Films 1880 - 1928 in few words
Study Sheet for all the Midterm Films
Rename 1800-1904 Invention
& early cinema
The Arrival of a Train at la Ciotat Station (Auguste & Louis
Lumière, 1895)
Roundhay Garden Scene (Louis Le Prince, 1888) guy disappeared about 4
people walk around
The oldest recorded
short film dates back to 1888 called, Roundhay
Garden Scene.
Blacksmithing Scene (W. K. L. Dickson & William Heise, 1893) US 3 guys and
beer
firt kinetoscope film shown in
public exhibition on May 9, 1893 showing
actors in a film.
1st Staged Narrative in
Film The 1st commercially exhibited film and the 1st staged
scene with actors performing a role, Blacksmith
Scene is a Kinetoscope film first
shown on May 9, 1893. It was filmed entirely within the Black
Maria studio at West
Orange, New Jersey, in the USA which is widely referred to as
"America's First
Movie Studio"
Workers Leaving the Factory (Auguste & Louie Lumière, 1895)
It was shown in public at a meeting of the Société
d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale in
Paris on March 22.
Baby's Meal (Auguste & Louie Lumière, 1895)
wife in striped shirt, tea set and booze Auguste
Lumiere and his wife
Rough Sea at
Dover (Birt Acres, 1896) England r.w. paul blurry ocean
right
The
Waterer Watered (Auguste &
Louie Lumière, 1895) little kid in black on hose – triangle trees
Sandow (W. K. L.
Dickson & William Heise, 1896) US – Edison strong man – Sandow flex
Egypt:
Panorama of the Bank of the Nile (Alexandre Promio, 1896)
(Promio a director for Lumiere –
placed camera on tripod – panning movement travel films.)
lot of water – palm trees – land kind
of far.
A
Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès, 1902)
bought a projector from r.w.Paul but
made his own camera. used hand-applied tinting.
elaborately designed mise-en-scène
Scenes
from My Balcony (Ferdinand Zecca, 1901) – worked for Pathe
shot things looked like through
telescopes – view of couple in attic over tops of paris – woman
undresses
Twins'
Tea Party (R. W. Paul, 1896) Brighton School 2 girls with big white hats, tea
cups – hitting
crying
View
from an Engine Front—Barnstaple (Warwick Trading Company,
1898) Brighton School
example of ‘the phantom ride’ camera
on a vehicle like lumiere’s did. Train tracks cute old bldgs
n stations
Explosion
of a Motor Car (Cecil Hepworth, 1900) ENGLAND Brighton
used special effects trick films. On
street with fence and weeds, 4 people on track constable
falling parts lots of fencing cop catching pieces
The
Big Swallow (James Williamson, 1900) The Brighton School
special effect of falling into guys
mouth. Guy with glasses takes them off coming toward camera
grainy film up to
lips, opens mouth eats camera man laughs
Mary
Jane’s Mishap (G. A. Smith, 1903) ENGLAND
special effects – distant shots and
several cut-ins to medium shots of face.
Simple room kitchen
in middle
Life
of an American Fireman (Edwin S Porter, 1903) Edison’s director
1st longer film special effects – thought balloon
close-up shows hand pulling alarm
several shots, mixing studio and
location filming
two shots that show the same action from
two vantage points In the bedroom & outside house.
The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903)
used 11 shots. From 1902 to 1905,
Porter was one of many filmmakers who contributed to an
industrywide concentration on fiction filmmaking.
Telegraph office, mail car, hold up of
passengers grainy, ahold up No film of pre-1905 as popular
dancing, cowboy hats, forest chase.
Steal the mail. 2 white horses 1 black
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The International Expansion of the Cinema (1905-1912)
The Birth, Life, and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Alice Guy Blaché, 1906)
Huge columns, the torture – action
in the middle, tapestry down middle sheet on
head
The Fall of Troy (Giovanni Pastrone, 1911) men in togas. Lots of
columns on left
incense rt/left
Lion Hunt (Viggo Larsen, 1907) killed a lion black guy in plaid
– hunters in white and
black boots Nordisk’s breakthrough came in
1907 with Lion Hunt,
a fiction film about a safari.
Because two lions were actually shot during the production,
the film was banned in Denmark,
but the publicity generated huge sales abroad.
The Four Devils (1911, Robert Dinesen and Alfred Lind) and fallen
acrobat purple tint,
pink yellow
The Great Circus Catastrophe (Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen, 1912). Horse Falls Yellow
tint
square
structure, crowd
The Story of the Kelly Gang (Charles Tait, 1906)
lasted an hour FIRST FEATURE
FILM cowboys Australian outlaw Ned Kelly
black one white office. Officers in
round hats. Wood house then tent
The Haunted Hotel (J. Stuart Blackton, 1907) Vitagraph -bread
slice puppet pushes
teapot to pour rumplestilksin he goes to be puffy outside house with moving parts
Fantasmagorie (Émile Cohl, 1908) Gaumont B&Wlittle puppet / movie theater
elephant/ REAL hands/hat
Little Nemo (Winsor McCay, 1911) BET smoking in tux /Dragon
b&w and color.
Racist. Real Hand huge boxes of ink and paper 3 puppets stretch last puppet goes
off with princess on dragon old men at the end and hand
The Revenge of a Kinematograph Cameraman (Ladislav Starevicz, 1912) Mr.
Beetle
& Grasshopper
The Arrival of a Train at la Ciotat Station (Auguste
& Louis Lumière, 1895) the
Lumière cameraman has chosen a vantage point that
emphasizes many planes of activity.
Afgrunden (Urban Gad, 1910) DENMARK woman blk kills man men
with rnd hat
manboots wtable
A Tale of Two Cities (William Humphrey, 1911) hanging
camera angles steps up black
coat
The Runaway Horse (Louis J. Gasnier, 1907)- Pathé’s
Early crosscutting horse fat. man deliver
basket laundry wine served
Rescued by Rover (Cecil Hepworth & Lewin Fitzhamon, 1905)
baby rescue Contiguity
Editing: In some
scenes, characters move out of the
space of one shot and reappear in a nearby locale.
Alma’s Champion (1912, Vitagraph), 2 train scene and note. Engine
hat, lunch, alma,
conductor one guy leather jacket and baseball hat. helps lady on a train.
The Lonely Villa (D. W. Griffith, 1909) – hostages phone lady blk
top white long
skirt/girlswht dres mom long necklace little girls bows in hair
Griffith is the early director most often
associated with the development of crosscutting
The Painted Lady (D. W. Griffith, 1912) ugly girl kills He
wanted to replace the typical
pantomimic dad has long beard and hat - sister big hat lots of makeup both wear bows
gestures of the era with a more subtle
acting style lots of men in straw hats lillian Gish
L’Assommoir (Albert Capellani, 1909) Capellani was hired by Pathé
around 1905, ran it
strange garden party an adaptation of
Zola’s naturalistic novel lady in black. Waiter.
Long
dresses hats. Lady in sash, organ
grinder guy eating black bolo hat
Germinal (Albert Capellani, 1913) germy film in the mines. Man
side bag. Old man
cane capellani nature films funny hat
Falling Leaves (Alice Guy-Blaché, 1912) consumption little girl
bw/blue/piano
The Assassination of the Duc de Guise (Charles Le Bargy and
André Calmettes, 1908)
(The King's guards (the
forty-five) stab Henri de Guise.
Black and white - fancy palace like
setting. bedchamber. Leaving one room and
arriving in (men in tights - hats with feathers)
another. Change of camera location -
twice – curtained doorways
Pinocchio (Giulio Antamoro, 1911)
orange tint pointy hat and nose…old man boots
white shirt tie
wig
runs into town light yellow tint.
Napoleon like guy.. dresser and bed come down
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National Cinemas, Hollywood Classicism, and World War I (1913-1919)
The Student of Prague (Stellan Rye, 1913). GERMANY – The most
successful and
famous
Autorenfilm popular writer Hanns
Heinz EwersIn blue tint actor appears and
disappears sitting on a porch
In following scene, exposure of separate
portions of the same shot during filming allowed two
characters, both played by Paul
Wegener, to confront each other.
Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914) – Cabiria’s
tracking shots were more influential,
however, and
the “Cabiria movement”
became a common technique in films of the mid-1910s.feeding babies
to demon.
The Dying Swan (Evgenii Bauer, 1917) – RUSSIA kills
ballerina brooding melodrama.
skeleton in room guy has black beard
Father Sergius (Yakov Protazanov, 1917) – RUSSIA slutty woman
tries to seduce priest
adaptation
of Tolstoy’s novel made in 1917 between the February and October Revolutions
and
released
in early 1918. snowy out ugly bald head and long beard.
The Perils of Pauline (Louis J. Gasnier, 1914)example of a serial – from Pathé
in 1914
up in balloon lands on a cliff Pathe huge festival scene
Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913) – Feuillade.
Most prolific Gaumont ghost
hold out hands
to be
handcuffed ghost in tux
Atlantis (August Blom, 1913) – Nordisk’s
top director of teens. man w/out
arms eight reels-
Denmark guys going to the movies box seat - man no arms
Life of an Evangelist (Forest Holger-Madsen, 1914) Nordisk. cityscape and strong
backlighting eats a simple meal
Witchcraft through the
Ages (Benjamin
Christensen, 1922)Danish. witches in blue
priests laugh at
the end kissing satan’s butt
Thomas Graal’s Best
Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917) SWEDENNurse gets
drunk n crazy
to be a star
Sir Arne’s Treasure (Mauritz Stiller, 1919) non-comedy coffin
through ice
Ingeborg Holm (1913), SWEDEN Sjöström’s early masterpiece, woman
give up boy
The
staging. mom wearing white apron kid funny puffy hat and shorts
with the heroine’s back to the camera
displays Sjöström’s refusal to overemphasize emotions.
The Outlaw and His Wife (Victor Sjöström, 1917)SWEDEN yellow
sheep stealing
Sjöström in film funny long hats like sleeping hats sheering sheep short pants
hero Sjöström was one most important directors
of the entire silent era. 1 action consequences.
The Cheat (Cecil B. De Mille, 1915) Japanese guy –
paper wall lighting on part of the
scene, woman in black outfit black hair bloody hand
motivated as coming from a specific
source. The most influential film
Civilization (Thomas H. Ince, 1916) US continuity script jesus
show in cell walks king
around king has pointy hat.
The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith 1915) American Civil
War
Intolerance (D. W. Griffith, 1916) blue – red –
purple. last part of Christ’s life, the St.
Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in France, gangster
activity. train and Babylon chariot
cradle racing car 8 colored film train car yellow blue
The Immigrant (Charlie Chaplin, 1917) On boat card games russian at restaurant in NY
Shoes (Lois Weber, 1916) Eva Mayers. One of
America’s most prolific female directors, Lois
Weber, came to prominence in the 1910s. Scenes in shop kitchen or fancy club blue cradle
But My Love Does Not Die! (Mario
Caserini, 1913) Diva Films
Diva films remained
popular during the second half of the 1910s and then quickly declined in the
1920s. long hair - a strange ear head dress in front of glam theater backstage skimpy outfit
The
Last of the Mohicans (Maurice
Tourneur & Clarence Brown,1920) Joseph Conrad novel
tent Indians and Caucasian women in capes body paint fur hats
Hell’s Hinges (William S. Hart & Charles
Swickard, 1916) good bad
man pastor
XxxxxxxxxxxxFRANCE
The Smiling Madame Beudet (Germaine Dulac, 1923) Curved mirror distortion
imagining tennis guy gun fake suicide faust tickets friend with large woman
The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921–1922) large hats feathers
capes
The Crazy Ray (René Clair, 1924) (fantasy fic – people
are paralyzed by a ray) orange
in a cafe drinking champagne people frozen in cafe
The Imaginary Journey (René Clair, 1926) My worst nightmare
-waking up in a
museum
Le Petit Café (1919, Raymond Bernard). Didn’t see. it was a
comedy lotto worker
La Dixième Symphonie (Abel Gance, 1918) woman with
flowers/piano/conductor
Rose-France (Marcel L’Herbier, 1919) Woman in wedding dress light
sees guy
centering the heroine as if in a traditional triptych painting.
El Dorado (Marcel L’Herbier, 1921) Spanish Bar Flamenco dancers orange film villagers
Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927)
Josephine – purple filters, she imagines him bride
without veil flowers around canopy bed. napoleon pointy nose she wears earrings
also war with triptych huge horizontal soldiers with tents
Coeur Fidèle (Jean Epstein, 1923) carnival unhappy streamers on clothes
La Roue (Abel Gance, 1922) = The Wheel train – crazy
conductor
L’Inhumaine (Marcel L’Herbier, 1924) red – scientist
ugly lady feather hat
clock art deco
Xxxxxxxxx germany
Madame DuBarry (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919) Spectacle French Revolution orange red nice
villa crowd captures a noble lots of guns and lots of people horses x shirts
The Eyes of the Mummy Ma (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918) Egypt Also spectacle white hat
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Weine, 1920)
window chase carnival freak
Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924) – knight in court – symmetry woman bowl to drink
Der Schatz (G. W. Pabst, 1923) saggy house smoke door
Raskolnikow (Robert Weine, 1923) leaning buildings/lamppost –
moneylender watch
Kriemhild’s Revenge (Fritz
Lang, 1924)Lady with Crown and geo head scarf braids –
swear on sword treasure in the sea snow geo dress big knight shingles
Tartuffe (F. W. Murnau, 1925) Staircase – guy reading
rejecting woman z& high shot
staircase
Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922) Sleep- walking Nosferatu’s shadows woman
nightgown short sleeve curly hair
Sylvester (Lupu Pick, 1923) KAMMERSPIEL chamber-dramaWife gets crazy. Get
OUT. him
with mom new years mustache lamp
Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, 1921) KAMMERSPIEL waking up –
postman and maid
The Last Laugh (F. W. Murnau, 1924) doorman fired very sad – rich
trumpet drunk
whistle also rich and drunk later most famous kammerspiel santa look drinking
The Street (Karl Grune, 1923) NEW
OBJECTIVITY guy conned by woman – beautiful
club bolo
hat swirling sees wife in ring…
Secrets of a Soul (G. W. Pabst, 1926)new objectivity variant –
Freudian dream – man in
pjs floats in air man in hunter hat boat in a canal lillies baby knife stabbing wife
The Love of Jeanne Ney (G. W. Pabst, 1928) new objectivity shoe/wild café
scene/book
on phone guy smokes in a funny pipe women dancing on table kosak hat side part
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) UFA’S LAST EX W/ FAUST the Complete Metropolis released
in 2010
The production of Expressionist films was most
intense between 1920 and 1924.
Narrative - Set in Past or Exotic
loctions - Horror & Fantasy
In a reversal of this emphasis upon the
past, the last major Expressionist film,
Metropolis, is set in a futuristic city
Xxxxxxxxxx RUSSIA
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1926) overlapping
editing mutiny by sailors
oppressed by their
Tsarist officers; Commissioned in 1925
by soviet govt 1917 failed revolution Selznick raved
Engineer Prite’s Project (Lev Kuleshov, 1918) KULESHOV the
falling hanky – lady
Recreation of the Kuleshov Experiment/Effect (Dave Monahan)
Cigarette-Girl of Mosselprom (Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky, 1924) casting in theater
The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (Lev
Kuleshov, 1924) skinny guy fur coat military parades
The Magnanimous Cuckold a play 1922 meyerheld
Storm over Asia (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1930) midshots of
soldiers pointing guns in diff directions in two lines
The House on Trubnaya (Boris Barnet, 1928) Elliptical
cutting action left out girl with goose – trolley she looks at dolls ducks
Strike (Sergei Eisenstein,
1925) – nondiegetic insert bull. Inkwell, map, carnage
Mother (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1926) prisoner, letter, ice, baby
laughing and smile guard called. letter
October (Sergei Eisenstein,
1928) In the name of god and country – idols, metals, incense
- great
example of Nondiegtic shot makes extensive use of intellectual montage.
My
Grandmother (Kote Mikaberidze, 1929) calendar, stomp, typists in circle doors
Arsenal (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1929) Striking
Juxtapositions train struggle low angles
slant of
train accordion. Montage films avoid
conventional chest-height, straight-on framing
and utilize more dynamic angles. Low-angle framings place buildings
or people
against a blank
sky, making characters look
threatening or heroic.
6)Canted or decentered framings
dynamize the image.
The End of St. Petersburg (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1927) Neck down
shots - to satirize
uniforms –
people sitting
Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1930) emphasized vast farmlands of
the Ukraine Cows,
people sky
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) split-screen framing
and
superimpositions.
people, movie, trolley, spr imp
camera, split bldg
Old and New (Sergei Eisenstein, 1929) Special effects to make
a point Woman
sleeping – big cow
over field how important this one
animal has been to building farm
A
note i found about Pudovikin:
To the
trio of Pudovkin’s films considered his best – Мat (Mother, 1926), Konets Sankt-Peterburga (The End of Saint Petersburg, 1927), and Potomok Chingis-Khana (Storm over Asia, 1928) – it is high
time we added Dezertir (The Deserter, 1933) and made the whole thing a quartet.
FILMS
The Marriage Circle (Ernst Lubitsch, 1924) woman w apron black short hair Light
from back. Flowers around top of her gown dress. She sets up drinks yr ill. She has
a crush on doctor. Her husband has a moustache and sees two drinks. Bow tie.
Just Pals (John Ford, 1920) – little boy drowning cats little kid and grown up
Way Down East (D. W. Griffith, 1920) OT farm girl old folks, soft-focus
cinematography, glamorous shots – Lillian Gish at Night and close ups
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rex Ingram, 1921) graveyard, valentino
alice terry nurses hat
Why Change Your Wife? (Cecil B. De Mille, 1920) Boring wife with glasses sexy dress
man in tux dreams of another record
The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. De Mille, 1923) people around monuments walking
Orphans of the Storm (D. W. Griffith, 1922) Lillian and Dorothy Gish Griffith greatest post war era
two sisters in paris one arrested other homeless
Blind Husbands (Erich von Stroheim, 1919) swiss mountaineering soldier w/hat cig and tight
pants flirting with wife in black shawl and short hair.
Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924) desert yellow screen old guy donkey shooting gold
Ben-Hur (Fred Niblo, 1925) chariots, Rome’s Circus Maximus
The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925) girl with head scarf looking for bf off to war helmet
Wings (William Wellman, 1927) running on land from airplanes, shots in air clara
bow it girl. Plane hits house
The Mark of Zorro (Fred Niblo, 1920) Simple white stucco lots of horses swords guns
The Iron Horse (John Ford, 1924) railroad blocked by Indians
The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927) guy with no arms
Underworld (Josef von Sternberg, 1927) dark city flower shop killer curtain chair
Miss Lulu Bett (William C. de Mille, 1921) lulu buys a plant
Stark Love (Karl Brown, 1927) teaches girl to read with old dad
The Kid (Charles Chaplin, 1924) kid fight adult fight
A Woman of Paris (Charles Chaplin, 1923) rich lover, handkerchief, champagne tux
Safety Last! (Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1923) Harold Lloyd glasses climbing
Cops (Buster Keaton, 1922) No Glasses – stone face horse in parade bomb cop chase
Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924) projectionist in the film keeps changing scenes
The Luck o’ the Foolish (Harry Edwards, 1924) Eating a tile sandwich and
hallucinating. Sits down with cop hat. Harry Langdon
Fluttering Hearts (James Parrott, 1927) fat dark hair big nose puppet red white tc
Rosita (Ernst Lubitsch, 1923) Mary Pickford napoleon hats carriage
Lady Windermere's Fan (Ernst Lubitsch, 1925) horses prancing woman feather hat
The Devil’s Circus (Benjamin Christensen, 1926) woman cuts acrobat cord lions clown
The Scarlet Letter (Victor Sjöström, 1926) Lillian Gish pilgrim girl hats A
Broadway (Paul Fejos, 1929) backscene of women getting dressed – MC walking out to crowd
Sunrise (F. W. Murnau, 1927) woman of the city smokes garters walks expressionist houses crooked big
square lots of traffic double decker
7th Heaven (Frank Borzage, 1927) Key throw two sisters up the stairs see both levels
Flesh and the Devil (Clarence Brown, 1926) Duel greta garbo in garden lingering kiss
The Clown's Little Brother (Max Fleischer & Dave Fleischer, 1920) out of the inkwell
clowns
Where Am I? (Max Fleischer & Dave Fleischer, 1925) pan on head skyscraper
mutt and jeff
Alice in the Wooly West (Walt Disney, 1926) cat on horse bad guy big hat alice
The Spendthrift (Paul Terry, 1922) Aesop’s fables dog fur coat taxi club bar bill fight
Felix the Cat in Futuritzy (Pat Sullivan, 1928) diamond ring palm n fortune rich bomb
Scar of Shame (Frank Perugini, 1927) guy w/top hat beat up girl letter lv w/suitcase
Ten Nights in a Barroom (Charles S. Gilpin, 1926) girl killed white hair black hat hole
Rev. Isaiah T. Jenkins and Sylvester
Isabelle, Martha Jane – her Mother
Body and Soul (Oscar Micheaux, 1925)
7th Heaven (Frank Borzage, 1927)
Borzage’s 7th Heaven is an affecting melodrama about a forlorn Parisian
prostitute, Diane, and a woman-hating sewer cleaner, None of the film crew
was European, German-style virtuoso camera movements were imitated, most
spectacularly in a vertical shot made from an elevator. Diane and her sister in their garret apartment. The upwardly slanting floor
shows the influence of German set design.
An elevator allows the camera to move with Diane and Chico seven flights up as
they approach his apartment, which their love transforms into “heaven.”
Ben-Hur (Fred Niblo, 1925)
Its chariot race was filmed in huge sets; a battery of cameras covered
the action from many angles, permitting a breakneck pace in the editing. Large
sets and trick photography recreated Rome’s Circus Maximus for the chariot race
in Ben-Hur.
The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925)
The Big Parade depicts
the horrors of war. In the following scene, the hero and heroine’s romantic
interlude ends as they are wrenched apart when he must leave for the front.
Blind Husbands (Erich
von Stroheim, 1919) Universal elevated him to director in 1919
with Blind Husbands,
the story of a couple on a mountaineering holiday; the wife is nearly seduced
away from her complacent husband by a scoundrel, played by von Stroheim.
Body and Soul (Oscar Micheaux, 1924)
Body and Soul (1924) explores the issue of the religious exploitation of poor
blacks. Paul Robeson, one of the most successful black actors and singers of
the century, plays a false preacher who extorts money and seduces women. Although
much of his work is lost, Micheaux demonstrated that a black director could
make films for black audiences.
Cops (Buster
Keaton, 1922)
In the following scene from Cops (1922), Keaton is trapped on a horse-drawn
moving van in a passing police parade. The hero calmly lights his cigarette
with a bomb tossed by an anarchist.
Felix the Cat in Futuritzy (Pat
Sullivan, 1928)
Pat began making Felix cartoons for Paramount around 1918. hugely
successful, partly through the appeal of the feline hero and partly through the
flexible animation Felix’s tail could fly off his body and become a question
mark or a cane for him to lean on
pioneer in the use of tie-in products like dolls
Flesh and the Devil (Clarence
Brown, 1926)
full of fancy camera movement,
subjective camera effects, and other techniques derived from European
avant-garde cinema. Starred Greta Garbo sexy garden scene
Flesh and the Devil was only one production of the 1920s to borrow from
European cinema.
The duel scene in Flesh and the Devil, handled with a rapid tracking movement
back from a silhouetted scene. The opponents end offscreen at either side, with
puffs of smoke coming into the frame, briefly leaving the result uncertain.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rex Ingram, 1921) 1921.
It was a big-budget project, running over two hours and based on a recent
best-selling novel. huge success
Valentino. and female nurse. big graveyard with crosses the 4 horses in sky.
Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924)
shows the ending of Greed, with the protagonist trapped
in Death Valley and killing his old enemy, manifests the bleak tone that
made Greed unpopular with its initial audiences.
The Kid (Charles
Chaplin, 1924)
The Kid. Here Chaplin played the familiar Little Tramp but
shared the spotlight with the expressive child actor Jackie Coogan, the
Little Tramp coaches the foundling on tactics of street fighting, unaware that
the rival’s muscular father is looking on.
Orphans of the Storm (D.
W. Griffith, 1922) A poignant moment in Orphans of the Storm
is shown in the following scene as the two separated sisters briefly encounter
and then lose each other again in the streets of Paris.
Safety Last! (Fred
Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1923)
In Safety Last! (1923, Newmeyer and Sam Taylor), Harold LLoyd played an ambitious young
man who has to climb the side of a skyscraper as a publicity stunt for the
store where he works.
Sherlock Jr. (Buster
Keaton, 1924)
In the following scene, the hero of Sherlock Jr., a projectionist, dreams while
his superimposed dream image goes out to enter the film being shown in the
theater.
Sunrise (F. W.
Murnau, 1927)
Sunrise. Scripted by Carl Mayer, who had written so many
German Expressionist and Kammerspiel films, the film was virtually a German film made in
America. It was a simple but intense psychological drama of a farmer who plans
to murder his wife in order to run away with his lover from the city. The film
was full of Germanic mise-en-scène with Expressionist touches. Even the
American stars, Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien, were induced to give
Expressionist-style performances. Deep space and skewed false perspectives
create an Expressionist composition in the following scene from Sunrise.
Sunrise was perhaps too sophisticated to be really popular. Its huge
city sets made it so costly that it did only moderately well for Fox. As a
result, Murnau’s fortunes declined. The huge city square constructed for
Sunrise (with help from German false-perspective techniques that made it seem
even larger)
Underworld (Joseph von Sternberg, 1927)
Von Sternberg used backlight and smoke to create this atmospheric moment as the
protagonist of Underworld guns down a rival. The film’s style
anticipated the later brooding films noirs (“dark films”) of the 1940s shoot up in flower shop
Way Down East (D. W. Griffith, 1920): Notice
the soft-focus cinematography in the next clip from Way Down East, soft also
considerably enhanced glamorous shots, as in the medium close-up of Lillian
Gish.
Wings (William A. Wellman, 1927)
Other studios carried on the trend toward big-budget films. combined its romantic elements with spectacular
battle footage. Portable cameras were mounted on airplanes to capture aerial
combats with an immediacy that trick photography could not equal. Its
careful use of motifs and sophisticated use of continuity editing, three-point
lighting, and camera movement made Wings the epitome of late silent filmmaking
in Hollywood. When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed
in 1927 and began giving out annual awards (later dubbed “Oscars”), Wings
was the first winner as best picture. men running from planes aerial shots
plane crashes in house
A Woman of Paris (Charles
Chaplin, 1923)
In the following scene from A Woman of Paris, the heroine’s rich lover fetches
one of his own handkerchiefs from a drawer in her apartment, a touch that
establishes their intimate relationship visually.
United
Artists (UA), formed by Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks,
and D. W. Griffith in 1919
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