Story of Film – Episode 1 – Birth of Cinema

• The following material is from Wikipedia
• Notes
• Saving Private Ryan (1998) dir. Steven Spielberg
  • Spielberg used many cameras, bullets, and blood to make the scene realistic.
• Three Colors: Blue (1993) dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
  • Kieslowski makes us empathetic for the old lady by using floods of light.
• Casablanca (1942) dir. Michael Curtiz
  • Curtiz portrays a romantic era with strong lighting and costume.
• The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
  • Ozu created a true classic because it isn’t in a rush. He uses beautiful shots of ordinary places.
• Odd Man Out (1947) dir. Carol Reed
  • Reed shows the main character who sees his troubles in the bubbles of a drink.
• Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Godard drew influence from Reed and shot bubbles in a moment when the main character is self absorbed.
• Taxi Driver (1976) dir. Martin Scorsese
  • Scorsese drew influence from Reed and Godard by showing the main character looking into bubbles, seeing his own troubles and possibly some deeper cosmos.
• The French Connection (1971) dir. William Friedkin
  • Friedkin makes the audience think that the scene of a car chasing a train will be the main story.

1895-1918: The World Discovers a New Art Form or Birth of the Cinema

• Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888) dir. Louis Le Prince
  • Prince shows the town of Leeds which had circus acts.
• The Kiss (1896 film) (a.k.a. May Irwin Kiss) (1896) dir. William Heise
  • A short movie shot in Edison’s Black Mariah.
• Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895) dir. Louis Lumière
  • One of the first movies shot by the Lumieres.
• Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896) dir. Louis Lumière
  • One of the first films the Lumieres shot and showed on the Boulevard Capoucine.
• Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894-1896 ?) dir. William Kennedy Dickson or William Heise
  • A film that appeals to the imagination by showing a fairy-like character.
• Sandow (1894) dir. William Kennedy Dickson
  • A film that appeals to the imagination by showing a strongman.
• What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City (1901) dir. George S. Flemingand Edwin S. Porter
  • A film that gives us a piece in an image bank to return to when we are bored, happy, or sad.
• Cendrillon (1899) dir. Georges Méliès
  • Melies accidentally discovered how to make things appear and disappear on film.
• Le voyage dans la lune (1902) dir. Georges Méliès
• La lune à un mètre (1898) dir. Georges Méliès
  • In this film, Melies incorporates some of film’s first special effects.
• The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) dir. George Albert Smith
  • Smith was one of the first to film from the front of the train, creating a ghostly tracking effect.
• Shoah (1985) dir. Claude Lanzmann
  • Lanzmann incorporated Smith’s train technique to film a Holocaust documentary.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) dir. Stanley Kubrick
  • Kubrick used Smith’s train technique to make it seem like the main character was having an out of body experience.
• The Sick Kitten (1903) dir. George Albert Smith
  • Smith used one of the first close ups in cinema.
• October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
  • Eisenstein portrays movement and tragedy with a closeup of a dead woman’s hand and hair.
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) dir. Sergio Leone
  • Leone uses a closeup of the antagonist’s face to show the realization that the protagonist has that the antagonist is the murder.
• The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897) dir. Enoch J. Rector
  • Rector was one of the first to film with a larger than normal sized lens.

1903-1918: The Thrill Becomes Story or The Hollywood Dream

• Life of an American Fireman (1903) dir. Edwin S. Porter
  • Porter was one of the first films that showed the flow of motion from one space to another (“continuity cutting, the cinema equivalent of the word then“)
• Sherlock Jr. (1924) dir. Buster Keaton
  • Keaton was one of the first to use double exposure.
• The Horse that Bolted (1907) dir. Charles Pathé
  • Pathe was one of the first to use parallel editing (the cinema equivalent of the word meanwhile).
• The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (a.k.a. The Assassination of the Duc de Guise) (1908) dir. Charles le Bargy and André Calmettes
  • One of the first movies in which the director allowed the actors to turn their back to the audience, creating the reverse angle shot.
• Vivre sa vie (1962) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Godard made the beginning of Vivre sa Vie interesting by shooting the back of the actress’s head.
• Those Awful Hats (1909) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • The audience had believed an actress in the film, Florence Lawrence, had died.
• The Mended Lute (1909) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • The actress from Those Awful Hats returns to the screen, making audiences hysterical. Florence Lawrence was the first movie star.
• The Abyss (1910) dir. Urban Gad
  • Featured the next, more famous, movie star after Florence Lawrence.
• Stage Struck (1925) dir. Allan Dwan
  • Hollywood began adding more glamour to their movies.
• The Mysterious X (1914) dir. Benjamin Christensen
  • Christensen’s The Mysterious X had some of the best uses of light in film history.
• Häxan (1922) dir. Benjamin Christensen
  • In this film, Christensen used complex lighting.
• Ingeborg Holm (1913) dir. Victor Sjöström
  • Sjostrom’s Ingeborg Holm has naturalism and grace.
• The Phantom Carriage (1921) dir. Victor Sjöström
  • One of the great multi-layered films of the silent era.
• Shanghai Express (1932) dir. Josef von Sternberg
  • Features youth and glamour.
• The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) dir. Charles Tait
• The Squaw Man (1914) dir. Oscar Apfel and Cecil B. DeMille
  • Has a powerful scene that is strong only because the characters who are in different scenes look like they are looking at each other.
• The Empire Strikes Back (1980) dir. Irvin Kershner
  • Uses the 180 degree rule.
• Falling Leaves (1912) dir. Alice Guy-Blaché
  • Uses touching poetics.
• Suspense (1913) dir. Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber
  • Uses a splitscreen.
• The Wind (1928) dir. Victor Sjöström
  • Cut like a filler and filmed like a dream.
• Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest (1908) dir. J. Searle Dawley
• The House with Closed Shutters (1910) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • Griffith said that “[films] need to show the wind in the trees”. Decades later, the critic Roland Barthes said that “some images have unplanned, natural details in them that move us”. Barthes called this the “punctum”.
• Way Down East (1920) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • The lighting matches the delicate acting and overall “visual softness”.
• Orphans of the Storm (1921) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • Griffith and his photographer, Gottfried Wilhelm Bitzer, “understood the psycological intensity of a lense.”
• The Birth of a Nation (1915) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • “Showed the power of cinema and its danger.”
• Rebirth of a Nation (2007) dir. DJ Spooky
• “Sampled and played with the toxic scene from “The Birth of a Nation”.“
• Cabiria (1914) dir. Giovanni Pastrone
  • A film that inspired Griffith with its dolly shots and its use of elephants to symbolize skill.
• Intolerance (1916) dir. D. W. Griffith
  • About love’s struggle through history. Used undercutting.
• Souls on the Road (a.k.a. Rojo No Reikan) (1921) dir. Minoru Murata
  • “The first great Japanese film”. “A pioneering use of parallel editing in Asia”.