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.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
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.
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