Notes

The following material is from Wikipedia: 

Introduction

• Saving Private Ryan (1998) dir. Steven Spielberg
  • Shakier camera and hectic beach war scene to make us feel as if we are there
• Three Colors: Blue (1993) dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
  • White light links the young and old woman
• Casablanca (1942) dir. Michael Curtiz
  • Filmed completely on a studio set
  • Too romantic to be classical, all romantic films in a rush
• The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
  • True classic, a pause in the story, goes slow
  • Hollywood not classical, Japan is
• Odd Man Out (1947) dir. Carol Reed
  • Man sees his troubles in the reflection of the bubbles of the spilled drink
• Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Played off previous movie; admired director’s work
  • We see bubbles again as a character is in trouble
• Taxi Driver (1976) dir. Martin Scorsese
  • Admired past two directors work and adapted idea that a character looking into bubbles means they can see their troubles
• The French Connection (1971) dir. William Friedkin
  • Racing car scene in LA just as exciting as car scene in Sinogal
  • Film history racist by omission

1895-1918: The World Discovers a New Art Form or Birth of the Cinema

• Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888) dir. Louis Le Prince
  • Film wasn’t just being developed in wealthy countries
• The Kiss (1896 film) (a.k.a. May Irwin Kiss) (1896) dir. William Heise
  • Small little moment everyone could understand
• Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895) dir. Louis Lumière
  • One of the first films Lumiere ever shot
  • Documentary of everyday life
• Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896) dir. Louis Lumière
  • One of the very first films they shot and showed
  • Unnerved audience-felt like the train was coming at them
• Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894-1896 ?) dir. William Kennedy Dickson or William Heise
• Sandow (1894) dir. William Kennedy Dickson
• What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City (1901) dir. George S. Fleming and Edwin S. Porter
• Cendrillon (1899) dir. Georges Méliès
  • Used cutting to make a man appear
• Le voyage dans la lune (1902) dir. Georges Méliès
  • First special effects director
  • Effects astonished people
• La lune à un mètre (1898) dir. Georges Méliès
• The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) dir. George Albert Smith
  • First to film in front of a train, ghostly tracking shot named “phantom ride”
• Shoah (1985) dir. Claude Lanzmann
  • Filmed shots on the same train lines that took Jews to their deaths
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) dir. Stanley Kubrick
  • Seemed to zoom through the cosmos like the character or movie was having an out of body experience
• The Sick Kitten (1903) dir. George Albert Smith
  • Filmmakers usually kept camera wide
  • He zoomed in on cat eating, close ups were born
• October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
  • Close ups of dead woman and her hand sliding to show real sense of movement
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) dir. Sergio Leone
  • Close up on eyes shows the other character is the murder he was looking for his whole life
• The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897) dir. Enoch J. Rector
  • Filmed a boxing match in 63mm wide film, wide screen cinema was born

1903-1918: The Thrill Becomes Story or The Hollywood Dream

• Life of an American Fireman (1903) dir. Edwin S. Porter
  • We see the street action first, then cuts to firemen inside building
  • Re-cut so that it went in time chronological order and went from outside, inside, outside, inside
  • Cinema was learning, experimenting, thinking
  • Chase sequences now possible
  • Continuity cutting
• Sherlock Jr. (1924) dir. Buster Keaton
  • Used double exposure to show dreaming, and cutting to another scenery
• The Horse that Bolted (1907) dir. Charles Pathé
  • Parallel editing born
• The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (a.k.a. The Assassination of the Duc de Guise) (1908) dir. Charles le Bargy and André Calmettes
  • One of the first films in which actors turned backs to camera
• Vivre sa vie (1962) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Director refused to show actor’s face
  • Actors became the things filmed, not the sets
• Those Awful Hats (1909) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • Actor recognized
• The Mended Lute (1909) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • Director told newspapers actor had died just for hysteria-she then appeared back on screen
• The Abyss (1910) dir. Urban Gad
  • Actress became famous
  • Less censorship, actors could be more sexual
• Stage Struck (1925) dir. Allan Dwan
  • Hollywood adding element of sublime to cinema
  • People became more interested in actors, so they showed their faces more, which showed their inner emotions
• The Mysterious X (1914) dir. Benjamin Christensen
  • One of the most daring film debut’s in history
• Häxan (1922) dir. Benjamin Christensen
  • Masterpiece about witchcraft for the ages
  • Multiple light sources, complex camerawork
• Ingeborg Holm (1913) dir. Victor Sjöström
  • Had naturalism and grace
• The Phantom Carriage (1921) dir. Victor Sjöström
  • One of the best multi-layered films
  • Stories within stories
• Shanghai Express (1932) dir. Josef von Sternberg
• The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) dir. Charles Tait
• The Squaw Man (1914) dir. Oscar Apfel and Cecil B. DeMille
  • Shot reverse shot was born-eyes match across the cut
  • 180 degree line rule born
• The Empire Strikes Back (1980) dir. Irvin Kershner
  • We never see them together but completely believe they’re looking at each other
• Falling Leaves (1912) dir. Alice Guy-Blaché
  • Child hears the doctor say her sister will die before all the leaves fall, so she tries tying all the leaves back onto the trees
• Suspense (1913) dir. Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber
  • Side POV shot
  • Shot of the police in the rear view mirror
  • Slow movement creates suspense
  • Shot was for years created to male director
• The Wind (1928) dir. Victor Sjöström
  • About woman living in shack where the wind is relentless
  • We see the wind in the shots by flickering color
  • A man tries to force himself on her, she shoots him, buries him outside
  • The wind uncovers the sand over the body, uncovering the corpse, uncovering her fear
  • Movie was cut like a thriller but filmed like a dream
• Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest (1908) dir. J. Searle Dawley
  • Not true that D.W. Griffith invented close ups
  • Over remembered
• The House with Closed Shutters (1910) dir. D. W. Griffith
• Delicacy of light, visual of softness
• He invented the idea of wind in the trees, making things more real
• Way Down East (1920) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • Woman’s hand scrapes along
• Orphans of the Storm (1921) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • Back lighting gave halo to hair
• The Birth of a Nation (1915) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • Looks like it was filmed in Kentucky but was filmed in LA
  • Shows soft and hard story of war
  • Subtlety made racism more dangerous
  • Black soldiers drunk or the attacks
  • After some screenings, black audience members beaten with clubs
  • Klu Klux Klan was disbanded but after all the racist films, membership was back up to thousands
• Rebirth of a Nation (2007) dir. DJ Spooky
• Cabiria (1914) dir. Giovanni Pastrone
  • Moving dolley shots
  • Shooting elephants to suggest scale
• Intolerance (1916) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • One and a half hour film about love and human intolerance
  • Lots of simultaneous stories, wanted people to see the theme of the story, the similarities
• Souls on the Road (a.k.a. Rojo No Reikan) (1921) dir. Minoru Murata
  • Storylines come back together and converge
  • First great Japanese film