European Cinema

Notes for 2.7.05

Pete Hurdle

Early French Films (1920- 1930)

The class starts with an introduction and power point slides about French Films from 1920- 1930. Dr. Reimer describes the films to stand out from what the rest of the world was making.

Traits of these Films

• Use of experimentation

• Epics that tell the great history of France - Napoleon (1927)

• Rough and truthful- tells the story through the acting and not by    

   being over produced

In comparison to the rest of the world in the 1920’s

France had a less produced style and only ¼ the amount of films made as Germany. Hollywood movies are made for pure entertainment while French movies while still entertaining are considered serious art. The UFA’s hold on Europe’s film industry puts France behind Germany.

Photogenie

• Coined by director Louis Deloc

• Defines the dialogue between the existing world and the actual

    world. What is seen on the camera is the event, it is not an actual

    event because it is people acting.

• Opposes the German style of the expression being in the look and

   sets and uses framing, editing, and lighting to get it’s point across.

• Commercial French cinema like British cinema at the time was too

   stage like.

Film must be visual; Dr. Reimer states this as a reminder and a segway to writer and director Germaine Dulac. Dulac’s style focuses on “image and rhythms” and reduces the importance of dramatic action, all of which is very experimental. Some of Dulac’s films are:

The Death of the Sun (1921)

Invitation to a Journey (1927)

The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928)

The Dominant Style of 1930’s France: Cinegraphine

• The next step from photogenie

• Goes in two directions

     1. Poetic Cinema or pure movement (Avante Guard)

     2. Utilization of techniques to reflect interior states (Impressionism)

Names to know

Abel Gance

• Sweeping visuals

• Fluid camera shots

• The screen is a painter’s canvas

• Best known for Napoleon (1927), which is an epic that was re-released in 1981 by

   Francis Ford Coppola with a new score from his father Carmine.

• Pioneered the rapid editing that Russian films are usually given credit for in his films

    Napoleon (1927) and in La Roue (1923)

• Worked in the film industry from 1909- 1971 and Napoleon was the subject of 

    many of those films.

Rene Clair

• Uses the dream like/ under the surface surreal imagery.

• Disorientation

• Use of stop animation, slow motion and fast motion.

• Most famous film is probably Entrácte

French Film Industry in the 1930’s

As a whole is very artsy and diverse, we watch a documentary on French film from the Cinema Europe series. The Other Hollywood: The Music of Lights

Clips from Napoleon (1927) are shown in fast motion and with a red tint which gives it a more violent perception to the viewer. The next part they show is in black and white and is much slower; it is the results of the fighting from before.

After WWI people films went to the streets. Natural locations from real events were almost documentary like. The narrator points out these films many times need a love story to draw a crowd. The realness of these films also was captured in the spontaneity of them as they were under produced. The artists’ being free to make what they want is the ‘free cinema’.

Film clips shown:

La Roue (1923)

• Fluid camera work, almost all on location.

• Rapid cutting that flows with music.

Les Misérables (1925)

• Shown in episodes

• Set in 1937 when Victor Hugo wrote the novel.

• The American version was cut from 32 reels to 8.

There are a few shots from serials like The Three Musketeers and their sequels.

These films of the late 1920’s and 1930’s showed the world the ‘real Paris’. France did not depend on stars as Hollywood does. France and Germany are film rivals again.

Miracle of the Wolves (1924)

• Directed by Raymond Bernard

• Pioneered the handheld camera in this epic.

The Chess Player (1927)

• Bernards follow up to Miracle of the Wolves.

Russians came to France looking for work in refuge from their civil war.

Napoleon (1927)

• Extreme rapid cutting, example: Snowball fight and war shots.

• Audience is in the action with cameras on sleds, people, horses, and even on a

   guillotine type device. Besides those cameras Simon Feldman also made a camera  

   powered by compressed air and put cameras on each other to make a panorama

   view, made up of three shots.

Many films of this era have tints of green, blue, white, red or black, the end of Napoleon uses the tints to make a French Flag. Space and time loose meaning with dreams, flashbacks, and other expressions pioneered in French editing.

Class ends.

Some titles and dates are from IMDB.com