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A main underlying theme of this era of film is of film worldwide, not just within the confines of Hollywood, and it delves into political art.
1918-1932: The Great Rebel Filmmakers Around the World
- The Thief of Bagdad (1924) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Raoul Walsh – People neglected this.
- The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer – Scrubbed Hollywood of it’s glamour, and makeup.
- Robert and Bertram (1915) dir. Max Mack – Included Ernst Lubitsch, who a lot of the time, “over-acted”, and mocked how sex and love were used in movies, he made his own style.
- The Oyster Princess (1919) dir. Ernst Lubitsch – Shows Lubitsch’s mocking tone.
- The Mountain Cat (1921) dir. Ernst Lubitsch – Shows how visually daring he was. It showed a woman eating a man’s heart. Also, had some surrealism, with snowmen playing music.
- The Marriage Circle (1924) dir. Ernst Lubitsch – Lubitsch had to be inventive when showing sexuality, due to the censorship in America.
- La Roue (1923) dir. Abel Gance – Features impressionism. Shows how people would actually think in situations, as showing by fear.
- Napoléon (1927) dir. Abel Gance – Portrays it’s main character as a tragic hero. The camerawork captured the dynamism of Napoleon. Showing battle charges, storms at sea, etc, and with super shaky movement. Also utilized a 3 camera set, where 3 cameras were pointed in slightly different directions for a wide image, audiences had to turn their heads to see the full image.
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) dir. Robert Wiene – Most influential of the expressionist movies. Full of fear, and haunting murders. Also was referencing towards politics, with Caligari representing the German state, and Cesare representing the ordinary people. However, they removed this political part of it by changing the ending, showing that the whole thing was just a dream. I kinda don’t like that “It was all a dream ending” though, not gonna lie. Also was a “sharp film”, as in, sharp camera angles, sharp angles, sharp lighting, etc.
- The Tell-Tale Heart (1928) dir. Charles Klein – Influenced by Dr. Caligari, showing off it’s sharpness in angles.
- The Lodger (1927) dir. Alfred Hitchcock – Utilized the shadowing and hysteria of Caligari.
- A Page of Madness (1926) dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa – Utilized fast cutting, and visual overlays. It’s main point of view of Psychotic is shown both in the characters, and how the film is edited/produced itself.
- Metropolis (1927) dir. Fritz Lang – Set in the year 2000. Utilizes flashing lights on a mannequin to make a robot. Adolf Hitler actually liked the film, and the inmates of Mauthausen compared a huge ramp they had to build to a scene in Metropolis.
- The Crowd (1928) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. King Vidor – Inspired by “Metropolis”, and shows that with it’s setting, of huge buildings.
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) dir. F. W. Murnau – Cities were seen as both scary, and poetic ideas in the 20’s. Also utilized a technique of two people being so engrossed with each other, they don’t see the outside world around them. Also, Murnau made most of the subtle lighting affects available in Hollywood.
- Opus 1 (1921) dir. Walter Ruttmann – A form of artwork through cinema, it looked like Biology. He painted no glass, filmed the result, wiped it, added more, and filmed again. It was one of the first abstract animations.
- Entr’acte (1924) dir. René Clair – A balet type film. The camera was placed in places where a conventional balet would dream of.
- Rien que les heures (1926) dir. Alberto Cavalcanti – Described as a “Haunting, experimental film.” Utilized multiple eyes.
- Spellbound (1945) dir. Alfred Hitchcock – Inspired by “Rien que les heres”, with the multiple eyes, and surrealism.
- Un Chien Andalou (1929) dir. Luis Buñuel – Starts off with a shocking image, of a razor cutting a woman’s eye. The whole film has some other shocking images, such as ants coming out of a hole in man’s hand.
- Blue Velvet (1986) dir. David Lynch – Inspired by “Un Chien Andalou”, with shocking images, such as an ant-covered ear.
- L’Age d’Or (1930) dir. Luis Buñuel – Members of the Fascist League of Patriots hurled ink at the screen.
- Kino-Pravda n. 19 (1924) dir. Dziga Vertov – Attached a camera to a train, and showed work from peasents. Also gave a quote from Lenin “Of all the Arts, Cinema is the most important.”
- Glumov’s Diary (1923) dir. Sergei Eisenstein – “Arts’s most brilliant innovator.” Commentary is mostly about Eisenstein, who was a lot of things, this part of the documentary is more so about the political side of film, and how it’s portrayed.
- Battleship Potemkin (1925) dir. Sergei Eisenstein – “Steps are like the world tilted foreward, to form a stage.” Eisenstein utilized a bunch of small shots to conform into a large image, as shown in the steps. America’s average shot length was 5 seconds, Germany’s was 9 seconds, this film had 3 second shots. Showed panic in film, which is what Eisenstein wanted, and it’s shown very clearly. It showed the image of soldiers trampling over a boy, which was to be a metaphor of the Russian military at the time with it’s citizens.
- The Untouchables (1987) dir. Brian De Palma – Scene almost mirrors a scene from “Battleship Potemkin”, where a stroller with a baby is falling down a flight of stairs. This isn’t only the similarity, since the shots are also of similar length to that of Eisenstein.
- Arsenal (1929) dir. Alexander Dovzhenko – Set in a complex time of Ukrainian political history. Shows wartime images, such as dead soldiers.
- Earth (1930) dir. Alexander Dovzhenko – Shows an image of a man laughing, and dancing, and suddenly, collapsing. Also, once Lenin died, Stalin came into power, and the art of filming died down in Russia a bit.
- I Was Born, But… (1932) dir. Yasujirō Ozu – Note about Ozu: He wasn’t married, he didn’t go to a university, and he wasn’t a common worker, yet he made films about married people, students, workers, etc. Ozu was seen as a serious director, yet this first film contradicts that. There’s also some metaphors about Japanese society at the time within the film. “Authority is controlled by ordinary people.”
- Tokyo Story (1953) dir. Yasujirō Ozu – Placed the camera in different angles, such as focusing on the floor, or the ceiling to give a three dimensional appearance. Ozu challenged the norm at the time, which was to place the camera at hip height.
- Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) dir. Chantal Akerman – Another film that used Ozu’s camera height. Also, in Ozu’s films, the characters eye placements were different, compared to what was normal at the time. The actors stared into the camera.
- The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Yasujirō Ozu – In conventional films, when actors talked, the camera would be close up, slightly to the side of the face, 45 degrees, it was to make the actor’s eyes connected across the cut within the film. While sometimes Ozu placed the camera to film both people talking, farther away, at 90 degrees. The shots matched each other. He made sure to place the camera, in a position so that when characters stand up, their heads don’t just disappear. Also utilized a 50mm lense, instead of a 20/30mm lens. Also, pauses are added within films to give both the film, and the audience a breather. Ozu could get away with deviating from these norms because Directors had more freedom.
- Osaka Elegy (1936) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi – Focused more on Japanese women, whose lives were made a misery.
- Citizen Kane (1941) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Orson Welles – Had a shot in the background be a part that leads the audience’s eyes.
- Chikamatsu Monogatari (1954) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi – In Hollywood romantic cinema, the drama within two people arguing would be shown in closeup, but Mizoguchi decides to cut away from it. This is so we don’t weep with the actors, but feel moral indignation from their situation.
- Mildred Pierce (1945) dir. Michael Curtiz – Attempted suicide is depicted beautifully, with shallow focus, beautiful lighting, etc.
- Romance of the West Chamber (1927) dir. Hou Yao and Minwei Li – Costumes were heavily utilized, as like Hollywood.
- Scenes of City Life (1935) dir. Yuan Muzhi – China’s cinema turned into a sort of “realist” form of Cinema. Ditching fantasy. It utilized camera angles, and symbolism.
- The Goddess (1934) dir. Wu Yonggang – Utilizes the “whispering” cliche thing, where people whisper one message to the next person, to the next person, etc. Shows weariness, and body language, and how it could be used in film.
- Center Stage (1991) dir. Stanley Kwan – Had an actress recreate a scene from “The Godess”, the actress had to perfectly match up things like body language, and camerawork to remake the effect.
- New Women (1935) dir. Cai Chusheng – Chinese media outlets criticized Ruan, and led to Ruan comitting suicide in 1935.