German Expressionism (Notes from FILM ART book by Bordwell and Thomson)

Below are some points that were raised and discussed by Bordwell and Thompson in their book entitled "Film Art: An Introduction" (pp. 447-450)

• German film industry was down at the start of World War I. Even if other countries like America and France already banned German films, they still played foreign films because of their situation. Because of this, they began to support the film industry. they banned foreign films except from Denmark in 1916. The production of films increased and grew to 131 in 1918. Cartels were also encouraged by the government.
• After the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917, rebellious tendencies increased. In late 1917, the large company called UFA, or Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft was created by the forces of the government, the Deutsche Bank and large industrial concerns to promote pro-war films. UFA was a move toward control of not only the German market but the postwar international market as well. This company was also able to gather great technicians and build best-equipped studios in Europe. Because of this, they attracted filmmakers from other countries, one of them was Alfred Hitchcock and they were able to spread German stylistic influence abroad.
• In the late 1918, the need for overt militarist propaganda disappeared. The German film industry concentrated on three genres: The internationally popular adventure serial, a brief sex exploitation cycle, and the popular Italian historical epics of the prewar period.
• In spite of the continued bans against German films in foreign countries, UFA finally was able to break into international market. In September 1919, Ernst Lubitsch’s Madame Dubarry inaugurated the magnificent UFA Palast Theater in Berlin. This film became popular and it helped reopen the world film market to Germany. After the success of this film, other Lubitsch historical films were soon exported. Ernst Lubitsch became the first German director to be hired by Hollywood in 1923.
• Some small companies remained independent. In 1919, Erich Pommer’s Decla (later Decla-Bioscop) undertook to produce an unconventional script by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz. The other three designers assigned to the film suggested doing it in an Expressionist style. Expressionism had first been important in painting, and had been also adapted into other fields like in theater, literature, architecture and cinema.
• The inexpensive film entitled The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) created a sensation on other countries. It was one of the typical examples of German Expressionism. It was like a moving Expressionist painting or woodcut print. The success of this film influenced other filmmakers in adapting Expressionist style on their works. The result was a stylistic movement in cinema that lasted several years. Big firms like UFA and other companies invested in Expressionist films. Because of its popularity and success, th most prominent German films were widely regarded among the best in the world in the mid-1920s.
• Some of the characteristics of German Expressionism were cited. Expressionist films depend highly on mise-en-scene. Shapes are distorted and exaggerated unrealistically for its expressive purposes. Actors often wear heavy make-up and move in slow, sinuous patterns. The characters do not simply exist within a setting but rather form visual elements that merge with the setting. As Expressionism became an accepted style, filmmakers didn’t motivate this style as the narrative point of view of mad characters. Instead, it often functioned to create stylized situation for fantasy and horror stories or historical epics. Expressionist films also depended greatly on their designers.
• In spite of the success of German Expressionism, a combination of circumstances led to the disappearance of the movement. Because of the rampant inflation of the early 1920s in Germany, German exporters were able to sell their films cheap. Inflation also discouraged imports. In 1924, the U.S Dawes Plan helped to stabilize the German economy. Foreign films came in frequently. Because of this, a degree of unknown competition lasted nearly a decade. UFA drives deeper into financial difficulty, making Erich Pommer quit and try his luck in America. Other people also tried their luck in Hollywood as well. By the year 1927, Expressionism as a movement had died out.
• Some German Expressionist films are: Waxworks (1924), Nosferatu (1922), The Nibelungen (1923-1924), F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), Lang’s M (193), Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1932), Son of Frankenstein (1939)
• Although German movement lasted about seven years, expressionism has never entirely died out as a trend in film style.

(Notes from the book Film Art:An Introduction by Bordwell and Thompson)

The book really had a lot of information about the rise and form of German Expressionism. As we discussed this topic on our cinema class, our professor shared the trailer of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". This film is a great example of German Expressionism. Watch it and see how German Expressionist films look like.

Source:

Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. (1979). Film Art: An Introduction (8^th ed.).  McGraw-Hill

Trainspotting

For the past meetings on our cinema class, we have watched various documentaries about American cinema. Finally this time, we watched a full movie that was very interesting. The film entitled "Trainspotting" made us concentrate and stay still on our chairs.

In a world full of hopes and challenges, we are introduced to a lifestyle far away from what we hoped for. Sometimes, we tend to do the wrong things because that’s what we think the best thing to do to escape reality. In the film Trainspotting, a group of heroin addicts were living in a lifestyle filled with cheating, stealing, fighting, lying and escaping. They live their life in an economically depressed area during the late 1980s. This British social realist film was based on the novel Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh and directed by Danny Boyle. It also shows how the characters explore their lives in urban poverty in Edinburgh. The characters in the film include Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), Spud (Ewen Bremmer), Sick boy (Johnny Lee Miller), Begbie (Robert Carlyle) and Tommy (Kevin McKidd).

This controversial film shows the life of Mark Renton and his circle of psycho friends who were drug addicts like him. It leads the viewers from the highs and the lows of their lives, ending up with drug deal and betrayal. It does not only show the awful world of drug addiction, but it also hits the viewers with important points to break up the possibility of self destruction.

Self-destruction. That’s what some people do because of their negative look on life.

As we watched the movie, we also appreciated its cinematography. I observed that the way it was filmed was great. I don't have much knowledge in criticizing a cinematography of a film, but in this movie, most of the scene shows a lot of meanings and symbolizes things about the story. The director has his own style in terms of techniques on how they shoot the entire film. It makes the audience understand more on the flow of the story.

“Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance. Choose leisure ware and matching luggage. Choose your future. But why would anyone want to do that?” That’s what they think about at first. But despite of the wrong things they have done, aside from being  worthless citizens, they also wanted a good life wherein there’s no drugs and crime. They tried to live a life far away from those vices, especially Renton. In the end, after Renton betrayed his friends by taking the money they earned from heroin transaction, he then vows to live a stable and traditional life.

Truth is, I'm not really fond of watching social realist films but after watching trainspotting, I somehow appreciated this kind of film. Movies about drug addiction are certainly nothing new, but this film makes everything look different. It gives us a message about how drugs can be so destructive because of its success in presenting the negative results and damages throughout the film. Aside from these, the theme of this film also stands out. Social acceptance is also being promoted among these kinds of people in our society. All of us need to be accepted by our society whatever our status in life may be, because even if we don’t admit it, our society contributes a lot into honing our lives.

Film Noir

We watched another documentary about cinema. This time, it talked about a genre of film. 


As we watched the documentary, it was said that in the end of World War II, the ambience of anxiety, pessimism and suspicion have prevailed because of the post-war era. It brought an era of rebuilding among families. That's why directors began to make cynical and pessimistic films that touched the nerves of the Americans. They made films that have their own look and unique characteristics. These films were black and ; they were dark and often raw. The stories were about crime, seduction and action. As John Lithgow said, "The only law in this breed of film was the rule of faith, a kind of moral restitution where everybody dies at the end. It represents a darker side of American film that began to replace the cheerier side of Hollywood in the 1940s. This kind of movie is called Film Noir."

Dark, angular shadows. Beautiful and determined women. The isolated feel of cities. These are the things that usually come to our mind when we think about Film Noir. In the early 1940s to the late 1950s, Hollywood's classical Film Noir bloomed in this period. Until the present time, this kind of genre is still applied by some directors. 

According to Wikipedia, The term film noir, French for "black film,” was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946. They noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crimes and detective films. In the post-war period, a wide range of films manifested the tension and insecurities in the society. Despair, fear, mistrust and paranoia are evident in this kind of film. The violent and greedy perspectives of anti-heroes were symptoms of society’s evils. There were seldom happy endings in film noir.

I noticed that in film noir, most stories developed around a cynical male character who encountered a beautiful and seductive femme fatale; an alluring or seductive woman, especially one who causes men to love her to their own distress. She would use her feminine guts to manipulate him into becoming the fall guy and often following a murder. After a betrayal, she was frequently destroyed as well, often at the cost of the hero's life.

As I've researched more about film noir, I have learned that these films have been also greatly influenced by German Expressionism. Shadows and lighting from German Expressionism was adapted to refine the dark mood of the crime stories and was ideal for B-grade films that had to be shot with less lighting due to its limited resources. The experiences of the film makers and actors from German Expressionism took an effect on the elements of the American films with their participation in the production. Because of that film noir became heavily influences by the film movement.

Film noir is an interesting genre because of its unique stories and styles. That’s why until now, film makers try to make films that use stylistic elements that are commonly used in contemporary films such as sci-fi and fantasy films.

Hollywood Style

America has a rich form of art, which is film. The Hollywood Style introduces the broad themes and stylistic conventions of a classical Hollywood film. It examines American production methods, basically on how Americans use the basic materials of filmmaking in a manner that is different from their foreign allies. Also, it provides us discussions of how different directors achieve different effects with the available materials they have.

On the documentary that we have watched, which is entitled “Hollywood Style”, it opens our eyes on how beautiful the films are. Aside from the actors, the men behind them especially the directors also contribute a lot to make these films better. They work hard on various elements like the style, structure and cinematography to make the story of these films effective. Also, the use of camera and editing are crucial elements of motion picture; that’s why as a student studying cinema, it is important for us to know how they achieve these effects with their materials and for us to learn how to critic various films as well.

Hollywood Style was indeed one of the most effective tools of American cinema.

We learned in this documentary that Hollywood has a unique style. They used the term “Classical Hollywood cinema” which includes both visual and sound style for making motion picture used in the American film industry. As the host in the documentary have said, time in classical Hollywood is continuous and they use flashback to manipulate time. They use flashbacks to introduce a memory sequence of a character, just like in Casablanca. To effectively tell their story, filmmakers rely on style, structure, narrative and visual elements. Some premiere directors like Martin Scorsese discussed how classical Hollywood style affects the films over time.

The magic of movies is that they make their own universe. Each film has a certain story that makes each of us travel and go into a new world out of the reality. American cinema proves this through their unique style. The Hollywood style is truly one of America’s finest and one of the reasons on how they developed great movies from the classic films up to the present. And because of this, Hollywood made a profound effect on cinema across the world on our generation.

Film School Generation

In our cinema class, we have watched some documentaries about film, most specifically the American Cinema. This time, we watched a documentary about Film School Generation, a  new generation of young filmmakers who came to revolutionize the way American films were made and appreciated. This documentary examines the generation of great Sixties directors who challenged traditional thinking on what movies could be about and say. Some of them include Francis Coppola, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Brian de Palma and Steven Spielberg. The films they made were part of the studio system. They introduced subject matter and styles that set them apart from the studio traditions. 

Steven Spielberg

George Lucas

We learned that a lot of famous directors went to film school on which made them real good in directing and making films. Some of the famous film schools in America were the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts. According to the author Lynda Miles, UCLA is a film school noted for personal kind of cinema while USC is a film school who fought the industry. Some of the Directors who have attended and earned degrees from film schools include Francis Ford Coppola (UCLA Film School, MFA film directing), Martin Scorsese (NYU Film School, MFA film directing), and George Lucas (USC Film School, BA film directing). 

Martin Scorsese

There are some kinds of directors who are public in mind and those who don’t consider public at all. Based on the film that we watched, for me the directors who are public in mind are George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. George and Spielberg have an American point of view and wanted to make movies that would move everybody. George Lucas made films that became a hit such as American Graffiti and Star Wars; while Steven Spielberg made hit movies such as Jaws and Jurassic Parl. On the other hand, the directors who make films for themselves are Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Brian de Palma and John Milius. These directors make movies to satisfy and can move themselves. They don’t really care if their movies will become a hit, they just want to express themselves in film the way people them were doing it.

All directors have their own style and ideas in making films. For me this is a good thing for cinema and in the world industry because they can make a profound effect by making such good films that can make the industry grow effectively. The global market also is growing, as many countries are creating a consumer demand for film within their growing economies. When we think about basic needs, we don’t really think about watching a movie. But as developing countries improve their economic reality, movie theatres become possible.