Cinema 1905-1912

 The International Expansion of the Cinema (1905-1912)

TERMS/PEOPLE

1)Albert Capellani
Albert Capellani and D. W. Griffith came to filmmaking in the early years of the nickelodeon boom, when films were one reel long and relatively simple in form and style. Both were drawn to melodrama and historical epics, but their approaches varied. Griffith’s reliance on editing typified a style developing among American directors. Like most Europeans, however, Capellani largely avoided cutting. He relied on prolonged, fairly distant shots with actions precisely staged in depth.

Capellani was hired by Pathé around 1905,when Pathé formed its prestige unit, SCAGL, and appointed Capellani to run it. his own projects were adaptations of respected French literary works by Emile Zola, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas, as well as subject matter drawn from French history.

As this and other lengthy scenes in L’Assommoir show, Capellani instructed all of his actors, even minor ones milling about in the backgrounds, on facial expressions and gestures. The resulting action is livelier and often more comprehensible than in many films of the day. L’Assommoir (Albert Capellani, 1909)

Capellani’s films
1)are also notable for their realistic settings, He sought equal naturalism for the settings he was able to work in historic buildings in Paris and environs for his films set during the French Revolution and other eras. He sought equal naturalism for the settings needed for his Zola adaptations, as with his treatment of the mine and its surroundings in Germinal (1913).Germinal (Albert Capellani, 1913)

Alice Guy-Blaché
Gaumont, also expanded rapidly. After finishing its new studio in 1905, the firm took on additional filmmakers. Alice Guy Blaché trained this new staff and turned to making longer films herself. Guy Blaché collaborated with designer Victorin Jasset on La Naissance, la vie et la mort de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ (“The Birth, Life, and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1906). This scene of the scourging of Christ indicates the elaborate staging and sets used for some prestige films of this period.The Birth, Life, and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Alice Guy Blat HE Tormentché, 1906)
Alice Guy-Blaché and Falling Leaves
She was the first woman to direct a film and from 1896 to 1906, she was probably the only female filmmaker in the world. Guy immigrated to the United States after directing over 180 short films in France. Guy immigrated to the United States after directing over 180 short films in France. Much of Guy's cinematic output does not exist today.

Carl Laemmle
In April 1909,
1) the first effective blow against the MPPC was dealt when
2) Carl Laemmle, who ran the largest American distribution firm, turned in his license.
3) He started the Independent Motion Picture (IMP) company, a small firm that would later form the basis for the Universal studio.

D. W. Griffith
Albert Capellani and D. W. Griffith came to filmmaking in the early years of the nickelodeon boom, when films were one reel long and relatively simple in form and style. Both were drawn to melodrama and historical epics, but their approaches varied. Griffith’s reliance on editing typified a style developing among American directors.
D.W. Griffith
1) After working as a minor stage and film actor,2) Griffith started directing films at AM&B in 1908.3) He soon began crosscutting scenes and framing his actors more closely in original ways.4) Despite the fact that filmmakers were not credited,5) viewers soon recognized that films from American Biograph(the name the company assumed in 1909) were consistently among the best coming from the US studios.6)is the early director most often associated with the development of crosscutting.7)He was undoubtedly influenced by earlier films, including The Runaway Horse,but of all directors of the period, he explored the possibilities of crosscutting most daringly.

Griffith techniques1)Griffith also explored the possibilities of framing his actors more closely than the standard 9-foot line had permitted.2) He wanted to replace the typical pantomimic gestures of the era with a more subtle acting style.3) In early 1912, Griffith began training his talented group of young actresses, including Lillian Gish, Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, and Mary Pickford, to register a lengthy series of emotions using only slight gestures and facial changes. Painted Ladies  One result of these experiments was The Painted Lady (1912)

Editing: (Crosscutting, Analytical Editing, and Contiguity Editing)
From about 1906 onward, filmmakers developed techniques for maintaining this “unbroken connection.” By 1917, these techniques would come together in the continuity system of editing. This system involved three basic ways of joining shots: crosscutting, analytical editing, and contiguity editing.

Early crosscutting - Godfather/Horse getting fatter

1)(also known as parallel editing and intercutting) could be used for actions other
     than rescues.
2) French films, especially Pathé’s, were influential in developing this technique.
3) A clever chase film of 1907,
    a)The Runaway Horse, for example,

Analytical editing - SCI-FI
1) refers to editing that breaks down a single space into separate areas.
2) One simple way of doing this is to cut in closer to the action.
3) Thus a long shot shows the entire space,
4) and a closer one enlarges small objects or facial expressions.
5) Cut-ins in the period before 1905 were rare.

1904 - oriented toward storytelling.
the classical Hollywood cinema.
could not understand the causal, spatial, and temporal relations in many films.
Staging in depth
Intertitles expository and dialogue
Closer views
Color,
set design,
and lighting could imply the time of day and the milieu of the action.
Framing in depth used before having people walk toward the camera. 

Contiguity Editing: -DOG
 In some scenes, characters move out of the space of one shot and reappear in a nearby locale. Such movements were crucial to the chase genre. Typically, a group of characters would run through the shot and then out of sight; the film would then cut to an adjacent area, where the process would be repeated as they ran through again. A series of such shots made up most of the film. A similar pattern occurs in an early model of clear storytelling, Rescued by Rover (produced in 1905 by Cecil Hepworth in England, and probably directed by Lewin Fitzhamon). After a baby is kidnapped, the family dog races from the house and through the town, finds the baby, runs back to fetch the father, and leads him to the kidnapper’s lair. In all the shots of Rover running toward the lair, the dog moves forward through the space of one shot, exits to the left of the camera, and comes into the space of the next shot, still running forward and exiting left.

Ferdinand Guillaume
French-born clown Ferdinand Guillaume was known by the stage name Polidor. He starred in over a hundred comedy silent shorts billed as the character Tontolini for Cines before working for Pasquali Film in Turin. He is the opening of Giulio Antamoro's Pinocchio (1911) starring Guillaume in the title role.

General Film Company
Responding to the independent movement,
1) the MPPC created the General Film Company in 1910as an attempt to monopolize distribution.
2) The General Film Company was to release all the films made by MPPC producers.
3) The MPPC also hired detectives to gain evidence that producers

The Motion Picture Patent Company (MPPC)
Edison and AM&B decided to cooperate.1908, the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), headed by Edison and AM&B,was created.  MPPC: Vitagraph, Selig, Essanay, Lubin, andKalem.

The MPPC hoped to control all three phases of the industry:
1) production,
2) distribution, and
3) exhibition.
4) Only licensed companies could make films.
5) Only licensed distribution firms could release them.
6) And all theaters wanting films made by members of the MPPC had to pay a weekly fee for the privilege.
7) Eastman Kodak agreed to sell film stock only to members of the MPPC, and in return they would buy no stock except from Kodak.
In April 1909, lost a case- independent theaters 

Nordisk and Ole Olsen
He had been an exhibitor, initially using a peepshow machine and later running one of the first movie theaters in Copenhagen. In 1906, he formed a production company, Nordisk, and immediately began opening distribution offices abroad. The company’s New York branch, established in 1908, sold Nordisk films under the brand name Great Northern. In the same year, Olsen completed the first of four glass studios for indoor production. Lion Hunt (Viggo Larsen, 1907)

Nordisk films quickly established an international reputation for excellent acting and production values. Nordisk specialized in crime thrillers and somewhat sensationalistic melodramas, including “white-slave” (prostitution) stories. Olsen had a circus set permanently installed, and some of the firm’s major films centered on circus life, such as The Four Devils (1911, Robert Dinesen and Alfred Lind) and The Great Circus Catastrophe (Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen, 1912).

Oligopoly
1)This arrangement set the stage for control over the entire US film market by an oligopoly.

In an oligopoly, a small number of firms cooperate to control the market and block the entry of new companies.
MPPC’s oligopoly tried to eliminate all other firms by threatening to sue for patent infringement.

Pathé vs. Gaumont
During this 1905 period, the French film industry was still the largest, and its movies were the ones most frequently seen around the world. The two main firms, Pathé Frères and Gaumont, continued to expand, and other companies were formed in response to an increased demand from exhibitors. As in many Western countries, workers were winning a shorter workweek and thus had more leisure time for inexpensive entertainments. The French firms also courted a wider middle-class audience.

Pathé was already a large company, with three separate studios. It was also one of the earliest film companies to become vertically integrated. A vertically integrated firm is one controlling the production, distribution, and exhibition of a film. Vertical integration has been a major strategy pursued by film companies and often a measure of their strength. Pathé made its own cameras and projectors, produced films, and around 1911 began manufacturing film stock as well. In 1906, Pathé also started buying theaters. The following year, the firm began to distribute its own films by renting rather than selling them to exhibitors. By then, it was the largest film company in the world. Starting in 1908, it distributed films made by other companies as well.

Aside from being a vertically integrated firm, Pathé also used the strategy of horizontal integration. This term means that a firm expands within one sector of the film industry, as when one production firm acquires and absorbs another one. Pathé enlarged its film production by opening studios in such places as Italy, Russia, and the United States. From 1909 to 1911, its Moscow branch made about half the films produced in Russia.

Gaumont, also expanded rapidly. After finishing its new studio in 1905, the firm took on additional filmmakers. Alice Guy Blaché trained this new staff and turned to making longer films herself. Guy Blaché collaborated with designer Victorin Jasset on La Naissance, la vie et la mort de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ (“The Birth, Life, and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1906). This scene of the scourging of Christ indicates the elaborate staging and sets used for some prestige films of this period.The Birth, Life, and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Alice Guy Blat HE Tormentché, 1906)

As its name suggests, the Film d’Art company, founded in 1908, identified itself with elite tastes. One of its first efforts was The Assassination of the Duc de Guise (Charles Le Bargy and André Calmettes, 1908). The Film d’Art company, however, lost money on most of its productions and was sold in 1911. Guy in fluffy pants/ tights. however, showed characters moving smoothly from one space to another, as when the Duc de Guise walks through a curtained doorway to confront his enemies.

Winsor McCay
In the United States, eminent comic-strip artist and vaudevillian Winsor McCay also began making drawn animated films, initially to project in his stage act. His first film was Little Nemo, completed in 1911; it featured characters from his famous newspaper strip “Little Nemo in Slumberland.” The film contains a live-action prologue that shows how the enormous number of drawings necessary for the animation were made.