test 2 intro film hsitory

what are the characteristics of the Westerns of the 1930s?

  • 1850s-19th century

  • the great plains

  • western towns

  • sheriffs

  • struggles of white pioneers vs Indians

  • women were ornaments

what are the characteristics of a gangster fil of the 1930s?

  • cities, urban areas

  • nights

  • dark night clubs

  • women were ornaments

  • mother/sisters were saints

  • rivalries

  • the G-men (government men)

  • white men

  • audience vicariously involved in characters

who made Birth of a Nation, why important to film history?

  • D.W. Griffith

  • an epic

  • first use of the iris

  • firs tot show close up to show emotion

  • first to have music scored for the movie

  • first to use complex storytelling

  • large cast

who was Buzzby Burkley?

  • a drill instructor for the army

  • a good dancer

  • choreographer

  • 14 musicals to his name

  • showed human side of dancers

who was Theda Bara, why was she important?

  • the vamp

  • sex goddess of silent screen

  • “Arab death”

  • exotic makeup/costumes

  • all movies are gone

what was United Artists?

  • artists made production company

  • first serious effort for talented artists to make own production company

  • reaction to a business in chaos

  • Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Douglass Fairbanks, Mary Pickford

importance of Thomas Ince?

  • father of the western

  • formated production (preproduction, production, post-production)

  • Inceville - his studio; 20,000 acres

  • edited own films

Who is Sergei Eistenstein, why is he important?

  • father of film editing

  • Battleship Potempkin - Odessa Steps sequence

  • collision of images

what changed in film with the advent of sound?

  • actors viewed differently

    • voices, accent

  • lighting too loud, new lighting made

  • static movement of actors - microphones hidden in objects

  • “quiet on set”

  • new screenwriters

  • more stagey

  • audiences retrained on how to watch films - be quiet

  • comedies changed

what was the Hayes’ Office?

  • created the Hayes’ code

  • William Hayes

  • worked with production companies

  • Catholic Church got involved

  • certificate title card - film was approved