American Cinema Essays

  • Latinos, Politics, and American Cinema

    3887 Words  | 8 Pages

    Latinos, Politics, and American Cinema Feature films in the United States influence American viewers' attitudes on a wide variety of topics. Americans attitudes toward politics are shaped by films, and specifically the politics of racial interaction. The history of modern feature films begins with Birth of a Nation (1915), a film that misrepresents the Black race by justifying the existence and role of the Ku Klux Klan in American society. From this racist precedent, producers and directors understood

  • The Representation of Minorities in American Cinema

    2438 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Representation of Minorities in American Cinema As the semester progressed and we continued learning how Latinos have been misrepresented through American cinema during the twentieth century, I began to wonder about my own heritage and how Jews were portrayed in films of the same era. I grew up learning about the various stereotypes that have been associated with Jews throughout history, but never have I explored the portrayals of Jews through film history in the United States. My curiosity

  • American Independent Cinema Analysis

    1582 Words  | 4 Pages

    second generation American Independent cinema directors there is a fine line separating the two generations. This line usually lies somewhere in the early 80’s when the term ‘American Independent Cinema’ first began to emerge. Many other things that were pertinent to the American Independent Cinema movement also arose such as the emergence of video as a media form. There is a strong distinction in the change of dynamics between film school in the first and second generation of American Independent filmmakers

  • New Latin American Cinema Themes

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    The New Latin American Cinema emerged mostly out of the countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico during a time period when there was a large amount of hot button issues, and radical revolutions in Latin America and all over the world. The 1960’s brought about a considerable volume of change and questioning within the film industry and as a result, it gave birth to playing with conventional American formulaic films. These changes allowed for Latin American filmmakers to represent their people

  • Taking a Look at African-American Cinema

    1547 Words  | 4 Pages

    bigotry, and blatant discrimination. African American cinema is enshrouded in history that depicts these themes of racism, struggle, and deprivation. Yet, this same cinema also shows scenes of hope, artistic spirit, intellectual greatness, and joy. Black actresses, actors, directors, producers, and writers have been fighting for recognition and respect since the great Paul Robeson. The civil rights movement of the 1950's and 60's was fueled by black cinema through films like A Raisin in the Sun. Progressions

  • The Evolution and Cultural Influence of American Cinema

    2509 Words  | 6 Pages

    When asked to name some typical characteristics of Asian people, what comes to mind? Chopsticks or a strong belief in cultural heritage? How about American families? Based on many different facets, you probably feel as though you know what ideologies your culture believes. If we look at the media through time, it has evolved through a dependency on the growth of technology. As technology advances, old forms fade while content shifts with the culture. The most popular form of entertainment, that provides

  • Positives And Negatives Of American Cinema

    816 Words  | 2 Pages

    American cinema can connect us to our American experience through the portrayal of ideal lifestyles. However the American experience shown in films is generally flawed particularly in its portrayal of the American dream, disparagement of women and minorities and demonizing of other cultures. One might think as time passed and hollywood became more progressive these practices would grow out of favor however these trends are all too present in modern hollywood blockbusters. That being said American

  • The History of American Cinema

    1598 Words  | 4 Pages

    American film from the 1960’s to present time has undergone a complete makeover. Prior to this decade, the Golden Age of Hollywood reigned. Movies were a major source of entertainment for all generations. With the popularization of television in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the average movie-goer was more likely to stay home to get their entertainment than to venture out to the theater. Studios had to learn how to deal with lesser resources while still wanting to make big-budget films. This set the stage

  • The History Of Mexican-American Cinema

    1685 Words  | 4 Pages

    Being a Mexican-American has guaranteed struggles in America, throughout history. Using film was a way to show the injustices of Mexican-American people and the way they were being treated. Also, cinematography is used in a way to humor others and it is something that everyone can enjoy together; however, it started with theater. In Mexican-American Cinema there are many great cinematographers that came to be known to this day. With a rough start in building a name for themselves to Hollywood demanding

  • Concrete Experience Of American Cinema

    3048 Words  | 7 Pages

    American Cinema Concrete Experience: 1.5-2 pages My love for cinema was invested in me by my grandparents. They loved watching older films and since I lived with them, I became familiar with many of the older classics and actors. I first became interested around the age of 16. I started a collection of news articles and pictures from my favorite time era and created a scrapbook. I still have this scrapbook to this day and enjoy looking at it once in awhile. The world of cinema has grown and changed

  • African American Women In Cinema

    1608 Words  | 4 Pages

    women, while not true due to the actual number being around to twenty to twenty-five percent; it doesn’t change the fact the ever since cinema was born, women were a vital part of it. Starting with Alice Guy-Blache who was the first woman director, starting in 1896 with the first narrative fiction film in history, La Fee Aux Choux(1896). The Silent Era of cinema had its doors open to women and they entered the industry in storm. Filmmakers like Guy-Blache, Clara Kimball Young, and Lois Weber were

  • The French New Wave

    1661 Words  | 4 Pages

    love, 1959). These films were the beginning of a revolution in French cinema. In the following years these directors were to follow up their debuts, while other young directors made their first features, in fact between 1959-63 over 170 French directors made their debut films. These films were very different to anything French and American cinema had ever produced both in film style and film form and would change the shape of cinema to come for years. To understand how and why this nouvelle vague happened

  • Women in Film as Portrayed in the Movie, Double Indemnity

    1123 Words  | 3 Pages

    Indemnity Introduction American commercial cinema currently fuels many aspects of society. In the twenty-first century it has become available, active force in the perception of gender relations in the United States. In the earlier part of this century filmmakers, as well as the public, did not necessarily view the female“media image” as an infrastructure of sex inequality. Today, contemporary audiences and critics have become preoccupied with the role the cinema plays in shaping social values

  • Casablanca

    506 Words  | 2 Pages

    Award winning film of 1942 saw director Michael Curtiz manipulate the camera in ways others had not. He uses the close-up, point-of- view, and creative shot motivation methods in his film starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, to create an American cinema classic. The first camera technique Curtiz uses to help narrate the film is the close-up shot. The close-up can effectively convey the story to the viewer without the use of excessive dialogue. In this instance, the viewer is introduced to the

  • Reaction to Mean Streets

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Reaction Paper to Mean Streets Mean Streets' greatest influence in American cinema was not on directors or scriptwriters (though its influence there was considerable) but rather on actors. The film has Harvey Keitel (as Charlie) at its center, whose solidity and slight dullness as an actor keeps the film from spinning off into total anarchy; but it is Robert De Niro's Johnny Boy (Charlie's wild, self-destructive friend whom he looks out for with all the obsessiveness of an older brother)

  • Robert Altmans The Long Goodbye As A Genre Revisionist Film

    1626 Words  | 4 Pages

    makes no serious effort to reproduce the Raymond Chandler detective novel… it just takes all the characters out of that novel and lets them stew together in something that feels like a private-eye movie." ---ROGER EBERT (REVIEW) The period of American cinema between 1965 and 1975 produced many films that almost completely restructured classical Hollywood’s accepted genre conventions. A fine example of this would be Robert Altman's iconoclastic take on Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe in The Long

  • La Cosa Nostra

    1244 Words  | 3 Pages

    La Cosa Nostra Perhaps one of the most poignant moments in American cinema is the closing scene in the film “The Godfather” when Don Vito Corleone’s son Michael takes over his father’s position... and one of the most unforgettable moments, a severed horses’s head lies bloody in a man’s bed. It is this tradition and brutality that characterizes the Mafia, a secret Sicilian society that lives and functions just as much today on American soil as it did and does still in Italy. To understand this organized

  • The Humanization of Modern-Day Film Vampires

    3004 Words  | 7 Pages

    are today. For what reasons did these changes occur? According to social critic I.C. Jarvie, “if we look again at the movie past . . . we find that the critical posture, the portrayal of society, has long been an important subtradition of the American cinema” (Social Criticism xiii). Thus, if we refer back to some of the earliest vampire films, we might receive some clues about the nature of the society that bir... ... middle of paper ... ...to pursue it. As Benjamin Hoff remarks in the Tao of

  • American Cinema And Culture By John Belton

    501 Words  | 2 Pages

    The change in culture and the value of society as a whole has greatly contributed to the evolution of the romance genre. In the book American Cinema and Culture by John Belton, he describes the women’s movement as turning into a sexual revolution. In the 1960s, the amount of working women grew tremendously (Cohen). Mothers began to encourage their daughters to marry at a later age and pursue a college education and career. In 1996 a women's movement organization named the National Organization

  • Cinema's Role in Society

    1720 Words  | 4 Pages

    Comm Tech Essay 1: Cinema/Film Many young people today are learning about their world through electronic means – radio, television, video movies, computer games, virtual reality games and the Internet. In particular the visual environment of the electronic media is greatly attracting the print media in all its forms. How many children read comic books these days? Most would rather watch cartoons, or play arcade games or hand-held video games. We will be focusing on cinema and how it has culturally