Posts

Approaches & Analysis (Week 4)

Directors influenced by Bergman: Alejandro González Iñárritu Woody Allen Lars Von Trier Michael Haneke Martin Scorsese Ang Lee David Lynch Satyajit Ray Roy Arne Lennart Andersson: Born in 1943, Gothenburg Sweden Known widely for his hit film: A Swedish Love Story (1969) - a lyrical teenage romance film that was created due to Andersson being influenced by the Czech New Wave. His 'Living Trilogy': Songs From The Second Floor (2000) You, The Living (2007) A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) After the failure of  Giliap  in 1975, had to turn to making advertising commercials to survive. Made 300-400 ads including  one in 1985 for the leftwing Social Democrat party . Bergman described Andersson’s commercials as the best in the world. Rather than writing scripts, Andersson prefers to sketch individual scenes by shooting 35mm tests for them, reworking them until he is satisified.  For one role in Songs from the Second Floor, he tested 1,000 different ac...
Post a Comment
Read more

US Cinema History (Week 4)

Image
Race & Silent Cinema INTRODUCTION: Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920) Mark Kermode - virulent racism of the Jim Crow era, period following the civil war - south found ways to form system of apartheid, to separate black and white, with only very limited suffrage or voting rights for black people.  Social Context - Jim Crow in the south, Segregation in the North. Chicago riot of 1919; started because of the killing of a black youth who mistakenly went into an all white area. Preceding history of Within Our Gates - reminder of unjust  The Title of the film is considered to be important with evidencing the fact that Micheaux wanted to directly attack D.W. Griffith's Birth Of A Nation. Quote from the introduction of Griffith's film: The Romance of Happy Valley ''Harm not the stranger Within your gates , Lest you yourself be hurt.'' Felt that the quote was used in misplace, that the white community constantly hurt their black neighbor. Micheaux is seeking to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

US Cinema History (Week 3)

 Introduction:  Key Film-makers: D.W. Griffith & Alice Guy-Blache Transition between cinema of attraction from this to cinema that is distinct and separate medium, that concentrates primarily on the act of telling stories. Edison company isn't the only emerging company in this time of American industry. WKL Dixon (Scotsman who invented the kinetoscope and decided the production on the Edison films) He left Edison behind and joined the American Mutoscope company (later renamed the Biograph Company). First company entirely devoted to only film productions. Edison and Biograph quickly became arch rivals -  by winning a key legal patent battle in 1902 and then diversifying quickly into story based feature films in 1905 Biograph came to dominate US film production. The reason for this success was the embrace for story based format, which Edison rejected.  Mainly of the early movie stars were under Biograph, including Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish. Mack...
Post a Comment
Read more

Approaches & Analysis (Week 3) Ingmar Bergman

Image
 Introduction: - Professor Borg; self absorbed, narcistitic - this journey for him is a journey of reevaluation and nostalgia that takes him back to his past. - Personal project for Ingmar Bergman - The character of Isaac Borg is like a cinematic vessel for Bergman to tell his own narrative/story - own longing for childhood - his youth. - Victor Sjöström: plays the lead, specially cast by Bergman who considered Sjöström to be a mentor figure. - Bergman influenced by a silent film by Sjöström called The Phantom Carriage  - 1921 - themes of funeral, death, spiritual realm - all of these themes and messages resonate in Wild Strawberries as well. - Another connection is the character Isaac Borg, initials: IB - Identical to Ingmar Bergman. Bergman based the movie when he was on the road to Uppsala, driving in his car and then stopped off at his Grandma's house, when he went up to the door he was blind sighted by all these memories of his childhood.  - This cause...
Post a Comment
Read more

Approaches & Analysis - Agnes Varda (Week 2)

 Varda's first film: La Pointe Courte - (1954 just made a few years before the five main male filmmakers we associate with the French new wave became active as filmmaker)  just name of  fishing village, where Varda was sent with her family when she was evacuated during the second world war. JR has still of this film on his wall. Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961) -  developing as a filmmaker and establishing herself as an important filmmaker.  Varda has an ethnographic approach to filmmaking - consistent in all her films. ( ETHNOGRAPHY - PROCESS OF OBSERVATIONAL INQUIRY / INTEREST THROUGH OBSERVING , WATCHING , UNDERSTANDING CULTURES & COMMUNITIES BETTER. ) Jill Forbes: ''Like many of Varda's films, Cleo de 5 a 7 is both a fiction and documentary, in Varda' 's own phrase 'a subjective documentary''  - subjective documentary , inquisitiveness about the world, sense of wanting to capture something unfiltered but nevertheless something that has a very ...
Post a Comment
Read more

US Cinema: Precinema History & The Cinema Of Attraction (Week 2)

 Early US Cinema History: Edison's' camera -  - his films were made in a dedicated studio - the Black Mariah Once the films were made they were viewed from his kinetoscope - film is on a loop instead and played repeatedly as person looks in. Edison was famous for inventing the phonograph - first record player, that was mass produced. Kinetoscopes were standalone devices with no sound - used in Kinetoscope parlors that quickly spread throughout the United States and Europe in 1894 right to 1895. These films are not cinema films, not projected, they were consumed in parlors with individuals moving from one kinetoscope to the next. Edison Kinetoscope films, 1894-1899: The Kiss -  early Edison film, $7.50 in todays money that would be $250. First time anyone had filmed a Kiss let alone shown it to the public. Publicity - Widow Jones stage play. Recording of parts of well known stage plays were seen a lot.  Considered by some, especially religious spectators at the time...
Post a Comment
Read more