment on the action for the cinema audience. The title writer became a key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Intertitles (or titles as they were generally called at the time) often became graphic elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decoration that commented on the action.
Live music and sound
Showings of silent films almost always featured live music, starting with the pianist at the first public projection of movies by the Lumière Brothers on December 28, 1895 in Paris.From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing to the atmosphere and giving the audience vital emotional cues (musicians sometimes played on film sets during shooting for similar reasons). Small town and neighborhood movie theaters usually had a pianist. From the mid-teens onward, large city theaters tended to have organists or entire orchestras. Massive theater organs were designed to fill a gap between a simple piano soloist and a larger orchestra. Theater organs had a wide range of special effects, and used actual percussion. theatrical organs such as the famous "Mighty Wurlitzer" could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of percussion effects such as bass drums and cymbals and sound effects ranging from galloping horses to rolling thunder.
The scores for silents were often more or less improvised early in the medium's history. Once full features became commonplace, however, music was compiled from photoplay music by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio itself, which would send out a cue sheet with the film. These sheets were often very lengthy. Starting with mostly original score composed by Joseph Carl Breil for D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking epic The Birth of a Nation (USA, 1915) it became relatively common for films to arrive at the exhibiting theater with original, specially composed scores.When an organist or pianist used sheet music, they would still add in improvisatory flourishes to heighten the drama onscreen. As well, even if special effects were not indicated in the score, if an organist was playing a theater organ with an unusual sound effect, such as a "galloping horses" effect, they would use it during a dramatic horseback chase. By the height of the silent era, movies were the single largest source of employment for instrumental musicians (at least in America). But the introduction of talkies, which happened simultaneously with the onset of the Great Depression, was devastating to many musicians.
Some countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silent films. The early cinema of Brazil featured fitas cantatas: filmed operettas with singers performing behind the screen. In Japan, films had not only live music but also the benshi, a live narrator who provided commentary and character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film form, as well as providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies. Their popularity was one reason why silents persisted well into the 1930s in Japan.
Few film scores have survived intact from this period, and musicologists are still confronted by questions in attempting a precise reconstruction of those which remain. Scores can be distinguished as complete reconstructions of composed scores, newly composed for the occasion, assembled from already existing music libraries, or even improvised. Interest in the scoring of silent films fell somewhat out of fashion during the 1960s and 1970s. There was a belief current in many college film programs and repertory cinemas that audiences should experience silent film as a pure visual medium, undistracted by music. This belief may have been encouraged by the poor quality of the music tracks found on many silent film reprints of the time. More recently, there has been a revival of interest in presenting silent films with quality musical scores, either reworkings of period scores or cue sheets, or composition of appropriate original scores. A watershed event in this context was Francis Ford Coppola's 1980 restoration of Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927) with a live orchestral score composed by his father Carmine Coppola.
Notable current specialists in the art of arranging and performing silent film scores include Steven Ball (of Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater); Rosa Rio (organist at the Brooklyn Fox during the silent era and now at the Tampa Theater), Ben Model, Neil Brand, John Sweeney, Phillip C. Carli, Jon Mirsalis, Dennis James, and Donald Sosin. Carl Davis has created entirely new scores for silent era classics. Robert Israel has written new scores for the comedies of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. In addition to composing original film scores Timothy Brock has restored many of Charlie Chaplin's scores.
Acting techniques
Silent film actors emphasized body language and facial expression so that the audience could better understand what an actor was feeling and portraying on screen. Much silent film acting is apt to strike modern-day audiences as simplistic or campy. For this reason, silent comedies tend to be more popular in the modern era than drama, partly because overacting is more natural in comedy. The melodramatic acting style was in some cases a habit actors transferred from their former stage experience. The pervading presence of stage actors in film was the cause of this outburst from director Marshall Neilan in 1917: "The sooner the stage people who have come into pictures get out, the better for the pictures." In other cases, directors such as John Griffith Wray required their actors to deliver larger-than-life expressions for emphasis. As early as 1914, American viewers had begun to make known their preference for greater naturalness on screen.
In any case, the large image size and unprecedented intimacy the actor enjoyed with the audience began to affect acting style, making for more subtlety of expression. Actresses such as Mary Pickford in all her films, Eleanora Duse in the Italian film Cenere (1916), Janet Gaynor in Sunrise, Priscilla Dean in The Dice Woman and Lillian Gish in most of her performances made restraint and easy naturalism in acting a virtue. Directors such as Albert Capellani (a French import who directed several Alla Nazimova films) and Maurice Tourneur insisted on naturalism in their films; Tourneur had been just such a minimalist in his prior stage productions. Many mid-20s American silent films were quite thoughtfully acted, though as late as 1927 such patently overacted movies as Metropolis were still being released. Some viewers liked the flamboyant acting for its escape value, and some countries were later than the United States in embracing naturalness in their films. Just like today, a film's success depended upon the setting, the mood, the script, the skills of the director, and the overall talent of the cast.
Projection speed
Until the standardization of the projection speed of 24 frames per second (fps) for sound films in 1926, silent films were shot at variable speeds (or "frame rates"), typically anywhere from 16 to 23 frames per second or faster, depending on the year and studio. Unless carefully shown at their original speeds they can appear unnaturally fast and jerky, which reinforces their alien appearance to modern viewers. At the same time, some scenes were intentionally undercranked during shooting in order to accelerate the action, particularly in the case of slapstick comedies. The intended frame rate of a silent film can be ambiguous and since they were usually hand cranked there can even be variation within one film. Film speed is often a vexed issue among scholars and film buffs in the presentation of silents today, especially when it comes to DVD releases of "restored" films; the 2002 restoration of Metropolis (Germany, 1927) may be the most fiercely debated example.
Projectionists frequently ran silent films at speeds which were slightly faster than the rate at which they were shot. Most films seem to have been shown at 18 fps or higher - some even faster than what would become sound film speed (24 fps, or 90 feet per minute). Even if shot at 16 fps (often cited as "silent speed"), the projection of a cellulose nitrate base film at such a slow speed carried a considerable risk of fire. Often projectionists would receive very general instructions from the distributors as to how fast particular reels or scenes should be projected on the musical director's cue sheet. In rare instances, usually for larger productions, detailed cue sheets specifically for the projectionist would carry a detailed guide in how to present the film. Theaters also sometimes varied their projection speeds depending on the time of day or popularity of a film in order to maximize profit.
Tinting
With the lack of natural color processing available, films of the silent era were frequently dipped in dyestuffs and dyed various shades and hues in order to signal a mood or represent a specific time of day. Blue represented night scenes, yellow or amber meant day. Red represented fire and green represented a mysterious mood. Similarly, toning of film (such as the common silent film generalization of sepia-toning) with special solutions replaced the silver particles in the film stock with salts or dyes of various colors. A combination of tinting and toning could be used as an effect that could be very striking.
Some films were hand-tinted, such as Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895), from Edison Studios. In it, Annabelle Moore, a young dancer from Broadway, is dressed in white veils that appear to change colors as she dances. Hand coloring was often used in early "trick" and fantasy films from Europe, especially those by Georges Méliès.
By the early teens, with the onset of feature-length films, tinting was expanded upon as another mood setter, just as commonplace as music. The director D.W. Griffith displayed a constant interest and concern about color, and used tinting to a unique effect in many of his films. His 1915 epic, The Birth of a Nation, utilized a number of colors, including amber, blue, lavender, and a striking red tint for scenes such as the "burning of Atlanta" and the ride of the Ku Klux Klan at the climax of the picture. Griffith later invented a color system in which colored lights flashed on areas of the screen to achieve a color effect.
The Studio Era
The Majors ("big five" and "little three"): between 1930 and 1948, the 8 majors controlled 95% of films exhibited in US: a true oligopoly
Big Five
1. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
established in 1924, by merger of Loew's, Inc. theater chain with three production companies (Metro Pictures/Goldwyn Pictures/Louis B. Mayer Productions)
leader in stars, glamour, spectacle: consider Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz, both 1939
high pre-production investment (i.e., numerous writers and editors), and Irving Thalberg's tight rein on production through 1936
a "galaxy of stars": Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer; Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracey, Clark Gable
purchased by Kirk Kerkorian, 1969; later MGM-UA; then briefly belonged to Turner, who kept the film library when he sold it back; owned by French bank Credit Lyonnias since 1992
2. Paramount Picture Corp
established as a distribution company in 1914, it was acquired by Adolph Zukor in 1917, who merged it with his production company, Famous Players-Lasky Corp., and then started buying theatres, making it the first fully vertically-integrated company
silent era stars: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, William S. Hart, Fatty Arbuckle
directors: Cecil B. DeMille, Erich von Stroheim, Mack Sennet, D.W. Griffith, Dorothy Arzner (from 1927--one of few women directors in era)
comedy, light entertainment, occasional epics (like DeMille's Ten Commandments)
later stars: Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Hedy Lamarr, Barbara Stanwyck, Marx Bros., Bing Crosby, Bob Hope
produced 40-50 films annually in studio heyday
heavily involved in television in 1960s
sold off 1929-49 films to MCA in 1958; acquired by Gulf and Western, 1966; acquired by Viacom in 1990s
3. Fox Film Corporation/20th Century Fox
established for exhibition in 1913 by William Fox; producing fims by 1915. Fox forced out in 1931
"20th C" after 1935 merger with production company headed in part by Darryl F. Zanuck, former Warners production. Head who had just left United Artists
known for musicals; westerns and crime films after 1948; The Robe (1953), 1st Cinemascope feature film
directors: John Ford, Elia Kazan, Joseph Mankiewicz
stars: Shirley Temple, Will Rodgers, Tyrone Power, Betty Grable,Carmen Miranda, Sonja Henie; in 1940s/50s Henry Fonda, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Gregory Peck
currently owned by Rupert Murdoch
4. Warner Brothers established in 1924 by Harry, Jack and Albert Warner
1st sound film: The Jazz Singer (1927)
fully integrated only by 1928-30, with acquisition of First National Pictures theatre chain (which had come into being in 1917 to resist Adolph Zukor)
rode out the depression best with assembly-line, rationalized, low-budget productions; hence did not go bankrupt or become beholden to Wall Street
60 films per year in depression, 1930s: gangster films, backstage musicals, social realism
no "stable" but contact directors and stars: Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks; Paul Muni, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Errol Flynn, James Dean, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Lauern Bacall
also heavily into TV in 1960s; later Warner-Seven Arts, then Warner Communications, now Time-Warner
5. RKO Radio Pictures Incorporated
an immediate major, born of the 1928 merger of Radio Corporation of America with Keith and Orpheum theatres to exploit its "Photophone" movie sound system
"unit production" introduced by David O. Selznick (contracting with individual directors for a certain number of films, free of studio interference)
hence Citizen Kane (Welles), King Kong, Bringing Up Baby (Hawks), Notorious (Hitchcock)
associated with horror films and film noir in its B-movies; after 1940-42, B-movies became the chief product
bought by Howard Hughes (1948), then General Tyre and Rubber Company (1955) then Desilu Productions (1957)
Little Three
1. Universal Pictures
formed 1912 by Carl Laemmle Sr., who was forced out in 1936 after the studio went into receivership
production facility in Universal City in San Fernando Valley, not Hollywood, 1915
Thalberg among first chiefs of production (before joining MGM)
stars: Rudolph Valentino, Lon Chaney; later, after mid-40s reorganization, attracted James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Marlene Deitrich, Janet Leigh by offering percentages of profits in contracts
Frankenstein, Dracula (both 1931), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, 1st sound movie on WWI)
after 1948, thrillers, melodramas, westerns
taken over by Decca Records, 1952; part of MCA after 1962; bought by Matsushita in 1990 for $6.6 billion
blockbusters : Jaws (1975), E.T. (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), all directed by Spielberg
2. United Artists (est. 1919)
breakaway company founded by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, distributing their films (most successful with Chaplin's)
only Chaplin still producing in 1930s; UA turned to distributing features of independent producers like Samuel Goldwyn and David O. Selznick
only a major after 1948 Paramount case: High Noon (1951), Marty (1955), 1960s James Bond films; three Oscars in a row in 1975-77 (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Rocky; Annie Hall)
overextended in late 1970s; part of Transamerica since 1967, sold to MGM in 1981
3. Columbia (1924)
1930, produced and sold B-movies to "big five"
1932, Harry Cohn, one of the original founders, becomes president, with a tight rein
1934, It Happened One Night's great success led it to experiment with "A" pictures too; often these were adaptations of novels and stage plays
no stable, but associations with Frank Capra, Rita Hayworth; after 1948 William Holden, Broderick Crawford, Judy Holliday
first to get into television (Screen Gems, 1950--Dragnet); also backed foreign productions, e.g., Lawrence of Arabia, 1962)
sold studios, 1972; bought by Coca-Cola, 1982; bought by Sony, 1989
"Poverty Row" studios
1. Essanay (1907)
bought by Vitagraph, 1917, and then Warners, 1927
westerns (incl. 360 Bronco Billy films)
comedies--Chaplin, Keystone Cops in 'teens
2. Monogram Pictures (1930)/Allied Artists Picture Corp.(after 1953)
Charlie Chan series
filed for bankruptcy, 1980
3. Republic Pictures (1935)
fast production practices
westerns: John Wayne, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers
decline of Bs doomed it in 1950s; folded in 1958
The Quiet Man (1952, won Oscar); Johnny Guitar (1954)
Big Five
1. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
established in 1924, by merger of Loew's, Inc. theater chain with three production companies (Metro Pictures/Goldwyn Pictures/Louis B. Mayer Productions)
leader in stars, glamour, spectacle: consider Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz, both 1939
high pre-production investment (i.e., numerous writers and editors), and Irving Thalberg's tight rein on production through 1936
a "galaxy of stars": Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer; Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracey, Clark Gable
purchased by Kirk Kerkorian, 1969; later MGM-UA; then briefly belonged to Turner, who kept the film library when he sold it back; owned by French bank Credit Lyonnias since 1992
2. Paramount Picture Corp
established as a distribution company in 1914, it was acquired by Adolph Zukor in 1917, who merged it with his production company, Famous Players-Lasky Corp., and then started buying theatres, making it the first fully vertically-integrated company
silent era stars: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, William S. Hart, Fatty Arbuckle
directors: Cecil B. DeMille, Erich von Stroheim, Mack Sennet, D.W. Griffith, Dorothy Arzner (from 1927--one of few women directors in era)
comedy, light entertainment, occasional epics (like DeMille's Ten Commandments)
later stars: Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Hedy Lamarr, Barbara Stanwyck, Marx Bros., Bing Crosby, Bob Hope
produced 40-50 films annually in studio heyday
heavily involved in television in 1960s
sold off 1929-49 films to MCA in 1958; acquired by Gulf and Western, 1966; acquired by Viacom in 1990s
3. Fox Film Corporation/20th Century Fox
established for exhibition in 1913 by William Fox; producing fims by 1915. Fox forced out in 1931
"20th C" after 1935 merger with production company headed in part by Darryl F. Zanuck, former Warners production. Head who had just left United Artists
known for musicals; westerns and crime films after 1948; The Robe (1953), 1st Cinemascope feature film
directors: John Ford, Elia Kazan, Joseph Mankiewicz
stars: Shirley Temple, Will Rodgers, Tyrone Power, Betty Grable,Carmen Miranda, Sonja Henie; in 1940s/50s Henry Fonda, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Gregory Peck
currently owned by Rupert Murdoch
4. Warner Brothers established in 1924 by Harry, Jack and Albert Warner
1st sound film: The Jazz Singer (1927)
fully integrated only by 1928-30, with acquisition of First National Pictures theatre chain (which had come into being in 1917 to resist Adolph Zukor)
rode out the depression best with assembly-line, rationalized, low-budget productions; hence did not go bankrupt or become beholden to Wall Street
60 films per year in depression, 1930s: gangster films, backstage musicals, social realism
no "stable" but contact directors and stars: Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks; Paul Muni, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Errol Flynn, James Dean, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Lauern Bacall
also heavily into TV in 1960s; later Warner-Seven Arts, then Warner Communications, now Time-Warner
5. RKO Radio Pictures Incorporated
an immediate major, born of the 1928 merger of Radio Corporation of America with Keith and Orpheum theatres to exploit its "Photophone" movie sound system
"unit production" introduced by David O. Selznick (contracting with individual directors for a certain number of films, free of studio interference)
hence Citizen Kane (Welles), King Kong, Bringing Up Baby (Hawks), Notorious (Hitchcock)
associated with horror films and film noir in its B-movies; after 1940-42, B-movies became the chief product
bought by Howard Hughes (1948), then General Tyre and Rubber Company (1955) then Desilu Productions (1957)
Little Three
1. Universal Pictures
formed 1912 by Carl Laemmle Sr., who was forced out in 1936 after the studio went into receivership
production facility in Universal City in San Fernando Valley, not Hollywood, 1915
Thalberg among first chiefs of production (before joining MGM)
stars: Rudolph Valentino, Lon Chaney; later, after mid-40s reorganization, attracted James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Marlene Deitrich, Janet Leigh by offering percentages of profits in contracts
Frankenstein, Dracula (both 1931), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, 1st sound movie on WWI)
after 1948, thrillers, melodramas, westerns
taken over by Decca Records, 1952; part of MCA after 1962; bought by Matsushita in 1990 for $6.6 billion
blockbusters : Jaws (1975), E.T. (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), all directed by Spielberg
2. United Artists (est. 1919)
breakaway company founded by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, distributing their films (most successful with Chaplin's)
only Chaplin still producing in 1930s; UA turned to distributing features of independent producers like Samuel Goldwyn and David O. Selznick
only a major after 1948 Paramount case: High Noon (1951), Marty (1955), 1960s James Bond films; three Oscars in a row in 1975-77 (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Rocky; Annie Hall)
overextended in late 1970s; part of Transamerica since 1967, sold to MGM in 1981
3. Columbia (1924)
1930, produced and sold B-movies to "big five"
1932, Harry Cohn, one of the original founders, becomes president, with a tight rein
1934, It Happened One Night's great success led it to experiment with "A" pictures too; often these were adaptations of novels and stage plays
no stable, but associations with Frank Capra, Rita Hayworth; after 1948 William Holden, Broderick Crawford, Judy Holliday
first to get into television (Screen Gems, 1950--Dragnet); also backed foreign productions, e.g., Lawrence of Arabia, 1962)
sold studios, 1972; bought by Coca-Cola, 1982; bought by Sony, 1989
"Poverty Row" studios
1. Essanay (1907)
bought by Vitagraph, 1917, and then Warners, 1927
westerns (incl. 360 Bronco Billy films)
comedies--Chaplin, Keystone Cops in 'teens
2. Monogram Pictures (1930)/Allied Artists Picture Corp.(after 1953)
Charlie Chan series
filed for bankruptcy, 1980
3. Republic Pictures (1935)
fast production practices
westerns: John Wayne, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers
decline of Bs doomed it in 1950s; folded in 1958
The Quiet Man (1952, won Oscar); Johnny Guitar (1954)
The First Avant-Garde
French Impressionist Cinema, also referred to as The First Avant-Garde or Narrative Avant-Garde, is a term applied to a loose and debatable group of films and filmmakers in France from 1919-1929 (though these years are also debatable).
Theorists have had much difficulty in defining this movement or for that matter deciding whether it should be considered a movement at all. David Bordwell has attempted to define a unified stylistic paradigm and set of tenets. Others, namely Richard Abel, criticize these attempts and group the films and filmmakers more loosely, based on a common goal of “exploration of the process of representation and signification in narrative film discourse.” Still others such as Dudley Andrew would struggle with awarding any credibility at all as “movement.”
Periodization
1. Pictorialism (beginning in 1918): made up of films that focus mainly on manipulation of the film as image, in through camerawork, mise-en-scene, and optical devices.
2. Montage (beginning in 1923): at which point rhythmic and fast paced editing became more widely used.
3. Diffusion (beginning in 1926): at which point films and filmmakers began to pursue other stylistic and formal modes.
Stylistic Paradigm
Based on David Bordwell’s Family resemblance model 4
I. Camerawork
A. Camera distance: close-up (as synecdoche, symbol or subjective image)
B. Camera angle (high or low)
C. Camera movement (independent of subject, for graphic effects, point-of-view)
II. Mise-en-scene
A. Lighting (single source, shadows indicating off-screen actions, variety of lighting situations)
B. Décor
C. Arrangement and movement of figures in space
III. Optical Devices
A. As transitions
B. As magical effects
C. As emphasizing significant details
D. As pictoral decoration
E. As conveyors of abstract meanings
F. As indications of objectivity (mental images, semi-subjective images, optical subjectivity)
IV. Characteristic Editing Patterns
A. Temporal relations between shots (Flashback or fantasy)
B. Spatial relation between shots (synthetic, glance/object, crosscutting)
C. Rhythmic relations between shots
Relation to/Deviation from Hollywood stylistics
However, even Marcel L’Herbier, one of the chief filmmakers associated with the movement, admitted to an ununified theoretical stance: “None of us – Dulac, Epstein, Delluc or myself – had the same aesthetic outlook. But we had a common interest, which was the investigation of that famous cinematic specificity. On this we agreed completely.”
Richard Abel’s re-evaluation of Bordwell’s analysis sees the films as a reaction to conventional stylistic and formal paradigms, rather than Bordwell’s resemblance model. Thus Abel refers to the movement as the Narrative Avant-Garde. He views the films as a reaction to narrative paradigm found in commercial filmmaking, namely that of Hollywood, and is based on literary and generic referentiality, narration through intertitles, syntactical continuity, a rhetoric based on verbal language and literature, and a linear narrative structure, then subverts it, varies it, deviates from it.
Criticism
The movement is also often credited with the origins of film criticism and Louis Delluc is often cited as the first film critic. The movement published journals and periodicals reviewing recent films and discussing trends and ideas about cinema.
Cine-clubs were also formed by filmmakers and enthusiasts, which screened hand picked films: select American fare, German and Swedish films, but most often films made by the members of the clubs themselves.
The narrative avant-garde did have a theoretical base of some sort, but it was vague and certainly lacking. There was never really a theory, so much as broad theorizing. Much of it is an extension of Symbolist poetics that posit a realm beyond matter and our immediate sense experience that art and the artist attempt to reveal and express 7. Bordwell goes on to point out the massive holes in this theorization, that the true nature of reality and experience are never established. Holes aside, the narrative avant-garde explores the perception of reality, and does so though two main concepts: subjectivity and photogénie. Neither of these terms is easily explainable, if at all, but that is part of the point - for these filmmakers cinema explored an unattainable understanding that can only be reached for.
Through the properties noted above in Bordwell’s stylistic paradigm, filmmakers sought to portray the internal state of the character or characters and in some of the later and more complex films attempt to bring the audience into the equation as subjective participant.
Photogénie
Photogénie occurs at the meeting of the profilmic (what is in front of the camera) and the mechanical and the filmmaker. It is above all a defamiliarization of the spectator with what appears on screen. It is a property that cannot be found in “reality” itself, a camera that is simply switched on does not record it, and a filmmaker cannot simply point it out. As Aitken summarizes, “…fully realized photogénie could only be manifested when its latent power was employed to express the vision of the film-maker, so that the inherent poetry of the cinema could be harnessed , and developed in a revelatory manner by the auteur” 8. However, the narrative avant-garde lacked a theoretical and philosophical base upon which these notions rest and thus the concept of photogénie is always on the edge of an inexplicable mysticism that many critics cannot accept.
Theorists have had much difficulty in defining this movement or for that matter deciding whether it should be considered a movement at all. David Bordwell has attempted to define a unified stylistic paradigm and set of tenets. Others, namely Richard Abel, criticize these attempts and group the films and filmmakers more loosely, based on a common goal of “exploration of the process of representation and signification in narrative film discourse.” Still others such as Dudley Andrew would struggle with awarding any credibility at all as “movement.”
Periodization
1. Pictorialism (beginning in 1918): made up of films that focus mainly on manipulation of the film as image, in through camerawork, mise-en-scene, and optical devices.
2. Montage (beginning in 1923): at which point rhythmic and fast paced editing became more widely used.
3. Diffusion (beginning in 1926): at which point films and filmmakers began to pursue other stylistic and formal modes.
Stylistic Paradigm
Based on David Bordwell’s Family resemblance model 4
I. Camerawork
A. Camera distance: close-up (as synecdoche, symbol or subjective image)
B. Camera angle (high or low)
C. Camera movement (independent of subject, for graphic effects, point-of-view)
II. Mise-en-scene
A. Lighting (single source, shadows indicating off-screen actions, variety of lighting situations)
B. Décor
C. Arrangement and movement of figures in space
III. Optical Devices
A. As transitions
B. As magical effects
C. As emphasizing significant details
D. As pictoral decoration
E. As conveyors of abstract meanings
F. As indications of objectivity (mental images, semi-subjective images, optical subjectivity)
IV. Characteristic Editing Patterns
A. Temporal relations between shots (Flashback or fantasy)
B. Spatial relation between shots (synthetic, glance/object, crosscutting)
C. Rhythmic relations between shots
Relation to/Deviation from Hollywood stylistics
However, even Marcel L’Herbier, one of the chief filmmakers associated with the movement, admitted to an ununified theoretical stance: “None of us – Dulac, Epstein, Delluc or myself – had the same aesthetic outlook. But we had a common interest, which was the investigation of that famous cinematic specificity. On this we agreed completely.”
Richard Abel’s re-evaluation of Bordwell’s analysis sees the films as a reaction to conventional stylistic and formal paradigms, rather than Bordwell’s resemblance model. Thus Abel refers to the movement as the Narrative Avant-Garde. He views the films as a reaction to narrative paradigm found in commercial filmmaking, namely that of Hollywood, and is based on literary and generic referentiality, narration through intertitles, syntactical continuity, a rhetoric based on verbal language and literature, and a linear narrative structure, then subverts it, varies it, deviates from it.
Criticism
The movement is also often credited with the origins of film criticism and Louis Delluc is often cited as the first film critic. The movement published journals and periodicals reviewing recent films and discussing trends and ideas about cinema.
Cine-clubs were also formed by filmmakers and enthusiasts, which screened hand picked films: select American fare, German and Swedish films, but most often films made by the members of the clubs themselves.
The narrative avant-garde did have a theoretical base of some sort, but it was vague and certainly lacking. There was never really a theory, so much as broad theorizing. Much of it is an extension of Symbolist poetics that posit a realm beyond matter and our immediate sense experience that art and the artist attempt to reveal and express 7. Bordwell goes on to point out the massive holes in this theorization, that the true nature of reality and experience are never established. Holes aside, the narrative avant-garde explores the perception of reality, and does so though two main concepts: subjectivity and photogénie. Neither of these terms is easily explainable, if at all, but that is part of the point - for these filmmakers cinema explored an unattainable understanding that can only be reached for.
Through the properties noted above in Bordwell’s stylistic paradigm, filmmakers sought to portray the internal state of the character or characters and in some of the later and more complex films attempt to bring the audience into the equation as subjective participant.
Photogénie
Photogénie occurs at the meeting of the profilmic (what is in front of the camera) and the mechanical and the filmmaker. It is above all a defamiliarization of the spectator with what appears on screen. It is a property that cannot be found in “reality” itself, a camera that is simply switched on does not record it, and a filmmaker cannot simply point it out. As Aitken summarizes, “…fully realized photogénie could only be manifested when its latent power was employed to express the vision of the film-maker, so that the inherent poetry of the cinema could be harnessed , and developed in a revelatory manner by the auteur” 8. However, the narrative avant-garde lacked a theoretical and philosophical base upon which these notions rest and thus the concept of photogénie is always on the edge of an inexplicable mysticism that many critics cannot accept.
German Expressionism Film Movement
Expressionism as a movement spanned across many media to include theater, architecture, music, painting and sculpture. Expressionist architecture, in particular, serves as an iconic way to bring the inner emotions of the individual into the public sphere, and therefore is most closely tied to the concepts of German Expressionist cinema.
The German Expressionist movement in painting started from about 1905 with Die Bruike (The Bridge) group in Dresden and moving later to Berlin, and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich from around 1911.
Drama too was part of the Expressionist movement in Germany, with playwrights like Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller coming under the influence of Frank Wedekind in expanding the range of what could be depicted on stage.
German Expressionist film making is arguably the best known part of the Expressionism movement. During the period of recovery following World War I, the German film industry was booming. However, because of the hard economic times, filmmakers found it difficult to create movies that could compare with the lush, extravagant features coming from Hollywood. The filmmakers of the German Universum Film AG studio developed their own style by using symbolism and mise en scène to add mood and deeper meaning to a movie.
The first Expressionist films, The Student of Prague,[ The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem (1920), Destiny (1921), Nosferatu (1922), Phantom (1922), Schatten (1923), and The Last Laugh (1924), were highly symbolic and stylized.
Various European cultures of the 1920s had embraced an ethic of change, and a willingness to look to the future by experimenting with bold, new ideas and artistic styles. The first Expressionist films made up for a lack of lavish budgets by using set designs with wildly non-realistic, geometrically absurd sets, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal, and other "intellectual" topics (as opposed to standard action-adventure and romantic films). Later films often categorized as part of the brief history of German Expressionism include Metropolis (1927) and M (1931), both directed by Fritz Lang.
The extreme non-realism of Expressionism was short-lived, fading away after only a few years. However, the themes of Expressionism were integrated into later films of the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in an artistic control over the placement of scenery, light, etc. to enhance the mood of a film. This dark, moody school of film making was brought to America when the Nazis gained power and a number of German filmmakers emigrated to Hollywood. These German directors found American movie studios willing to embrace them, and several German directors and cameramen flourished there, producing a repertoire of Hollywood films that had a profound effect on film as a whole.
Two genres that were especially influenced by Expressionism are horror film and film noir. Carl Laemmle and Universal Studios had made a name for themselves by producing such famous horror films of the silent era as Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera. German filmmakers such as Karl Freund (the cinematographer for Dracula in 1931) set the style and mood of the Universal monster movies of the 1930s with their dark and artistically designed sets, providing a model for later generations of horror films. Directors such as Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, and Michael Curtiz introduced the Expressionist style to crime dramas of the 1940s, expanding Expressionism's influence on modern film making.
Interpretation of German Expressionism
The first two seminal works on the era are Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen and Sigfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler, Kracauer examines German cinema from the Silent/Golden Era and eventually concludes that German films made prior to Hitler's takeover and the rise of the Third Reich all hint at the inevitability of Nazi Germany. For Eisner, German Expressionist cinema is a visual manifestation of Romantic ideals. She closely examines staging, cinematography, acting, scenarios, and other cinematic elements in films by Pabst, Lubistch, Lang (her obvious favorite), Riefesnstahl, Harbou, and Murnau. More recent German Expressionist scholars examine historical elements of German Expressionism, such as inflation/economics, UFA, Erich Pommer, Nordisk, and Hollywood.
Influence and legacy
German silent cinema was arguably far ahead of cinema in Hollywood. As well as the direct influence of film makers who moved from Germany to Hollywood developments in style and technique which were developed through Expressionism in Germany impressed contemporary film makers from elsewhere and were incorporated into their work and so into the body of international cinema from the 1930s onward.
A good example of this process can be found in the career of Alfred Hitchcock. In 1924 Hitchcock was sent by his film company to work as an assistant director and art director at the UFA Babelsberg Studios in Berlin on the film The Blackguard. An immediate effect of the working environment there can be seen in his expressionistic set designs for The Blackguard.
The influence can also be seen though out the rest of Hitchcock's career. In his third film, The Lodger, Expressionism's influence extends to set designs, lighting techniques, and trick camera work to the British public against the wishes of his studio.[ In his later films, this influence continued through his visual experimentation. For example, in the shower scene from Psycho, Norman Bates' blurred image seen through a shower curtain is reminiscent of Nosferatu shown through his shadow. The development of these themes and techniques are not coincidental. Hitchcock said, "I have acquired a strong German influence by working at the UFA studios Berlin". Hitchcock's film making has in its turn influenced many other film makers and so has been one of the vehicles which have propelled German Expressionist techniques into the present day.
Expressionism has also had an influence on contemporary films. For example Dark City is influenced by German Expressionism's stark contrast, rigid movements, and fantastic elements.
Werner Herzog's 1979 film Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht was a tribute to F.W. Murnau's 1922 film. The film uses Expressionist techniques of highly symbolic acting and symbolic events to tell its story. Notably it links the vampire myth with the black death through the use of black rats.
Stylistic elements taken from German Expressionism are common today in films that do not need reference to real places such as science fiction films (especially Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner and the many films influence by it). And in the fantasy films of Tim Burton.
Ambitious adaptations of the style are depicted throughout the contemporary filmography of director Tim Burton. His 1992 film Batman Returns is often cited as a modern attempt to capture the essence of German Expressionism. The angular building designs and severe-looking city squares of Gotham City evoke the loom and menace present in Lang's Metropolis. One may even notice the link between the evil character of Max Shreck portrayed by Christopher Walken, and Nosferatu's star, Max Schreck.
Burton's influences are most apparent in the fairy tale suburban landscape of Edward Scissorhands. The appearance of the titular Edward Scissorhands (not accidentally) reflects Caligari's somnambulist servant. Burton casts unease in his candy-colored suburb, and the tension is visually unmasked through Edward and his Gothic castle. Burton subverts the Caligari nightmare with an inspired narrative branding, casting the garish somnambulist as the hero and the villagers as the villains.
The familiar look of Caligari's main character can also be seen in the movie The Crow. With the tight, black outfit, white makeup, and darkened eyes, Brandon Lee's character is obviously a close relative to Burton's film Edward Scissorhands.
Burton was also reportedly influenced by silent films and German Expressionism for his film adaptation of the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, describing the musical as a "silent film with music."
Cinema and architecture
Many critics see a direct tie between cinema and architecture of the time, stating that the sets and scene artwork of expressionist films often reveal buildings of sharp angles, great heights, and crowded environments, such as the frequently shown Tower of Babel in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
Strong elements of monumentalism and modernism appear throughout the canon of German expressionism. An excellent example on this is Metropolis, as evidenced by the enormity of power plant and glimpses of the massive yet pristine 'upper' city.
The German Expressionist movement in painting started from about 1905 with Die Bruike (The Bridge) group in Dresden and moving later to Berlin, and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich from around 1911.
Drama too was part of the Expressionist movement in Germany, with playwrights like Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller coming under the influence of Frank Wedekind in expanding the range of what could be depicted on stage.
German Expressionist film making is arguably the best known part of the Expressionism movement. During the period of recovery following World War I, the German film industry was booming. However, because of the hard economic times, filmmakers found it difficult to create movies that could compare with the lush, extravagant features coming from Hollywood. The filmmakers of the German Universum Film AG studio developed their own style by using symbolism and mise en scène to add mood and deeper meaning to a movie.
The first Expressionist films, The Student of Prague,[ The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem (1920), Destiny (1921), Nosferatu (1922), Phantom (1922), Schatten (1923), and The Last Laugh (1924), were highly symbolic and stylized.
Various European cultures of the 1920s had embraced an ethic of change, and a willingness to look to the future by experimenting with bold, new ideas and artistic styles. The first Expressionist films made up for a lack of lavish budgets by using set designs with wildly non-realistic, geometrically absurd sets, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal, and other "intellectual" topics (as opposed to standard action-adventure and romantic films). Later films often categorized as part of the brief history of German Expressionism include Metropolis (1927) and M (1931), both directed by Fritz Lang.
The extreme non-realism of Expressionism was short-lived, fading away after only a few years. However, the themes of Expressionism were integrated into later films of the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in an artistic control over the placement of scenery, light, etc. to enhance the mood of a film. This dark, moody school of film making was brought to America when the Nazis gained power and a number of German filmmakers emigrated to Hollywood. These German directors found American movie studios willing to embrace them, and several German directors and cameramen flourished there, producing a repertoire of Hollywood films that had a profound effect on film as a whole.
Two genres that were especially influenced by Expressionism are horror film and film noir. Carl Laemmle and Universal Studios had made a name for themselves by producing such famous horror films of the silent era as Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera. German filmmakers such as Karl Freund (the cinematographer for Dracula in 1931) set the style and mood of the Universal monster movies of the 1930s with their dark and artistically designed sets, providing a model for later generations of horror films. Directors such as Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, and Michael Curtiz introduced the Expressionist style to crime dramas of the 1940s, expanding Expressionism's influence on modern film making.
Interpretation of German Expressionism
The first two seminal works on the era are Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen and Sigfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler, Kracauer examines German cinema from the Silent/Golden Era and eventually concludes that German films made prior to Hitler's takeover and the rise of the Third Reich all hint at the inevitability of Nazi Germany. For Eisner, German Expressionist cinema is a visual manifestation of Romantic ideals. She closely examines staging, cinematography, acting, scenarios, and other cinematic elements in films by Pabst, Lubistch, Lang (her obvious favorite), Riefesnstahl, Harbou, and Murnau. More recent German Expressionist scholars examine historical elements of German Expressionism, such as inflation/economics, UFA, Erich Pommer, Nordisk, and Hollywood.
Influence and legacy
German silent cinema was arguably far ahead of cinema in Hollywood. As well as the direct influence of film makers who moved from Germany to Hollywood developments in style and technique which were developed through Expressionism in Germany impressed contemporary film makers from elsewhere and were incorporated into their work and so into the body of international cinema from the 1930s onward.
A good example of this process can be found in the career of Alfred Hitchcock. In 1924 Hitchcock was sent by his film company to work as an assistant director and art director at the UFA Babelsberg Studios in Berlin on the film The Blackguard. An immediate effect of the working environment there can be seen in his expressionistic set designs for The Blackguard.
The influence can also be seen though out the rest of Hitchcock's career. In his third film, The Lodger, Expressionism's influence extends to set designs, lighting techniques, and trick camera work to the British public against the wishes of his studio.[ In his later films, this influence continued through his visual experimentation. For example, in the shower scene from Psycho, Norman Bates' blurred image seen through a shower curtain is reminiscent of Nosferatu shown through his shadow. The development of these themes and techniques are not coincidental. Hitchcock said, "I have acquired a strong German influence by working at the UFA studios Berlin". Hitchcock's film making has in its turn influenced many other film makers and so has been one of the vehicles which have propelled German Expressionist techniques into the present day.
Expressionism has also had an influence on contemporary films. For example Dark City is influenced by German Expressionism's stark contrast, rigid movements, and fantastic elements.
Werner Herzog's 1979 film Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht was a tribute to F.W. Murnau's 1922 film. The film uses Expressionist techniques of highly symbolic acting and symbolic events to tell its story. Notably it links the vampire myth with the black death through the use of black rats.
Stylistic elements taken from German Expressionism are common today in films that do not need reference to real places such as science fiction films (especially Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner and the many films influence by it). And in the fantasy films of Tim Burton.
Ambitious adaptations of the style are depicted throughout the contemporary filmography of director Tim Burton. His 1992 film Batman Returns is often cited as a modern attempt to capture the essence of German Expressionism. The angular building designs and severe-looking city squares of Gotham City evoke the loom and menace present in Lang's Metropolis. One may even notice the link between the evil character of Max Shreck portrayed by Christopher Walken, and Nosferatu's star, Max Schreck.
Burton's influences are most apparent in the fairy tale suburban landscape of Edward Scissorhands. The appearance of the titular Edward Scissorhands (not accidentally) reflects Caligari's somnambulist servant. Burton casts unease in his candy-colored suburb, and the tension is visually unmasked through Edward and his Gothic castle. Burton subverts the Caligari nightmare with an inspired narrative branding, casting the garish somnambulist as the hero and the villagers as the villains.
The familiar look of Caligari's main character can also be seen in the movie The Crow. With the tight, black outfit, white makeup, and darkened eyes, Brandon Lee's character is obviously a close relative to Burton's film Edward Scissorhands.
Burton was also reportedly influenced by silent films and German Expressionism for his film adaptation of the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, describing the musical as a "silent film with music."
Cinema and architecture
Many critics see a direct tie between cinema and architecture of the time, stating that the sets and scene artwork of expressionist films often reveal buildings of sharp angles, great heights, and crowded environments, such as the frequently shown Tower of Babel in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
Strong elements of monumentalism and modernism appear throughout the canon of German expressionism. An excellent example on this is Metropolis, as evidenced by the enormity of power plant and glimpses of the massive yet pristine 'upper' city.
The Godfather Trilogy-1901-1980
Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather was a best-seller many times over when filming began in 1971. Controversy and turmoil surrounded the announcement of the project; protests were lodged by the Italian-American Civil Rights League and by Senators, Congressmen and New York State legislators. Bomb threats and actual intimidation took place. But meetings were held to reassure many of the discontented parties. [and negotiations reassured many of the querulous, who were convinced] Former foes became allies who agreed to participate in the making of the movie.
It was the task of producer Albert S. Ruddy and director Francis Ford Coppola to assemble the brilliant cast. Marlon Brando was one of the many distinguished actors being considered for the role of Don Vito Corleone, but the feeling for him was not uniformly positive. So eager was Brando for the part that he improvised props and makeup, darkening the shadows under his eyes with shoe polish and stuffing his cheeks with tissue for a privately filmed [Kleenex, and filmed a private] screen test. His classic characterization is one of moviedom's most memorable.
Glamorous and renowned contenders for the crucial supporting roles of the sons were ruled out in favor of lesser-known, more authentic-looking actors: James Caan, John Cazale and young Al Pacino, who skyrocketed to fame with his portrayal of Michael Corleone. [Later] in PART II, surprise choice Robert De Niro turned in an Oscar-winning performance as the young Vito Corleone. Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, Diane Keaton, Lee Strasberg, Morgana King and many others etched their portraits with great skill to contribute to the epic films. The tradition of impeccable casting continued in Part III, made 18 years after the first Godfather saga. Al Pacino, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire reprised their original roles. Andy Garcia gave an Oscar-nominated performance as ambitious young firebrand Vincent Mancini. Sofia Coppola, Eli Wallach, Joe Mantegna and others in the unerring cast provided compellingly effective portrayals.
This care in casting extended to the smaller roles and even the extras, all of whom were coached in the atmosphere, mannerisms and attitudes of the times being filmed. In addition, meticulous attention to details of setting, place and time made the films models of depth and subtlety. Great care was taken to obtain correct costumes, props, cars and even properly-dated posters and handbills.
"It was my intention," says director-producer-screenwriter Coppola, "to make this an authentic piece of film about gangsters who were Italian, how they lived, how they behaved, the way they treated their families, celebrated their rituals." Coppola and Puzo collaborated on the three films' scripts, faithfully maintaining the spirit and complexity of THE GODFATHER.
The rhythm of the film is called by Coppola "legato, rather than staccato," easily flowing and building as the stories are developed. This cohesiveness is no small accomplishment, as the chronicle deals with three generations, encompassing literally hundreds of characters and complicated story lines.
THE GODFATHER was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won three for "Best Picture of 1972," "Best Actor" (Brando) and "Best Screenplay"
THE GODFATHER PART II captured twelve Academy Award nominations, and won six Oscars, including "Best Picture of 1974," "Best Supporting Actor" (De Niro), "Best Director" and "Best Screenplay"
THE GODFATHER PART III added to the legacy with seven Academy Award nominations, including "Best Picture of 1990.) It also introduced the saga to filmgoers who were toddlers or not even born when the first film was released. The series that had captured the imaginations of Americans almost 20 years earlier reconfirmed its lasting appeal by entertaining both its original fans and a new generation of viewers.
The Story: An Overview
THE YOUNG VITOEight-year-old Vito Corleone, the lone survivor of a family cut-down in a Sicilian vendetta, is smuggled into New Yorks's Little Italy at the turn of the century. When he reaches manhood, Vito (De Niro) returns to Italy to avenge the murder of his family. Back in New York, Vito works his way to the top of the organized-crime world. Feared and respected, Don Vito is known by all as the Godfather.
THE OLD VITO: A Patriarch of CrimeAging Don Vito Corleone (Brando) rules his empire with the aid of his four sons: quick-tempered Sonny (Caan), weak Fredo (Cazale), Ivy League-educated Michael (Pacino) and adopted son Tom Hagen (Duvall). Don Vito refuses to join the five ruling Families in the narcotics trade, touching off a gang war.
THE NEXT GENERATIONSonny takes over the Family when the Godfather is wounded in an ambush. Michael, who wanted to avoid a life of crime, kills to avenge his father and escapes to Sicily. There he marries, but his wife is killed when rivals try to assassinate him. Sonny beats up Carlo (Russo), the abusive husband of his sister Connie (Shire). In retaliation, Carlo arranges Sonny's murder. Heartbroken, Don Vito agrees to join in the drug trade. Michael returns to New York, marries his college sweetheart (Keaton) and promises her he'll make the Family business legitimate.
MICHAEL: The New DonDon Vito dies of a stroke. In a grab for power, Michael kills of the heads of the other New York crime Families and becomes the new, even more powerful Godfather. Michael moves to Nevada and muscles in on the gambling business. Attempting to expand operations into Cuba, Michael is double-crossed by his partner Hyman Roth (Strasberg) and his brother Fredo. Michael omnipotent, he gets a U.S. Senate hearing on organized crime dismissed and has both Roth and Fredo killed. Distraught over his ruthlessness, Kay leaves Michael.
A NEW FORCE IN THE FAMILYIn 1979, the Catholic Church honors Michael, now a legitimate billionaire businessman, for his charitable work. The family reunites for the celebration. Hot-headed Vincent (Garcia), Sonny's illegitimate son, is take into the family business. An Atlantic City conclave of Michael's associates is attacked by revenge-minded Joey Zasa (Mantegna). The cycle of retribution Michael hoped to avoid begins anew. Michael's European venture goes sour, turning the operatic debut of his son Anthony (D'Ambrosio) into a bloody vendetta that results in the murder of daughter Mary (Coppola). Michael dies. Vincent is now the Godfather.
"If you work with the same group of people for over 20 or 30 years, they become an important part of your life. Certainly, in The Godfather Trilogy, using old collaborators who knew each other over many years, who had worked together and learned together, had to give some flavor that would strongly influence the theme...because finally it is a film about a family being made by a family" —Francis Ford Copolla
It was the task of producer Albert S. Ruddy and director Francis Ford Coppola to assemble the brilliant cast. Marlon Brando was one of the many distinguished actors being considered for the role of Don Vito Corleone, but the feeling for him was not uniformly positive. So eager was Brando for the part that he improvised props and makeup, darkening the shadows under his eyes with shoe polish and stuffing his cheeks with tissue for a privately filmed [Kleenex, and filmed a private] screen test. His classic characterization is one of moviedom's most memorable.
Glamorous and renowned contenders for the crucial supporting roles of the sons were ruled out in favor of lesser-known, more authentic-looking actors: James Caan, John Cazale and young Al Pacino, who skyrocketed to fame with his portrayal of Michael Corleone. [Later] in PART II, surprise choice Robert De Niro turned in an Oscar-winning performance as the young Vito Corleone. Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, Diane Keaton, Lee Strasberg, Morgana King and many others etched their portraits with great skill to contribute to the epic films. The tradition of impeccable casting continued in Part III, made 18 years after the first Godfather saga. Al Pacino, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire reprised their original roles. Andy Garcia gave an Oscar-nominated performance as ambitious young firebrand Vincent Mancini. Sofia Coppola, Eli Wallach, Joe Mantegna and others in the unerring cast provided compellingly effective portrayals.
This care in casting extended to the smaller roles and even the extras, all of whom were coached in the atmosphere, mannerisms and attitudes of the times being filmed. In addition, meticulous attention to details of setting, place and time made the films models of depth and subtlety. Great care was taken to obtain correct costumes, props, cars and even properly-dated posters and handbills.
"It was my intention," says director-producer-screenwriter Coppola, "to make this an authentic piece of film about gangsters who were Italian, how they lived, how they behaved, the way they treated their families, celebrated their rituals." Coppola and Puzo collaborated on the three films' scripts, faithfully maintaining the spirit and complexity of THE GODFATHER.
The rhythm of the film is called by Coppola "legato, rather than staccato," easily flowing and building as the stories are developed. This cohesiveness is no small accomplishment, as the chronicle deals with three generations, encompassing literally hundreds of characters and complicated story lines.
THE GODFATHER was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won three for "Best Picture of 1972," "Best Actor" (Brando) and "Best Screenplay"
THE GODFATHER PART II captured twelve Academy Award nominations, and won six Oscars, including "Best Picture of 1974," "Best Supporting Actor" (De Niro), "Best Director" and "Best Screenplay"
THE GODFATHER PART III added to the legacy with seven Academy Award nominations, including "Best Picture of 1990.) It also introduced the saga to filmgoers who were toddlers or not even born when the first film was released. The series that had captured the imaginations of Americans almost 20 years earlier reconfirmed its lasting appeal by entertaining both its original fans and a new generation of viewers.
The Story: An Overview
THE YOUNG VITOEight-year-old Vito Corleone, the lone survivor of a family cut-down in a Sicilian vendetta, is smuggled into New Yorks's Little Italy at the turn of the century. When he reaches manhood, Vito (De Niro) returns to Italy to avenge the murder of his family. Back in New York, Vito works his way to the top of the organized-crime world. Feared and respected, Don Vito is known by all as the Godfather.
THE OLD VITO: A Patriarch of CrimeAging Don Vito Corleone (Brando) rules his empire with the aid of his four sons: quick-tempered Sonny (Caan), weak Fredo (Cazale), Ivy League-educated Michael (Pacino) and adopted son Tom Hagen (Duvall). Don Vito refuses to join the five ruling Families in the narcotics trade, touching off a gang war.
THE NEXT GENERATIONSonny takes over the Family when the Godfather is wounded in an ambush. Michael, who wanted to avoid a life of crime, kills to avenge his father and escapes to Sicily. There he marries, but his wife is killed when rivals try to assassinate him. Sonny beats up Carlo (Russo), the abusive husband of his sister Connie (Shire). In retaliation, Carlo arranges Sonny's murder. Heartbroken, Don Vito agrees to join in the drug trade. Michael returns to New York, marries his college sweetheart (Keaton) and promises her he'll make the Family business legitimate.
MICHAEL: The New DonDon Vito dies of a stroke. In a grab for power, Michael kills of the heads of the other New York crime Families and becomes the new, even more powerful Godfather. Michael moves to Nevada and muscles in on the gambling business. Attempting to expand operations into Cuba, Michael is double-crossed by his partner Hyman Roth (Strasberg) and his brother Fredo. Michael omnipotent, he gets a U.S. Senate hearing on organized crime dismissed and has both Roth and Fredo killed. Distraught over his ruthlessness, Kay leaves Michael.
A NEW FORCE IN THE FAMILYIn 1979, the Catholic Church honors Michael, now a legitimate billionaire businessman, for his charitable work. The family reunites for the celebration. Hot-headed Vincent (Garcia), Sonny's illegitimate son, is take into the family business. An Atlantic City conclave of Michael's associates is attacked by revenge-minded Joey Zasa (Mantegna). The cycle of retribution Michael hoped to avoid begins anew. Michael's European venture goes sour, turning the operatic debut of his son Anthony (D'Ambrosio) into a bloody vendetta that results in the murder of daughter Mary (Coppola). Michael dies. Vincent is now the Godfather.
"If you work with the same group of people for over 20 or 30 years, they become an important part of your life. Certainly, in The Godfather Trilogy, using old collaborators who knew each other over many years, who had worked together and learned together, had to give some flavor that would strongly influence the theme...because finally it is a film about a family being made by a family" —Francis Ford Copolla
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Revival or Residual
It's a busy night at the Prince cinema in the Pakistani city of Karachi with cars parked across the pavement outside and spilling onto a main street.
Movie fans have a rare treat. The Indian film "Race" is being screened.
Pakistan banned Indian films after going to war with its neighbor in 1965 but over the past few years, as relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have improved, authorities have been allowing a trickle of Indian films to be shown in cinemas.
That has delighted movie fans and cinema operators but Pakistani film producers fear a flood of Indian films could mean the end of the local film industry.
"The government must stop the imports. Do you want to make Lollywood a part of the history books?" said Saeed Rizvi, chairman of the Film Producers Association, referring to the Pakistani movie industry, dubbed "Lollywood" because it is based in the city of Lahore.
Pakistan's film industry made about 30 films last year, most of them low-budget imitations of Bollywood fare. With a similar culture and virtually the same language, Pakistani films have been starved of a natural audience in India because of political differences.
At home, competition from Bollywood fare as well as the mediocrity of Pakistani films means that many Pakistanis opt to stay at home and watch Indian movies on pirated DVDs.
Cinemas have been struggling for years and many operators have given up and sold off their premises which have been converted into shopping centers or offices.
From about 750 cinemas nationwide in the 1970s, there are now 300. But Indian films are breathing life back into Pakistani cinemas.
India's film industry, including its Mumbai-based "Bollywood" studios, produces about 1,000 films a year.
CASHING IN
Karachi cinema owner Qaiser Rafiq is screening "Taare Zameen Par," which is about a boy with a learning disability and was expected to pull in the crowds.
"Look at Hollywood or Bollywood. About 35 percent of their population watch movies at cinemas. In Pakistan, the best movie so far has only attracted just 4 percent of our population," Rafiq said.
Cinema operators are cashing in on the revival of interest in the cinema the Indian films have generated. Before screenings of Indian films began, a cinema ticket in Karachi cost 100 rupees ($1.55). Now it is 150 rupees ($2.35).
"Before the release of Indian films, a good Lollywood film would make about 700,000 in an average week. Now the best week for "Race" in a Lahore cinema made more than 2 million rupees," said another cinema manager.
Pakistani film distributors also welcome the revival of cinemas.
"It's a ground reality that Indian movies are very much liked in Pakistan," said prominent film distributor Satish Anand.
"(But) we shouldn't become dependent on Indian films. Our own industry needs to do better to compete with their rivals and our government should protect the industry," he said.
Pakistan's new culture minister, Khawaja Saad Rafique, said he had been meeting the censor board and film producers to work out a policy on films.
The government had to "decide between the profit of cinema owners and the future of Lollywood," he said.
"We have to look into the issue very carefully. But one thing is sure, it cannot be one-way traffic," Rafique told Reuters.
While Pakistani films are not officially banned in India, tense political relations and the poor quality of many Pakistani films has meant Indian distributors have shunned them.
But last month, for the first time in years, a Pakistani film opened in India. The film, "Khuda Kay Liye" (In The Name of God), is about Muslims in a post 9/11 world and deals with the rift between radical and liberal Islam, an issue that confronts India's 140 million Muslims.
As Pakistan relaxes its ban on Indian films, Rafique said he wanted to see more Pakistani films screened in India.
"If we allow some Indian films into Pakistan, then they will also have to allow Pakistani movies there," he said.
"I have asked for proposals to bring our films to a standard where they can compete with the Indian films. Then we will be in a better position to allow more Indian films, and of course, our movies would do better in India too."
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