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Characteristics of montage
The influence of brecht
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Kuhle Wampe (Brecht and Dudow, 1931) is often noted as the first communist film produced in Weimar Germany and was produced by a collective of men, heavily involved in the formation and success of Weimar cinema. The collaborative team consisted of Hanns Eisler, who composed the musical score for Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Walter Ruttmann, 1927), Ernst Ottwald, a distinguished novelist and screen writer, primary director Slatan Dudow who participated heavily in the production of Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) and finally Bertolt Brecht. The aforementioned trio heavily influenced the industrialised surrounding that encompass’ the location and narrative of Kuhle Wampe, however, fellow script writer and co-director Bertolt Brecht had very little experience in film production –aside from aiding the preparation for Karl Valentin’s The Mysteries of a Hairdresser’s Shop (1923). Brecht’s influence upon Kuhle Wampe came much more in the form of philosophical grounding, with himself, at the time developing his ‘materialist aesthetics’ in trying to conceptualise the answer to the question: ‘what is political art?’ Bringing together politics and art formulae, in this case montage, we can assess the messages that were conveyed through the use of montage and how it was used as a tool of political suggestion.
From the opening sequence, Kuhle Wampe’s stylisation appropriates itself with that of Soviet Montage, of which is Sergei Eisenstein’s theories are based on the idea that montage originates in the "collision" between different shots in an illustration of the idea of thesis and antithesis. This basis allowed him to argue that montage is inherently dialectical, thus it should be considered a demonstration of Marxism and Hegelian philos...
... middle of paper ...
...h the montage sequences in Kuhle Wampe.
Works Cited
Brooker, Peter (2004) “Key words in Brecht’s theory and practice of theatre” in Brecht. Eds. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. Cambridge University Press, Pp. 185-200.
Eisenstein, Sergei; Jay Leyda (translator) (1947). The Film Sense. Hardcourt Brace and Company
Eisenstein, Sergei; Jay Leyda (translator) (1977) The Film Form: essays in film theory. Hardcourt Brace and Company
Kracauer, Siegfried (2004) “Montage” [from From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947)] in German Essays on Film. Eds. Richard W. McCormack and Alison Guenther-Pal. New York & London: Continuum, Pp. 181-189.
Silbermann, Marc (1995) “The Rhetoric of Image: Slatan Dudow and Bertolt Brecht’s Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World” in German Cinema: Texts in Context. Detroit: Wayne State University Pp. 34-48.
Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, Fifth Edition. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.
The presence of an overwhelming and influential body of government, dictating the individuals of contextual society, may potentially lead to the thoughts and actions that oppose the ruling party. Through the exploration of Fritz Lang’s expressionist film, Metropolis (1927), and George Orwell’s politically satirical novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948), the implications of an autocratic government upon the individuals of society are revealed. Lang’s expressionist film delves into the many issues faced by the Weimar Republic of Germany following the “War to end all wars” (Wells, 1914), in which the disparity between the upper and lower classes became distinctively apparent as a result of the ruling party’s capitalistic desires. Conversely, Orwell’s,
In this paper I will argue that understanding the context of a film is vital for a more in-depth understanding of it and I will accomplish this through a deep analysis of the following films: Flowers of War, Edge of Heaven, Battleship Potemkin, and the Big Heat.
BIBLIOGRAPHY An Introduction to Film Studies Jill Nelmes (ed.) Routledge 1996 Anatomy of Film Bernard H. Dick St. Martins Press 1998 Key Concepts in Cinema Studies Susan Hayward Routledge 1996 Teach Yourself Film Studies Warren Buckland Hodder & Stoughton 1998 Interpreting the Moving Image Noel Carroll Cambridge University Press 1998 The Cinema Book Pam Cook (ed.) BFI 1985 FILMOGRAPHY All That Heaven Allows Dir. Douglas Sirk Universal 1955 Being There Dir. Hal Ashby 1979
Andreas Huyssen. “The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” New German Critique: and Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies. (1982)
During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that, examining post classical at which time the relationship between them will become evident. It is my intention to reference films from both movements and also published texts relative to the subject matter. In order to illustrate the structures involved I will be writing about the subjects of genre and genre transformation, the representation of gender, postmodernism and the relationship between style, form and content.
Gunning, Tom 2000, “The Cinema of Attraction: Early film, its spectator, and the avant-garde.” Film and theory: An anthology, Robert Stam & Toby Miller, Blackwell, pp 229-235.
Filmmaker and theorist, Lev Kuleshov, is known today as the grandfather of Soviet Montage theory. His works include The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924), Death Ray (1925), The Great Consoler (1933) and We from the Urals (1943). Kuleshov’s life work has had a profound influence on the filmmakers around him and filmmakers today. One of his greatest triumphs was cofounding the Moskow Film School, the world’s first film school. In a time when filmmaking was still in its infancy, Kuleshov was perhaps the first to theorize about the power of this new story telling medium. These theories and experiments would pave the way for future Russian film giants like Pudovkin and Eisenstein (who briefly studied under him).
In this paper, I want to argue that Fritz Lang's effective use of Cinemascope and Mise-en-scène in Moonfleet, ultimately allowed him to better express his signature stylistic elements, despite the many restrictions he had to work with throughout the production process. These restrictions included but were not limited to: a new stylistic filming process; Cinemascope, and the frayed relationship Fritz Lang was speculated to share with MGM, the production company he worked with for Moonfleet.
German Cinema since Unification. Edited by David Clarke. Continuum, in association with University of Birmingham Press. 2006
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
David Bordwell. The Idea of Montage in Soviet Art and Film. – Cinema Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1972, 9-17.
Livingstone, Paisley & Carl Plantinga. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film. London: Routledge – Taylor & Francis Group. 2009. Print.
Soviet cinematographer Sergei Eisenstein argues that the basis of cinema is dialectical montage. In his article “A Dialectical Approach to Film Form”, Eisenstein explains dialectics as “a constant evolution from the interaction of two contradictory opposites” (45). These opposites synthesize and form a new thesis, which then may also be contradicted. Eisenstein employs dialectical montage in his films due to its ability to invoke change, an important goal in a revolutionary society. His film Battleship Potemkin is designed to display this theory and create a psychological change within his audience, corresponding to his revolutionist ideals.
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (Set with DVD). New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.