09.10.02
While watching the Auguste & Lumiere films, I was amazed to see how ordinary human tasks; such as feeding a child became extra ordinary events. It reminded me of the phenomenon of when consumer video cameras became popular among soccer moms. It was interesting to learn that the events were filmed depending upon how much film was on the reel. I wanted to see more details of the characters in the lumiere films. I felt too distant from the lives of the characters and it seemed to me that I was only observing them from a distant perspective.
Georges Melies amazed me with his intricate stage design and basically the entire production of his short films. By creating effects in the camera and double exposing the film and stopping the film to get the effect of people quickly appearing his work seemed like magic to me. Most of the time the camera was located in the middle of the stage. Melies’ sense of space is dynamic in the Conquest to the Pole in the scene where the rockets falls and falls through different levels of space giving a greater sense of depth and displaying his creative intelligence.
The Great Train Robbery, by Edwin S. Porter was strange because the opening shot and the last shot with the close-up of the man with the gun did not fit the rest of the film. This mis-match of shot perspectives was one of the earlier times in film when we could actually see the close-up in character. The D.W. Griffith films had a more narrative story line to them and I enjoyed how we were given close-up shots of the characters so we could have a more intimate understanding of character. Especially in The Lonedale Operator the camera is getting closer to the character where the details reveal more than the films of Lumiere and Melies. Expression is needed for a good performance and you need to spend time with each character to add to the performance. In The New York Hat, there is more time spent with the female character, more time for character indication. This film arises social by the women of the church gossiping about the female character’s fictional relationship with the priest. The gossip gets back to the girl’s father who destroys the hat given to her by the priest. This scandal gives a type of sophistication that was not added in earlier films. It also shows that the medium is maturing and contextualizing social issues that other filmmakers did not include in their effort.

09.17.02
Silent comedy was before sound’s introduction to film. From watching The Rink, 1916 by Charlie Chaplin and staring Chaplin it was compelling to see that the character of Chaplin as the slippery, mischievous antagonist. He has this belligerent relationship with the other men in the film, especially rich men. It’s funny that Charlie Chaplin almost has a split personality disorder because he treats women totally different. He is romantic with the pretty younger women, very flirtatious and a charmer. His relationship with the older and unattractive women is the same as with the men. Chaplin uses objects as extensions of his body, which shows his innovative and creative resourcefulness as a comic. From watching him, his movements are extremely athletic but fluid like a graceful ballet. I focus on him no matter what type of environment he is in, but he has to be interacting with it. Buster Keaton in One Week, 1920 and The Boat, 1921 his personality is more clumsy and oblivious to his environment and the people in that environment, which is much different from Charlie Chaplin. I feel that Buster Keaton is not as clever as Chaplin, because he is reacting to what is going around, not controlling the action. For example in One Week, he nails the car to the back of the house and the audience already knows that the nails won’t hold, but he proceeds to move the house this way and the car falls apart. Keaton is a subject of his environment, not like the forefront of his environment like Charlie Chaplin. The way the film was shot, the camera is further away from Keaton, so the viewer sees more of the environment. The character in the larger environment becomes encircled, smaller and becomes the mercy of the environment. Keaton’s relationship with other men is that he is taken as a fool and with younger pretty women. Women control Keaton’s character, for example his wife in One Week, is wearing the pants and Buster is the subservient good husband. On the other hand, Chaplin puts women on pedestals and they seem to get in his way. The women in Keaton’s films are idiots, which make them equal to him. Keaton does all of his own stunts; even falling where is more mechanical in his movements. Laurel and Hardy in Two Tars, 1928 and Big Business, 1929; we get to see a myriad of expressions in their faces. The comedy is more a reaction in their faces and we are looking for these reactions as cues to laugh. Also, at this time sound was introduced to film. Laurel and Hardy act as little boys when they are around women, almost eager to please and their relationship with men is more confrontational. They seem to destroy everything they touch, and that the objects they encounter are adversarial, so they battle with them and lose every time. They go to war with everything in their environment, so this is where the laughter comes from.

09.24.02
no class.

10.01.02
In class we watched Greed, 1924 by Erich von Stroheim and The Last Laugh, 1924 by F.W. Murnau. Both of these films ended the reign of German Expressionism due to a strong American influence in film. While closely watching these movies to do the shot analysis I noticed that the gothic look of these films, with an extreme contrasted look. The characters in Von Stroheim's Greed, on the other hand, possess this practical depiction of humans. In this film the characters are a real portrayal of real human beings with imperfections and weaknesses. McTeague for instance, is portrayed as kind and gentle towards animals yet violent by nature. Marcus, McTeague's friend and later his foe, is portrayed as a humorous, witty but at the same time scheming and harbors grudges against McTeague. The characters in Greed are much more realistic, painting a true picture of the complexity of human nature. It is also a break from the then prevailing norm in showing only one-sided nature of the characters, which is either wholly good or wholly bad. In addition to that, Von Stroheim also showed the psychological development of his characters. The character Trina (Zasu Pitts) is a lovely and harmless girl. However blinded by greed and obsession for more money, she became a miser and was always looking for ways to save her money by making her husband pay for everything. McTeague, on the other hand, loved Trina but later came to hate her for being demanding and misery and eventually murdered her for her wealth. In The Last Laugh, With Jannings performance, it may be easy to lose sight of the fact that F.W. Murnau's direction is equally fabulous. While the film is virtually told without intertitles, and that is often one of the first achievements of the film that gets noted, dramatic lighting, great camera moves, and hand-held shots all contribute to impressively to the visual language of cinema. The camera tracking in and out, or the effect achieved for the oppressive feeling of the hotel falling on him after Jannings steals back the uniform. The effects are those of Murnau speaking in an experimental and expressionistic visual voice.10.08.02
We first watched Ballet Mecanique, 1924 by Fernand Leger and repetitive images reminded me of a ballet of machines. This time period of the 1920s was the machine age, which brought different attitudes toward the machine. In this film there are images we don’t associate with machines like lips smiling and the animation of the dancing guy. The movements are jerky repeating those of a machine. The most interesting scene in the film was the lady going up the stairs and never quite getting up them. Entr’acte, 1924 by Rene Clair intent was to make fun of Parisian society by trying to offend the establishment. Some offensive things in the movie are the people eating at the funeral procession, blowing air up women’s’ skirts and these acts make the viewer laugh. Extreme offensive acts that define Dadaism were looking up a ballerina’s skirt, which was later revealed as a man. Dadaism is anti-establishment against the bourgeois, which is a direct reaction against WWII. Also, Rene Clair uses time manipulation in his filming process. For example, some scenes are really fast and some slow which is speed and slow motion and we see Rene’s fascination with the lens because we see the image going straight into it. We then viewed an excerpt of Duck Soup, 1933 by the Marx brothers. This film excerpt was intriguing because there were breaks for laughter written into the skit, which is called comic timing. Un Chien Andalou, 1929 by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali seem to have been derived from the concept of dreams and the sub-conscious and trying to get what’s inside out of the mind, which can be considered free association. Snow White (Betty Boop), 1933 by Max and Dave Fleischer contains sexual content for that time and after 1934 her character was censored. Betty Boop in this cartoon wears a short shirt and moves in a very sexual manner. These movements were easily traced by the use of a rhotoscope. Tin Pan Alley Cats, 1943 by Bob Clampett and Olympia: Diving Sequence, 1938 by Leni Rienfenstahl were both difficult for me to watch. The racist cartoon by Bob Clampett showed how prevalent racist stereotypes were in the 1940s. The diving movie was created to show how superior the Arian German race was in the sport of diving. Both pieces of media, even though so different stereotyped races due to opinion rather than truth.

10.15.02
In class we watched Battleship Potemkin, 1925, Sergi M, Eisenstein and The Man with the Movie Camera, 1929, Dziga Vertov. This is a montage, the cutting of one shot against another evolved from areas such as cubism and theater. It was interesting to find out that this was Eisenstein’s second film because the content reflected a more experienced and versed filmmaker. In the Odessa step sequence, Eisenstein is extending the real action and not giving us the physical reality, so he is sharing with us an emotional realism. He cuts several times to the faces and expressions of the people dying or ready to be shot. The scene I find the most emotional and bothersome is when the mother is shot and her baby in the carriage rolls down the steps. Even this sequence is slowed down and represents the gore and atrocity of power. Battleship Potemkin was created in part because it was commissioned by the government and was used as a form of propaganda. The purpose of it was for the public to sides with the forces who fought to overthrow the czar. Another reason was to provide to the illiterate masses with a visual experience where they could understand what was going on in the government. In The Man with the Movie Camera, it was to show the camera as a machine and that filmmaking is an industrial machine. Vertov wanted to emphasize that the camera is just important as all the other machines and that it is a new and exciting technology. During the entire film, the camera is the star and we get to see the opening and closing of the lens in comparison to the human eye. There is a scene where there is a transition from photographic stills to stopped motion frame film still to moving image to the actual film, to the film in the reels, to the woman editing it. This scene means so much to me because it shows the evolution of media and comparing it to the growth and industrial growth of Moscow and its surrounding cities. There is a transition in this sequence when we see the face of the typical peasant older woman than it cuts to the face of a young female child, which represents to me the face of the new Russia. A Russia that will embrace the movie camera showing through its eyes the positive aspects of automobiles, motorcycles, trains, assembly line machines, etc.

10.22.02
The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1928 by Carl-Theodor Dreyer was extremely powerful for me to watch. The visual strategies in this movie were intentional, for example the large amount of close-ups cause an emotional intensity in a claustrophobic space. We see more detail in each character, exposing more of their fatal flaws. Also, the close-ups do not give us a visual break and we don’t get a chance to see the surrounding environment. Sometimes it makes the viewer feel like they are being interrogated, just like Jeanne. Also, there is a lot of space above the actors’ heads so it seems they are cramped to the bottom of the screen: possibly showing the presence or impact of God. The space feels negative and claustrophobic, so it invites the participation of the viewer. Another technique that is used is the swinging camera, which is disorientating: people moving upside down and the cuts make us feel disoriented. All of these techniques that Dryer uses makes me fell that he wants us to feel the craziness of Jeanne. The background is the white space and it has the effect that Jeanne is imprisoned in interrogation and that she is disjointed from her environment. Also, there are no full body shots of Jeanne, so her specific sex is not visually defined. It’s hard to tell if she is male or female because we can’t distinguish by her physical stature and posture and how she moves in the space. She seems to be in limo because we don’t know where we are as a viewer so we are in as much limbo as Jeanne. There are no establishing shots in this film on purpose and Dreyer’s effect of breaking all the rules gives it, its own unique experience.
The Color Box was an amazing experience for me to watch. Lye was the first person documented to use the technique of painting on film in 1935, where he took 35mm film and carefully applied paint to each frame. Also, he draws the viewer in by using popular Cuban dance music of the time. The colors combined with the music make the film fun, even though it was created as an advertisement for the General Post Office that was later shown in theaters. For most of Len-Lye’s piece, it seems like the sound and movement are related, but not a perfect synch that gives it a sense of a human hand. It’s abstract, so it’s more about music and the visualization of the notes and how they would be depicted if they were visuals moving in time and space. This example was pre-after effects of solarization and collage. The most intriguing part of this film was how the type was treated like an image and was not given more importance than the moving colors. So the type was an equal partner to all the other elements in the composition.
In Austere Fishinger’s, Composition in Blue, 1933 he uses three-dimensional stop motion animation for his film. Its almost pre-Fantasia and we later learn that he was hired by Disney to do the fugue scene but he wanted to do it in an abstract way and Disney felt the audience wouldn’t get it, so they stole his concept and replaced it with characters.

10.29.02
Too many moments in Morocco where nothing seems to be happening. Gradual affection of two people. At the end of movie, she goes after him, which is the most aggressive point of the movie. Throughout they are emotionally and sexually attracted to each other. Emotionally they are not getting together, because they don’t get together because they are scared of getting hurt, they have a past. The last scene, she has committed herself to him. This film is full of subtleties….even the ending. On the soundtrack we hear the wind that is it: the whisper of the wind. Its not treated in the traditional sense of drama. He is able to take the intense emotions and demonstrate those intense dramatic gestures by using small subtle moments because these characters are not able to express these intense emotions. Another problem of the film is the portrayal of the women. Her character goes from complete masculine figure to submissive barefoot follower trudging behind the soldiers. Which further shows her commitment towards her love of the soldier. They are showing their “electricity” in subtle pauses, in him carving her name into the table, which are so contrived but less than how other films use drama. It’s so different than what people in Hollywood are doing, so Sternberg is praised. The older character accepts her wishy-washy attitude towards him. She is choosing to throw away the stability of money and stature and love a soldier’s pension. Spanish speaking women in Morocco, which doesn’t make any sense. This is the least stylized character of Dietrich and the overall film.
Shadows in opening scene amazing/and when she first appears in nightclub
Film starts off with rhythm of drums. He is filling frames w/ lots of people and stuff. He introduces characters in a myriad of stuff, putting character in environment, he creates a softness with Cooper’s character. All the stuff in the frame is on purpose to put an emphasize on en. Dietrich is introduced coming out of fog, with little dialogue. The set design of the film is in an expressionistic style with shadows etc. There is stuff in foreground, which is not common for film of this time. In one sense she is extremely tough, the other is so soft and atypical feminine. Wonderful moment when she takes the flower from woman in audience
And kisses her…androgynous character all molded by Sternberg. She is not conforming, setting her own agenda, which is exotic, appeals to both men and women. Character is through her movements and timing an example is her moving her hat. Seductive character is both male and female when she acts, she is as equally seductive with both roles. We as a viewer feel as oppressed as the characters do, due to the portrayal of the environment. We don not feel the actual heat, but the heat of the passion of the characters.

11.05.02
Trouble in Paradise by Ernst Lubitsch in 1932 has a story embedded in it where the crooks are lovable and carefree people. Their humorous dialogue was perfectly timed throughout the movie. The set design was simple but yet well thought out, even the smallest details. For example the attention paid to the numerous clocks used, the ashtray in the form of a boat, the pivotal staircase. The viewer can see the Art Deco influence in the furniture design and how it helped to later influence the Art Deco craze off the screen. In this movie, it seems as though everyone has to run up and down the staircase to get somewhere on the set. Even the lighting adds to the sense of romance and it makes us think what type of relationship the main characters have. The crooks have this intelligence and charm that the motion picture code wouldn’t have allowed if this movie was produced after 1933. At the beginning of the movie, even the titling sequence even alludes to sex. If you slow down the frame rate of the movie, Trouble in Paradise translates into trouble in bed. This movie could be considered scandalous of the time because the main couple was living in sin without being married. This film was released in the midst of the Depression, so it was a form of total escapism. In times of such extreme poverty, Trouble in Paradise completely glamorized the depression of the decade.

11.12.02
Easy Living in 1937 by Mitchell Leisen is a great example of a screwball comedy of the time. Gene Arthur is the main character of the film where she can be ditsy, honest naïve and charming, but characteristically overly abrasive, pushy, and obnoxious. The verbal battle of the sexes is prevalent in this film, which further emphasizes that Easy Living is a screwball comedy. The focus is on people with enormous quantities of money and directly making fun of them. The heroine is poor and is working for an unheard newspaper, when a fur coat and its lifestyle seem to fall from the sky. One of the most visually appealing scenes of the movie is the disturbance in the Automat. The busboy that actually is the son of a multi-millionaire banker who’s the heroine. He steals food for her and ends up getting into a fight with the security guard and the entire store. It causes such a disturbance, that they escape to the lushness of her fake hotel room. People of the time could identify with Gene Arthur because she is a fighter and can play many roles to survive. It seems as though she was born into a rich social class, because she is so good at fooling her audience. The overall set design of the interior of the hotel is an explosion of decadence and over indulgence. Gene Arthur’s hotel room is ornate, even the bathtub is a maiden in a shell, which can be a metaphor for her life. The funniest and most romantic scene is when they are trying to figure out how the bathtub works and they accidentally turn it on, and they become drenched, and of course the doorbell rings. The comedy and dialogue is light and sweet, so it does not appeal as decadent as the setting.

11.19.02
Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir in 1939 is allowing things play out in their own space. Renoir is not forcing us to look at specifics, which makes the movie seem more like real life. The story is about the game of love, ways of behaving, friends and enemies and human relationships. Renoir uses the dialogue throughout the movie as noise and sound, so the actual words are not important. The camera movement in the film is roving and fleeting, so there is no commitment, which mimics the personality of the characters in the film. The camera is not telling us to look, so the importance is how the film is shot, not the dialogue. For most of the film, the camera is moving in a linear path, which is considered directed movement. For the rest of the film, the camera is moving in a fluid way, where it shifts in planes of spaces almost in moving arcs, which is the opposite of a directed movie. Andre is shot like one of the rabbits, which is one of the most engaging scenes of nonsense in the entire movie. Rules of the Game was created on the eve of WWII, which can be nicknamed the end of idiocy where everyone seemed out of touch which reality. Both the French and German governments banned the movie because it was considered extremely offensive for its time. Renoir was considered a political filmmaker and this movie was much of a political statement as Easy Living, Trouble in Paradise, and Battleship Potemkin.