Notes:

The following material is from Wikipedia: 

1939-1952: The Devastation of War…And a New Movie Language

• Rome, Open City (1945) dir. Roberto Rossellini
  • Neo-realism
  • Filmed in real streets
  • Helped people deal with the tragedy of war
  • Movies had to get so raw because life was so raw
  • Wanted images clean, so he used 50mm lenses
  • Did not care that much about shot being in focus
  • No handheld camera but had cameraman loosen tripod for lots of movement
• Stagecoach (1939) dir. John Ford
  • Made a star of John Wayne
  • 94th film made by John Ford
  • Combined deep space with deep focus
  • Innovations changed film history
• Directed by John Ford (1971) dir. Peter Bogdanovich
  • Shows how much Ford hated analysis
• Osaka Elegy (1936) (introduced in Episode 3) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
  • Director staged things in deep space
• Flesh and the Devil (1926) dir. Clarence Brown
• Follow the Boys (1944) dir. A. Edward Sutherland
• Citizen Kane (1941) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Orson Welles
  • Saw Stagecoach 30 times
  • Challenged soft romantic look of films at the time
  • Denounced drama, cinematic hubris
• Me and Orson Welles (2008) dir. Richard Linklater
• Chimes at Midnight (1965) dir. Orson Welles
  • Great force in his films comes from theater and other influences
  • He was drawn to powerful people like Shakespeare
  • Was drawn to the past like Shakespeare
• Cabiria (1914) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Giovanni Pastrone
• Intolerance (1916) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • Epic scale
• The General (1926) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton
  • Outlandish production values
  • Famously expensive
• The Maltese Falcon (1941) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. John Huston
  • Depth in scene
• The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) dir. William Wyler
  • Frames action in deep space in tiny box in background
• Code Unknown (2000) dir. Michael Haneke
  • Used deep space to show a woman on a train getting away from sexual harassment
• Sátántangó (1994) dir. Béla Tarr
  • Effect of tension
• How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) dir. Jean Negulesco
  • New color widescreen not sensitive enough for deep space and deep focus
• Un Homme et une Femme (1966) dir. Claude Lelouch
  • Woman floated in her own visual bubble or world
• Heat (1995) dir. Michael Mann
  • Used new long lenses to get desired effect, like a pop culture music video
• Raging Bull (1980) dir. Martin Scorsese
  • Influenced bare lighbulbs from Rome Open City
• Bicycle Thieves (1948) dir. Vittorio De Sica
  • Keeps the camera far back from the theft as if not to intrude on the fathers shame
  • In different shot, father and son walk across the street
    • Son almost gets hit by two cars
    • Father is still walking and does not notice
    • In Hollywood cinema, father would have noticed and scolded him or realized how much he loves him
    • But in neo-realism, moments like that just happened, and had nothing to do with the plot
• Pin Up Girl (1944) dir. H. Bruce Humberstone
  • Hollywood made lots of these types of film during World War II
• Double Indemnity (1944) dir. Billy Wilder
  • Visual depth of Citizen Kane 
  • Created character depth of noir films
• Portrait of a 66% Perfect Man: Billy Wilder (1982) dir. Annie Tresgot
  • Wilder an immigrant
  • Hated America’s worship of money
• The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) dir. Fritz Lang
• The Big Sleep (1946) dir. Howard Hawks
  • Complex plot
  • Very influential noir film
• Rio Bravo (1959) dir. Howard Hawks
  • Andy Dickinson gets best lines
• The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Irvin Kershner
  • Luke discovers that instead of a romantic ending, Darth Vader is his father
• Out of the Past (1947) dir. Jacques Tourneur
• The Hitch-Hiker (1953) dir. Ida Lupino
  • Only noir film directed by a woman
• Little Caesar (1931) dir. Mervyn LeRoy
• Le Quai des brumes (1938) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Marcel Carné
  • Where noir realism came from
• La Chienne (1931) dir. Jean Renoir
  • Shows France influenced American films
• Scarlet Street (1945) dir. Fritz Lang
  • Very similar to previous film in the scene where a woman pleads for a mans love
• American Cinema: Film Noir (1995) dir. Alain Klarer
• Gun Crazy (1950) dir. Joseph H. Lewis
  • Shows how documentary and neo-realism influenced genre
  • Gave performers free reign to improvise
  • The unbroken shot covers two minds and took 3 hours instead of 4 days
  • Staging of crime scene looked so real that passerby actually thought they robbed a bank
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967) dir. Arthur Penn
  • Influenced from previous movie
• L.A. Confidential (1997) dir. Curtis Hanson
• Blade Runner (1982) dir. Ridley Scott
  • Walks through shadows in a pool of light
• The Dark Knight (2008) dir. Christopher Nolan
  • City is morally dark and visually dark
• Siva (1989) dir. Ram Gopal Varma
• Titanic (1997) dir. James Cameron
  • Sweeping camera movements
• 71st Academy Awards (1999) dir. Louis J. Horvitz
  • Famous reaction shots were more influential than ever
  • Hollywood Boulevard still doesn’t carry the names of many blacklisted stars from the communist committee times in America
• An American in Paris (1951) dir. Vincente Minnelli
  • Extended dance sequence influenced by below film
• The Red Shoes (1948) dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
  • English film
• Singin’ in the Rain (1952) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
  • Man is so joyful that rain is a pleasure, he’s dancing in the rain but doesn’t care about getting wet he’s so happy
• Flying Down to Rio (1933) dir. Thornton Freeland
  • Kaleidoscopic sequence to make fun of dance numbers that director hated
• Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Mervyn LeRoy
• Indiscreet (1958) dir. Stanley Donen
  • Change in woman’s life and work symbolizes change in the world
  • Uses innovative technique to show intimacy
    • Censorship at a high-even married couples could only be shown in twin beds in the same room
• Two for the Road (1967) dir. Stanley Donen
  • See one of the first road trips the married couple takes together and one of the last, the movie inter-cuts them
  • Director wanted it to be romantic, wanted to show that even through abrasions they stayed together and loved each other
• A Matter of Life and Death (1946) dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
  • Plunge us into a moment of suspense
  • Showed that filmmakers could combine the tragedy or war cinema with romantic cinema
  • Shallow focus
  • Romantic dialogue
• Post Haste (1933) dir. Humphrey Jennings
• Listen to Britain (1942) dir. Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister
  • 5 hats, then cut to 5 women’s heads in the same place as the hats, and then to a king who was beheaded
  • Creates eerie look and feel
• The Third Man (1949) dir. Carol Reed
  • Filmed many shots off the horizontal axis to show the moral imbalance
    • Man was selling penicillin that was supposed to be for treating children
    • Deep space, long walk, de-dramatized time of neo-realism
    • We see her walk towards him in real time, but walks right past him at the end
    • One of the greatest films ever made
• The True Glory (1945) dir. Carol Reed and Garson Kanin
• Taxi Driver (1976) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Martin Scorsese
  • Cut and dissolves walk mentioned in previous film