Traditions and Movements in Film History Notes

Traditions and Movements in Film History

  • Revisiting Techniques:
    • Techniques like split-screen, used for phone conversations in films like Suspense (1913), were revived in the 1960s for comedies such as Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and later in retro comedies like Down with Love (2003).
  • Constraints on Filmmakers:
    • Heinrich Wölfflin: “Not everything is possible at all times.”
    • Filmmakers face constraints like technology, budget, censorship, and prevailing tastes that limit artistic choices.
    • Understanding these constraints in older films helps appreciate the filmmakers' options and innovations.
  • Filmmaking as a Collective and Communal Art:
    • Filmmakers work in groups, learning from peers and predecessors.
    • Traditions in filmmaking pass ideas and best practices from one generation to another.
    • Traditions influence choices, such as screenwriters using three-act structure or cinematographers employing favored lighting techniques.
  • Traditions:
    • American studio cinema is a prime example of a filmmaking tradition influencing global filmmaking.
    • Hong Kong action cinema of the 1980s and 1990s is another influential tradition.
    • Traditions guide filmmakers' choices, but sometimes filmmakers explore alternatives.
  • Movements:
    • Filmmakers within a movement operate within a shared production structure and filmmaking assumptions.
    • They favor common approaches to form, style, and theme, setting them apart from usual practices through innovation.
    • Examples include:
      • Soviet Montage filmmakers.
      • Surrealists.
      • French New Wave.
    • These movements often involve young filmmakers cooperating and competing to explore new cinematic ideas, often documented in books and articles.
    • Other movements are more diffuse, with filmmakers independently gravitating toward similar styles.
    • Movements typically last a few years but can have lasting effects, sometimes absorbed into broader traditions like Hollywood's.
    • Contemporary films often rework or accept choices from earlier film movements.
  • Historical Context:
    • Understanding traditions and movements requires considering factors like:
      • Industry state.
      • Artistic theories.
      • Technological advancements.
      • Cultural and economic forces.
    • This context helps explain the origin and development of specific trends.
    • Examples: Georges Méliès, Louis Lumière, Soviet Montage, French New Wave.
  • Early Cinema (1893–1903):
    • Film relies on technology to create the illusion of movement through rapid succession of still pictures.
  • Photography and Cinema:
    • Photography enables cinema.
      • Photography offered the most efficient way to generate images.
      • Photography invention in 1826 launched discoveries leading to cinema.
      • Early photographs needed long exposures.
    • Faster exposures (1/25th of a second) became possible by the 1870s but only on glass plates; unusable for motion pictures.
    • Eadweard Muybridge:
      • Photographed a running horse using multiple cameras with glass plate film in 1878.
      • His goal was freezing phases of action, not re-creating movement.
    • Étienne-Jules Marey:
      • Recorded 12 images on a revolving glass disc in 1882.
      • Built the first camera using flexible film (on paper) in 1888.
      • His purpose was to break down movement into stills.
    • George Eastman introduced celluloid in 1889.
      • Improved film base. Camera mechanisms were devised to draw film past the lens, enabling long strips of frames.
    • Magic lanterns were modified as early motion picture projectors.
    • Mechanism for intermittent motion of film was needed.
      • Marey used a Maltese cross gear on his 1888 camera which became standard.
    • Innovations achieved by the early 1890s are:
      • Flexible and transparent film base.
      • Fast exposure time.
      • Mechanism to pull film through the camera.
      • Intermittent device to stop the film.
      • Shutter to block off light.
    • Inventors in many countries developed film cameras and projection devices independently.
      • Edison Manufacturing Company (Thomas A. Edison) in America.
      • Lumière Frères (Louis and Auguste Lumière) in France.
  • Edison vs. Lumière:
    • W.K.L. Dickson developed a camera for Thomas A. Edison that made short 35mm films by 1893.
    • Edison's Kinetoscope was a peephole device for individual viewers of these films.
    • Edison considered movies a fad and didn't invest in projection systems.
    • The Lumière brothers invented their own camera that could expose a short roll of 35mm film and then project it.
    • The Lumières presented motion pictures on a screen at the Grand Café in Paris on December 28, 1895.
    • The Lumières found the most practical method for projecting films and their format determined the direction of the new medium.
    • Edison abandoned the Kinetoscope and created his own production company for public projection.
  • Early Form and Style:
    • Early films consisted of a single shot framing an action, usually at long-shot distance.
    • Edison's Black Maria studio featured vaudeville entertainers, sports figures, and celebrities performing for the camera.
      • The studio had a hinged roof and rotated to follow the sun.
    • The Lumières filmed everyday activities and news events in public places.
      • Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station.
    • The Lumières sent camera operators worldwide to photograph events and locales.
    • Staged narratives, skits, and gags were popular.
    • Edison's staff created comic scenes.
    • Lumières made L’Arroseur arrosé (The Waterer Watered, 1895).
    • The earliest films were short (a few minutes) and couldn't develop complex stories.
    • They relied on unusual events and cute animals.
    • Early films have inspired avant-garde filmmakers to explore movement and abstract photographic qualities.
  • Méliès, Magic, and Fictional Narrative:
    • Georges Méliès built his own camera in 1896, based on a projector he had bought.
    • His first films resembled the Lumières' shots of everyday activities.
    • Méliès was a stage magician and discovered special effects.
    • He built his own studio with controllable effects.
    • Méliès created fantasy worlds with elaborate settings.
    • Méliès innovations:
      • First master of mise-en-scene.
      • Innovator in editing.
      • Magical transformations by stopping the camera, adjusting elements, and resuming filming.
    • Méliès progressed to longer narratives with each scene in a single camera position, linked by cuts.
      • A Trip to the Moon (1902).
    • Méliès’s Star Film company made various films (magic tricks, fairy stories, Bible scenes, Dreyfus case).
    • His special effects, impressive settings/costumes, expansive fantasies, and historical narratives made his films popular.
    • Méliès’s films have been painstakingly collected, restored, released on DVD, and given a central role in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo (2011).
    • The work of Lumière, Méliès, and other early filmmakers gained worldwide fame because films circulated freely.
    • Pathé Frères (French phonograph company) moved into filmmaking in 1901, establishing production and distribution branches.
    • Pathé was the largest film concern until 1914.
    • In England, the Brighton School (G. Albert Smith and James Williamson) and Cecil Hepworth made scenics, narratives, and trick films.
    • British films influenced filmmakers due to their innovative nature.
    • Pioneers in other countries were making their own films of everyday scenes or fantasy transformations.
    • Narrative form became the most prominent type of filmmaking as films became longer and the popularity of cinema grew.
    • French, Italian, and American films ruled world markets.
    • World War I restricted the international flow of films, and Hollywood emerged as the dominant industrial force in film production.
    • Filmmakers in some countries responded by creating movements that differed sharply from the American product.
  • The Development of the Classical Hollywood Cinema (1908–1927):
    • Edison brought patent-violation suits against competing moviemaking firms to make money from his invention.
    • Edison allied with several rivals in 1908 to establish the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC).
    • Edison and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company were the only stockholders and patent owners.
    • Licensed members to make, distribute, and exhibit films, standardizing film lengths at one reel (15 minutes).
    • MPPC's move didn't eliminate other production companies.
    • In 1912, the U.S. government sued the MPPC, and it was declared a monopoly and forced to break up three years later.
  • Hollywood and the Studio System of Production:
    • Both MPPC companies and independents relocated from New York and Chicago to California.
    • Los Angeles offered year-round shooting and diverse locations.
    • Hollywood and other small towns hosted film production.
    • Smaller firms merged to form large film corporations through the 1910s and 1920s:
      • Paramount (Famous Players joined with Jesse L. Lasky).
      • MGM (merger of Metro, Goldwyn, and Mayer).
      • Fox Film Corporation (merged with 20th Century in 1935).
      • Warner Bros.
      • Universal.
    • Companies cooperated to some degree due to high demand.
    • The American industry created a structure with large firms and individual artists under contract, supplemented by small independent production companies.
    • Filmmaking tasks were divided among specialists and overseen by a producer.
    • Thomas Ince pioneered detailed shooting scripts and time sheets for cost-efficiency.
    • Production stages were systematized by Hollywood companies in the late 1910s, known as the studio system.
    • The American cinema became oriented toward narrative form to turn out films in large quantities.
  • Narrative Continuity: Early Prototypes:
    • Edwin S. Porter made some of the first films to use narrative continuity and development.
      • The Life of an American Fireman (1903) had narrative elements but odd time scheme.
    • The Great Train Robbery (1903):
      • Prototype for the classical American film.
      • Linear time, space, and cause–effect logic.
        Linear:time,space,and:cause−effect:logicLinear: time, space, and :cause-effect :logic
    • In 1905, Porter created The Kleptomaniac, which contrasted the fates of a rich woman and a starving woman caught stealing.
    • British filmmakers also worked along similar lines.
    • Porter derived some of his editing techniques from films such as James Williamson’s Fire! (1901) and G. A. Smith’s Mary Jane’s Mishap (1903).
    • Lewin Fitzhamon’s Rescued by Rover (1905) used linear fashion similar to The Great Train Robbery.
  • :Rescued by Rover geography of the action completely intelligible; matching screen direction
  • D. W. Griffith
    • Began directing in 1908.
    • Made hundreds of one- and two-reelers.
    • Created relatively complex plots in short spans.
    • Gave many techniques strong narrative motivation.
      • Developed and popularized last-minute rescues with crosscutting.
        Filmmakers used last-minute rescues with crosscutting between the rescuers and victims.
      • Created lengthy sequences by cutting among different locales (The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916)).
        Birth:of:a:nation:(1915):and:Intolerance:(1916)Birth : of : a : nation :(1915) :and : Intolerance :(1916)
    • Concentrated on subtle changes in facial expression, using medium long shot or medium shot.
      Captured subtle changes and nuances in facial expression
    • Griffith's dynamic, rapid editing in Intolerance influenced the Soviet Montage style.
      Dynamic, rapid editing of Intolerance influenced Soviet Montagestyle
    • Thomas Ince demanded tight narratives with detailed scripts and breaking scenes into several camera positions.
      Tight narrative and demand for detail, no digressions or loose ends
    • Films made under Ince's control helped stabilize continuity conventions.
  • Cecil B. De Mille
    • Made feature-length dramas and comedies.
    • The Cheat (1915) reflects changes in studio style between 1914 and 1917 (glass-roofed studios to artificial lighting).
      • Used spectacular effects of chiaroscuro.
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