What are the two major cultural influences of American cinema?
Puritan culture and British theater
Puritans
Religious cult
Lived under self imposed oppression
Three act story structure
Beginning, middle, end
What made cinema different than theater?
It was accessible to everyone because of its low cost.
Did not cater to middle and upper class
How did film find its stars?
Liked to rely on established actors, like theater, but many theater stars shunned movies as beneath them, so film found vaudeville stars.
What was the first American narrative (storytelling) film?
The Great Train Robbery directed by Edwin S Porter
-showed commercial value of story telling in cinema
Where was the original center of the film industry?
NYC
What was the first movie ever filmed?
The Sneeze produced by Edison
Edison
claimed to have created the first ever motion picture and began copyrighting everything, wanting a monopoly on movie making
The Trust
a union that Edison created of lawyers and producers that all shared profits with Edison
What did the trust do to independent film makers?
It forced them to move to California because of sun, audience, and cheap labor
What was the first feature length?
The Squaw Man directed by Cecil B. DeMille
What did WWI do to the film industry?
The market in US and rest of the world for movies was v good, audiences wanted more movies
D.W. Griffith
-master storyteller of film or father of film
-first cinematic, auteur or storyteller
-experimented with early lighting and camera techniques
Birth of a Nation
-directed by DW Griffith
-very racist in depiction of African Americans
-utilized cinematic technique of cross-cutting to build up tension
An Unseen Enemy
-15 minute, one-reel thriller by Griffith
-introduced Dorothy and Lillian Gish
How did Griffith contribute to the modern language of cinema?
He used the camera and film in new, more functional, mobile ways.
Cecil B. DeMille
-came from NY to West Coast to become company's director-general of all film production
-his debut film was The Squaw Man
-name associated with extravagant production values and biblical epics
What was the first feature-length American film?
The Squaw Man
Greta Garbo
-Swedish actress who made around 20 films
-went from making $750/week, to $2,000, to $7,000 at MGM
The Kiss
-directed by Jacques Feyder
-film Garbo controlled and produced
-Garbo's last silent film
-took inspiration from French Poetic Realism
French Poetic Realism movement
-depicts the marginalized of society through a lens of disappointment, regret, and estrangement
-followed and utilized by many French filmmakers in the 1930s
-themes are disappointment, bitterness, disillusionment, and nostalgia
-pessimistic view of socie
The Immigrant
American silent romantic comedy short written and directed by Chaplin
Sunrise
-FW Murnau's American debut, planned in Germany
-appeared at the very end of the silent film era
-breakthrough camera tracking movements moving through fog show illusion of depth and vastness
-influenced The Informer and Citizen Kane
What was the character of the City Woman supposed to portray?
The flapper woman
F.W. Murnau
used combination of old-testament concepts (country is good, city is evil) and Freudian symbols (animals symbolized the lower animal nature of man)
Abel Gance
-first combat director, filmed live action scenes of WWI
-French independent and old testament filmmaker
Napoleon
-milestone film by Gance
-first in stereo sound and three screens, foreshadowing of widescreen films
-used poly-vision (three different images projected in synchronization by three separate cameras)
-famous for use of split screens, ultra wide scenes, a m
Sergei Eisenstein
-had a modern Marxist point of view
-innovative editing techniques
Battleship Potemkin
-silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein that showcased famous montage editing
-fictional narrative film meant to glorify a real life event
What is the catalyst for change in Hollywood?
money
What changed in the 1920s?
Radio became a dominant form of entertainment and a generation that grew up with movies expected more than silent films.
Why didn't studios make the change to talking pictures?
They deemed it too expensive to refit their theaters to pursue sound.
How did Hollywood try to compete with radio?
They began to show high-budget films on larger screens
Dream Street
-released by Griffith w/ filmed introduction of him stepping out from behind a curtain
Why didn't Griffith include dialogue in the Dream Street?
He felt that a film utilizing spoken English word would exclude 95% of the non-English spoken world?
Don Juan
-Warner Bros film that featured a vitaphone accompaniment that played pre-recorded music
What did studios do to avoid the cost of sound?
They banded together and agreed to not pursue sound for a year.
Who was not part of the sound deal made between studios?
William Fox
What did Fox use Movietone for?
To release videos that showcased historic events with synced sound
The Jazz Singer
-film released by Warner Bros that revolutionized sound by introducing synchronized singing on film
What did the economic success of the Jazz Singer lead to?
Other studios adopting sound
What were the effects of sound coming to film?
-millions of dollars in renovations
-fear for industry security
-new approach to filmmaking
What was a negative effect of sound?
Many actors had trouble transitioning to talkies, especially those with accents.
When was the first film in the USA made?
The Sneeze, 1894
When was the first narrative film made in the USA?
The Great Train Robbery, 1903
When was the Birth of a Nation made?
1915
When was the first sound film made?
The Jazz Singer, 1927