classic film 101

Classic Film 101

Jennifer Churchill

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Classic Film

• Teaches us about the past - perceptions, dreams, aspirations of previous generations

• Continuous, uninterrupted thread connects today’s movies with those of the past - science, art combine

• Cultural references ingrained in our society: “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.” ... “I’ll be back.” ... “An Affair to Remember” ... “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” ... Rita Hayworth in “Shawshank Redemption”


Why Study It?

• “The language of the moving photographic image has become so pervasive in our daily lives that we scarcely notice its presence. ... We can choose to live in ignorance ... or teach ourselves to read it, to appreciate its very real and manifold truths, to recognize its equally real and manifold deceptions.” - David A. Cook, “A History of Narrative Film”


Gilda


Film Is An Illusion• The illusion of continuous motion upon which

cinematography is based are dependent on:

• Persistence of vision: the brain retains images cast upon the retina of the eye for @1/20 to 1/5 of a second beyond their actual removal from the field of vision

• Phi phenomenon: causes us to see the individual blades of a rotating fan or different hues of a spinning color wheel as unitary forms


Illusion of Motion

• The illusion of continuous motion can be induced in our brains at rates as low as 12 frames (of still photography frames) per second, yet speeds have traditionally been set at 16 frames per second for silent film, 24 for sound

• Frames are separated by thin, unexposed frame lines; we actually spend as much as 50% of the time in darkness every time we watch a film


And thus ...

• “... the continuity of movement and light that seems to be the most palpable quality of the cinema exists only in our brains, making cinema the first communications medium to be based upon psycho-perceptual illusions created by machines. The second, of course, is television.” - David A. Cook, “The History of Narrative Film”


Pre/Still Photography

• “Phase” drawings created optical illusions in many toys of the mid-1800s

• Thaumatrope - early 19th c. children’s toy

• Phenakistoscope - 1832- Greek for “deceitful view”

• Zoetrope - 1834

• 1839 - Still photography invented by Daguerre


Series Photography

• Eadweard Muybridge - hired in 1872 by Leland Stanford, former CA gov and wealthy businessman, to prove that at some point in its gallop a racehorse lifts all four hooves off the ground (flipbook handout)

• 1877 - set up a a battery of a series of electrically operated cameras along a Sacramento racetrack

• 1st time live action was recorded continuously


Motion

• The separate functions of the live action photography machines needed to be incorporated into a single instrument for cinema to be born

• Many involved, independently inventing plates to roll film, projection devices: Etienne-Jules Marye, Hannibal Goodwin, George Eastman


Kinetograph

• First true motion-picture camera - Edison Laboratories - battery-driven and weighed several hundred pounds (viewed through a Kinetoscope, a box-like peep-show viewing machine, individual)

• 1894: first Kinetoscope parlor opened in NYC - 5-cent views of vaudeville and slapstick skits

• No concept of editing; captured what eye could see


Auguste & Louis Lumiere

• Studied Edison’s machine and invented an apparatus that served as camera, projector, and film printer: the Cinematographe - coined the term still attached to the medium of film today and established the 16 fps silent film standard

• Portable, hand-cranked, weighed just 16 lbs., free from studio confinement


First Lumiere Film

• La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumiere (Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory): March 22, 1895 http://www.institut-lumiere.org/francais/films/1seance/1seance01.html

• Factory door opening was as shocking to the audience as Clint Eastwood walking off of the screen into the aisle today

• Shown to a private audience in Paris; the 1st effective theatrical projection of a film

• Dec. 28, 1895 - first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Paris, 10 short films - cost was 1 fr./person


http://www.institut-lumiere.org/francais/films/1seance/1seance01.html

http://www.institut-lumiere.org/francais/films/1seance/1seance01.html

Le Voyage dans la lune

• Many changes lead to the commercial development of film as an entertainment medium and the evolution of narrative

• Georges Melies, a magician: cinema’s first narrative artist - constructed storyboards, planned ahead

• A Trip to the Moon, produced in 1902, @ 14 min.


Skipping ...

• Modern continuity editing, patent wars, commercial establishment of the new art form, early American, German, Italian and French silent films

• Focusing on American film ... production companies moved from NY to Hollywood 1907 to 1913 and established studios, the star system, etc.


1910s


Birth of a Nation

• World War I shut down the more successful French and Italian film industries, eliminating European competition (same chemicals used to produce celluloid were needed to make gun powder)

• 1914: the U.S. produced @ half of the world’s motion pictures; by 1918, U.S. made almost all

• 1915: D.W. Griffith’s epic was the largest and most expensive film ever made

• http://www.archive.org/details/dw_griffith_birth_of_a_nation


http://www.archive.org/details/dw_griffith_birth_of_a_nation

http://www.archive.org/details/dw_griffith_birth_of_a_nation

Birth of A Nation

• Controversial film - blatantly racist; Griffith edited it in later years under pressure from the NAACP

• Stylistically and narratively genius

• Composed of 1,544 separate shots (average was fewer than 100 at the time)

• “It is like writing history with lightning.” - President Woodrow Wilson


1920s


Hollywood in the ‘20s

• Film became refined, appealed to upper classes, luxury theatres built, production budgets rose, star-system, Wall Street invested, post-war Jazz Age morality

• Big studio systems being built: Paramount founded in 1916, Loew’s/Metro Pictures in 1921, United Artist formed in 1919 by D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: 1924


Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd

• Silent film greats: Charlie Chaplin (the Little Tramp, The Gold Rush), Buster Keaton (1927’s The General) and Harold Lloyd (Safety Last)


Color & Sound• Silent film accompaniment (full-scale orchestras,

Wurlitzer organs), synchronization of sound recorded with film biggest obstacle

• 1927: The Jazz Singer, 1st feature-length film to employ synchronized dialogue realistically; Changed whole business structure: orchestras, silent stars who’d never spoke (Sunset Blvd)

• Color: Stenciling/hand-tinting done for many years ... early 1930s Technicolor 2-c faded

• 1939 famous color films - Wizard of Oz, GWTW


1930s


King Kong

• Depression era

• Studio system at its peak - adventure, romance, fantastical as escapism

• The Champ, Grand Hotel, The Thin Man, 42nd Street, Robin Hood, It Happened One Night, Grand Illusion

• 1933: http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?o_cid=mediaroomlink&cid=219240


http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?o_cid=mediaroomlink&cid=219240




It Happened One Night

• 1934: http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?o_cid=mediaroomlink&cid=20854










1940s


Citizen Kane

• 1941

• directed by/starring Orson Welles

• considered greatest movie of all time - innovative cinematography, narrative structure and music

• Loosely based on W.R.H.


The Maltese Falcon

• Arsenic and Old Lace, The Best Years of Our Lives, Bambi, Casablanca, The Grapes of Wrath, It’s A Wonderful Life, The Philadelphia Story

• Film noir at its height: stylish crime dramas, low-key b&w visual style, cynical, sexual - Humphrey Bogart, the face of popular film noir

• http://www.archive.org/details/TheMalteseFalcontrailer1941


http://www.archive.org/details/TheMalteseFalcontrailer1941






1950s


Production Changes

• 1950s great movies: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, African Queen, Lady & the Tramp, Hunchback of Notre Dame, North by Northwest, The 7-Year Itch, The 10 Commandments, Sweet Smell of Success, The Night of the Hunter (last 2 independent)

• Independent films on the rise, big studio system began to change

• Hitchcock: To Catch A Thief:

• http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?o_cid=mediaroomlink&cid=279552




Turner Classic Movies

• http://www.tcm.com

• Launched in 1994

• Goal - to create a haven for classic movie fans. “Committed to showing the widest range of classic movies possible, celebrating the greatest stars and filmmakers of all time and treating their work with the respect it deserves. TCM gives people the chance to discover movie gems that they might not have seen, and has introduced a whole new audience to the world of classic movies.”


http://www.tcm.com

http://www.tcm.com

Classic Film Festival

• Viewing highlights

• Photos


Films• A Star Is Born (1954)

• Casablanca (1942)

• King Kong (1933)

• Sweet Smell of Success (1956)

• Top Hat (1935)

• Sunset Boulevard (1950)

• North by Northwest (1959)

• The Story of Temple Drake (1933)

• Fragments (1916-1929)

• Metropolis (1927)


Hollywood Today

• Iron Man 2 Premiere


classic film 101

Entertainment & Humor

illusion of motion

photography frames

illusion of continuous

classic film

silent film

time live action

sound frames

optical illusions