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Notes:
The Kingdom and the Beauty Li Han-hsiang
A 50s world, feminine, studio set, highly colored, musical, a perfect world
A Touch of Zen King Hu
Changed the world of Hong Kong cinema
More aggressive, swishing camera, swords, every move designed, graceful, engineered cinema
When Kung-Fu took over Hong Kong cinema
No ordinary kung fu movie
Turns into a ghost story, and then a reverie
Sunlight cuts like a sword, it sounds like steel
The Buddhist monks levitate
Enter the Dragon Robert Clouse
Bruce Lee’s fighting had more sweat, anger, agression
Real anger in Lee’s face came from his own life, dealing with racism and other things
Though Lee was fast and furious, the camera work was anything but
The camera simply filmed, stayed out of the fight
Not a lot of editing in old Hong Kong cinema
A Better Tomorrow John Woo
80s clothes, sex, a story about more male bonding, loyalty, and betrayal
Filmed shoot outs with several cameras and used slow motion
Scenes broken down into glances,
Director made Mission Impossible 2
Iron Monkey Yuen Woo-ping
Director choreographed as well
Cutting as fast as John Woo movie
Spun his characters in the air
Scene where actors fight kung fu on poles with fire underneath them
Director says he seldom uses a storyboard
Says he’s always thinking about the movie, the scenes
Director of the Matrix approached him
Said he wanted to infuse special effect technology with Chinese and Hong Kong Kung Fu techniques to create a brand new look
The Matrix Lilly Wachowski & Lana Wachowski
We can see Yuen’s influence in the kung fu style fighting scenes
Yuen says “The hardest thing was that the actors did not know Kung Fu- not even how to use their fists”
It took him four months to train them
He taught them how to do all of the moves
He designed the moves for the characters based on what the director told him of what he wanted their personality to be
Yuen liked the freedom of not having a storyboard set in stone, liked making movies in Hong Kong because it felt more free, in Hollywood everything was set and you had to follow the storyboard exactly, after that there were no more changes
Once Upon a Time in China Tsui Hark
Director is Steven Spielberg of Hong Kong
Staged a small scene where a man and woman meet as if it was a gunfight, there was no logical reason
Over 25 shots just for them meeting
New Dragon Gate Inn
Two women fight as if there is a whirlwind in the room
Mughal-e-Azam K. Asif
Took the box office as the sound of music did in the west
Director wanted to make the film in color but couldn’t
Devi Episode 6 ) dir. Satyajit Ray Mausam Gulzar
70s cinema unthinkable without this director
Influenced a generation of Indian women
Man and woman on mountainside, having romantic scene
Older version of the man is standing there, walking around on the mountain behind them, his future self looking back on when he was happier
Zanjeer Prakash Mehra
Zooms, freezes, close ups, dramatic fragments of rage and anger, panic and fear
Sholay Ramesh Sippy
Widescreen titles like an epic, music like an adventure film, landscape like a western
Huge box office success and played at one cinema for 7 years
Captured the feeling of that time
Freeze frames, slow motion, as a main character is shot down
Trauma electrifies the film
Fearlessly inventive shifts in tone
Scene where bad guy has main character’s sidekick’s girlfriend dance for his life
To make things more interesting, he places glass shards under her feet
Adds element of horror where no Bollywood or Hollywood film has dared to go before
The Message: The Story of Islam Moustapha Akkad
Perhaps seen by as many people that have seen any film in the history of cinema
Biblical epic
Islam doesn’t allow the depiction of Mohammad, so we never see him in the film
Amazing scene where the uncle of Mohammad is talking directly to the camera, we see from Mohammad’s perspective
The Making of an Epic: Mohammad, Messenger of God The Sparrow Youssef Chahine
Stunning account of terrible event in Egyptian history
The president of Egypt announces they have lost territory to Israel
We see everyone’s shocked faces, people rush outside, everyone gathers, chants, raises their fists, “Long live Egypt!”
It is treated slightly as a victory as people come together in shock and protest
The Exorcist William Friedkin
A believable, middle-class home
Handheld, wide angle shot captures the panic and fear of the scene
Director wanted to take horror cinema and combine it with realism
Tells the story of a teenage girl possessed by the devil
Actress that did the voice of the devil ate raw eggs, drank, and smoked cigarettes to make her voice gurgle and sound more realistic
One of the most innovative vocal performances in cinema history
Director pushed other actors far too, slapped man actor on the face just to film his trembling reaction right afterwards for the film
Had some traditional techniques as well
Director had no-nonsense approach
Audiences across America fainted, threw up, a documentary was even made about people’s reactions to the film
A Guy Named Joe Victor Fleming
Steven Spielberg was influenced a lot by this film
Pilot says goodbye to the woman he loves, because he was hilled in the war, and has to watch as she is falling in love with another man
Jaws Steven Spielberg
Both an establishment film and an innovative one
3 very different men on the boat, filmed in three shot
Spielberg wanted realism
Had one character crush a Styrofoam cup in mockery of the masculine crushing of a beer can
The Making of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws
In the scene where the boy on the raft is attacked by the shark, Spielberg imagined it as being filmed all in one shot
Had the brilliant idea of actors in colorful bathing suits walking in front of the camera as the police chief is sitting there, one color as he looks out, another to wipe away what he is seeing
Clearly establishes that we are seeing from his point of view
Vertigo Episode 4 ) dir. Alfred Hitchcock Close Encounters of the Third Kind Steven Spielberg
Shows his signature move – the awe and surprise reaction wise shot with a dolly moving in, we do not see what they are looking at, the tension builds, the music rises
Jurassic Park Steven Spielberg
Same shot as mentioned above of person looking again, and again, the music rising, they remove their glasses to see better, they get out of the car to see better
Star Wars Episode 1 ) dir. George Lucas
Almost doubled the box earnings of Jaws
We are in a realm of myth
Luke dresses like a Samurai
Draws richly from film history
Fast cutting, the music crashes like waves in the climax
In that moment, the hero decided to feel, not think, which is what happened to American cinema itself
Everyone fell in love with this cinema of sensation, not contemplation
The two robots play off the two characters in Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress below
Spears in that film became lightsabers
The Hidden Fortress Akira Kurosawa Triumph of the Will Episode 4 ) dir. Leni Riefenstahl
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