Standing Out in a Crowd: The Aesthetic of Modernist Cinema
2
Among the large objects, such as vast plains or
panoramas of any kind, one deserves special
attention: the masses. No doubt imperial Rome
already teemed with them. But masses of people in
the modern sense entered the historical scene only in
the wake of the industrial revolution. Then they
became a social force of first magnitude. Warring
nations resorted to levies on an unheard-of scale and
identifiable groups yielded to the anonymous multitude
which filled the big cities in the form of amorphous
crowds. Walter Benjamin observes that in the period
marked by the rise of photography the daily sight of
moving crowds was still a spectacle to which eyes and
nerves had to get adjusted…. As might be expected,
the traditional arts proved unable to encompass and
render it. Where they failed, photography easily
succeeded; it was technically equipped to portray
crowds as the accidental agglomerations they are. Yet
only film, the fulfillment of photography in a sense,
was equal to the task of capturing them in motion. In
this case the instrument of reproduction came into
being almost simultaneously with one of its main
subjects. Hence the attraction which masses exerted
on still and motion picture cameras from the outset.
(Siegfried Kracauer 298)
The Establishment of Physical Existence
Siegfried Kracauer’s Theory of Film elucidates the correlation
between the cinematic medium and masses, or more acutely the
aesthetic of the masses. As he observes, film has depicted mass crowds
since its birth; Auguste and Louis Lumiere’s first screened project after
inventing the cinematograph recorded a crowd of workers leaving a
factory. The ideological and poli...
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...Accessed November 14, 2005.
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Kracauer, Siegfried. The Establishment of Physical Existence. Film
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Cohen. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. pp 293-303.
Kracauer, Siegfried. The Little Shopgirls go to the Movies. The Mass
Ornament: Weimar Essays. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1995. pp. 291-304.
Kracauer, Siegfried. The Mass Ornament. The Mass Ornament: Weimar
Essays. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1995.
Kracauer, Siegfried. “Two Chaplin Sketches.” The Yale Journal of
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Robinson, David. Charlie Chaplin: The Art of Comedy. Trieste, Italy:
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Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles, was an exemplary and ground-breaking work. In narrative structure and film style, Welles challenged classical Hollywood conventions and opened a path for experimentation in the later 1940s. Gregg Toland’s deep-focus cinematography and Welles’ use of low-key lighting are often discussed aspects of the movie. True, these were areas of innovation, but when watching the movie in class I was particularly struck by the use of camera movement, or “mobile framing” as described in Film Art. In this historical analysis, I will take a detailed look at how Welles and Toland use camera movement to develop and challenge the Hollywood style. By referring to other movies viewed in Professor Keating’s class, including The Cheat, Wings, Applause, Double Indemnity, The Last Laugh and Bicycle Thief, this paper traces one aspect of innovation and diffusion in the movie many call the greatest film ever, Citizen Kane.
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
These days more and more audience like to see their beloved actors and actresses portray superhero or heroine figure in spandex suit blasting laser beam from their eyes, turn into fire then fly away to outer space, or even a scientist who turn into a huge, green, car-throwing, head-smashing monster with indestructible pants when he transforms. But not small amount audience like films with classical-antiquity geographical and timeline set such as Ben-Hur, 300, Spartacus, etc. Antiquity and modernity always be an important part in filmmaking, whether in its screenplay, set design or character design. In some movies these aspect can be shown separately or combined in sort of a new way in filmmaking.
The many debates about art cinema versus classical cinema have been going around for a while. The mainstream Hollywood classical film and the art cinema are frequently presented as opposites. In one, the style of the film is bland, while the other seeks to center its focus on the visual becoming central as narrative unity. Throughout the movie directed by Stanley Kubrick called 2001: A Space Odyssey, we see that this film can be classified as an art film. On the other hand, it can also be seen as classical film. Even though these two are the complete opposite and they contradict themselves, they are both apparent in the film.
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.
With his down-the-rabbit-hole approach to design and obsessive attention to detail, Wes Anderson, writer, director and auteur, is best known for his highly stylized movies. His extremely visual, nostalgic worlds give meaning to the stories in his films, contrary to popular critical beliefs that he values style over substance. Through an analysis of his work, I plan to show that design can instead, give substance to style.
In this essay I will look at the emergence of Italian neo-realist cinema and how Italian Neo-realism has been defined and classified in the film industry as well as how its distinct cinematic characteristics could only have been conceived in Italy and how these characteristics set the neo-realist style apart from other realist movements and from Hollywood.
The release of Gordon Hollingshead and Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer in 1927 marked the new age of synchronised sound in cinema. The feature film was a huge success at the box office and it ushered in the era David Bordwell describes as ‘Classical Hollywood Cinema’; Bordwell and two other film theorists (Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson) conducted a formalist analysis of 100 randomly selected Hollywood films from the years 1917 to 1960 in order to fully define this movement. Their results yielded that most Hollywood made films during that era were centred on, or followed, specific blueprints that formed the finished product. Through this analysis of Hollywood films the theorists were able to establish stylised conventions and modes of production under which a classic Hollywood film was fashioned (Foster, 2008), the film Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) directed by Peter Jackson will be used as a case study to demonstrate these specific conventions.
As seen in paintings of battle scenes and portraits of wealthy Renaissance aristocracy, people have always strived to preserve and document their existence. The creation of photography was merely the logical continuum of human nature’s innate desire to preserve the past, as well as a necessary reaction to a world in a stage of dramatic and irreversible change. It is not a coincidence that photography arose in major industrial cities towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Italian Neorealism is a cinematic style born out of the economic and political strife following the Second World War in Italy (Smith, 2013). The style generally depicts the hardships of average working-class people who are struggling due to forces outside of their control (Smith, 2013). The main goal of these films is not to embellish reality, but instead accurately depict life in Italy at this time. Often times sets are not used, as “location shooting” is utilized. This allows for the debris filled, hardship struck streets to become a huge part of the makeup of the films. Italian Neorealism films also generally have some stylistic tendencies. A documentary style shooting method is commonly used; that is one camera at eye level of the characters. There is typically no variation in the angles of the shots. Furthermore, editing and lighting are mostly avoided, allowing for a simplistic yet accurate take on reality.
“of exhibitionist confrontation rather than absorption,” (Gunning, Tom 2000 p 232) as Gunning suggests the spectator is asking for an escape that is censored and delivered with a controlled element of movement and audiovisual. Gunning believes that the audience had a different relationship with film before 1906. (Gunning, Tom 2000 p 229)
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
In the period between 1943 and 1950 Italian cinema was dominated by Neorealism which became the most significant film style of post-war Europe. Formation began back in 1936 when propagandists opened modern Cincitta studios and the film school name ‘Centro Sperimentaledi Cinematografia’. Along with the opening of schools such as this was a movement that placed a group of cinematographers under full-year contracts, among them was Carlo Montuori who used his classic techniques in creating ‘Bicycle Thieves’ (1948) one of the most well known films produced during the Neo-Realism movement. Perhaps also one of the most influential directors was Roberto Rossellini who directed Rome Open City at the end of WWII. Many directors and influential films such as this began to change and shape the way Italian films were made and what their relation to society was like.
German Expressionism, despite being short lived (approximately 1910 – 1930) is considered one of the most influential film movements which established Hollywood as the centre of the film industry. One of Hollywood’s most successful directors Tim Burton and British director Terry Gilliam are probably the two film makers who are the most influenced by the movement.
‘Then came the films’; writes the German cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, evoking the arrival of a powerful new art form at the end of 19th century. By this statement, he tried to explain that films were not just another visual medium, but it has a clear differentiation from all previous mediums of visual culture.