Classic Film 101

Classic Film 101

Jennifer Churchill

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Classic Film
• Teaches us about the past - perceptions, dreams,
aspirations of previous generations
• Continuous, uninterrupted thread connects today’s
movies with those of the past - science, art combine
• Cultural references ingrained in our society: “I’m
ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.” ... “I’ll be back.” ...
“An Affair to Remember” ... “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give
a damn.” ... Rita Hayworth in “Shawshank Redemption”


Why Study It?

• “The language of the moving photographic image has
become so pervasive in our daily lives that we scarcely notice
its presence. ... We can choose to live in ignorance ... or teach
ourselves to read it, to appreciate its very real and manifold
truths, to recognize its equally real and manifold deceptions.”
- David A. Cook, “A History of Narrative Film”


Gilda


Film Is An Illusion
• The illusion of continuous motion upon which
cinematography is based are dependent on:
• Persistence of vision: the brain retains
images cast upon the retina of the eye for
@1/20 to 1/5 of a second beyond their actual
removal from the ﬁeld of vision
• Phi phenomenon: causes us to see the
individual blades of a rotating fan or different
hues of a spinning color wheel as unitary forms


Illusion of Motion

• The illusion of continuous motion can be induced
in our brains at rates as low as 12 frames (of still
photography frames) per second, yet speeds have
traditionally been set at 16 frames per second for
silent ﬁlm, 24 for sound
• Frames are separated by thin, unexposed frame
lines; we actually spend as much as 50% of the
time in darkness every time we watch a ﬁlm


And thus ...

• “... the continuity of movement and light that seems to be the
most palpable quality of the cinema exists only in our brains,
making cinema the ﬁrst communications
medium to be based upon psycho-perceptual
illusions created by machines. The second, of
course, is television.” - David A. Cook, “The History
of Narrative Film”


Pre/Still Photography
• “Phase” drawings created optical illusions in many
toys of the mid-1800s
• Thaumatrope - early 19th c. children’s toy
• Phenakistoscope - 1832- Greek for “deceitful view”
• Zoetrope - 1834
• 1839 - Still photography invented by Daguerre


Series Photography
• Eadweard Muybridge - hired in 1872 by Leland
Stanford, former CA gov and wealthy
businessman, to prove that at some point in its
gallop a racehorse lifts all four hooves off the
ground (ﬂipbook handout)
• 1877 - set up a a battery of a series of electrically
operated cameras along a Sacramento racetrack
• 1st time live action was recorded continuously


Motion

• The separate functions of the live action
photography machines needed to be incorporated
into a single instrument for cinema to be born
• Many involved, independently inventing plates to
roll ﬁlm, projection devices: Etienne-Jules Marye,
Hannibal Goodwin, George Eastman


Kinetograph

• First true motion-picture camera - Edison
Laboratories - battery-driven and weighed several
hundred pounds (viewed through a Kinetoscope, a
box-like peep-show viewing machine, individual)
• 1894: ﬁrst Kinetoscope parlor opened in NYC - 5-
cent views of vaudeville and slapstick skits
• No concept of editing; captured what eye could see


Auguste & Louis
Lumiere
• Studied Edison’s machine and invented an
apparatus that served as camera, projector, and
film printer: the Cinematographe - coined the term
still attached to the medium of film today and
established the 16 fps silent film standard
• Portable, hand-cranked, weighed just 16 lbs., free
from studio confinement


First Lumiere Film
• La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumiere (Workers Leaving
the Lumiere Factory): March 22, 1895
http://www.institut-lumiere.org/francais/films/1seance/1seance01.html

• Factory door opening was as shocking to the audience as Clint
Eastwood walking off of the screen into the aisle today
• Shown to a private audience in Paris; the 1st
effective theatrical projection of a film
• Dec. 28, 1895 - first paying audience at the Grand
Cafe in Paris, 10 short films - cost was 1 fr./person


Le Voyage dans la lune

• Many changes lead to the commercial development
of ﬁlm as an entertainment medium and the
evolution of narrative
• Georges Melies, a magician: cinema’s ﬁrst narrative
artist - constructed storyboards, planned ahead
• A Trip to the Moon, produced in 1902, @ 14 min.


Skipping ...

• Modern continuity editing, patent wars,
commercial establishment of the new art form,
early American, German, Italian and French silent
ﬁlms
• Focusing on American ﬁlm ... production
companies moved from NY to Hollywood 1907 to
1913 and established studios, the star system, etc.


1910s


Birth of a Nation
• World War I shut down the more successful
French and Italian film industries, eliminating
European competition (same chemicals used to
produce celluloid were needed to make gun powder)
• 1914: the U.S. produced @ half of the world’s
motion pictures; by 1918, U.S. made almost all
• 1915: D.W. Griffith’s epic was the largest and
most expensive film ever made
• http://www.archive.org/details/dw_griffith_birth_of_a_nation


Birth of A Nation
• Controversial ﬁlm - blatantly racist; Grifﬁth edited
it in later years under pressure from the NAACP
• Stylistically and narratively genius
• Composed of 1,544 separate shots (average was
fewer than 100 at the time)
• “It is like writing history with lightning.” - President
Woodrow Wilson


1920s


Hollywood in the ‘20s

• Film became reﬁned, appealed to upper classes,
luxury theatres built, production budgets rose, star-
system, Wall Street invested, post-war Jazz Age
morality
• Big studio systems being built: Paramount founded
in 1916, Loew’s/Metro Pictures in 1921, United
Artist formed in 1919 by D.W. Grifﬁth, Charlie
Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: 1924

Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd

• Silent ﬁlm greats: Charlie
Chaplin (the Little Tramp,
The Gold Rush), Buster Keaton
(1927’s The General) and
Harold Lloyd (Safety Last)


Color & Sound
• Silent film accompaniment (full-scale orchestras,
Wurlitzer organs), synchronization of sound
recorded with film biggest obstacle
• 1927: The Jazz Singer, 1st feature-length film to
employ synchronized dialogue realistically; Changed
whole business structure: orchestras, silent stars
who’d never spoke (Sunset Blvd)
• Color: Stenciling/hand-tinting done for many
years ... early 1930s Technicolor 2-c faded
• 1939 famous color films - Wizard of Oz, GWTW

1930s


King Kong
• Depression era
• Studio system at its peak - adventure, romance,
fantastical as escapism
• The Champ, Grand Hotel, The Thin Man, 42nd Street,
Robin Hood, It Happened One Night, Grand Illusion
• 1933: http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?
o_cid=mediaroomlink&cid=219240


It Happened One Night

• 1934: http://www.tcm.com/
mediaroom/index/?
o_cid=mediaroomlink&cid=
20854


1940s


Citizen Kane

• 1941
• directed by/starring Orson Welles
• considered greatest movie of all
time - innovative cinematography,
narrative structure and music
• Loosely based on W.R.H.


The Maltese Falcon
• Arsenic and Old Lace, The Best Years of Our Lives, Bambi,
Casablanca, The Grapes of Wrath, It’s A Wonderful Life,
The Philadelphia Story
• Film noir at its height: stylish crime dramas, low-
key b&w visual style, cynical, sexual - Humphrey
Bogart, the face of popular ﬁlm noir
• http://www.archive.org/details/
TheMalteseFalcontrailer1941


1950s


Production Changes
• 1950s great movies: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, African
Queen, Lady & the Tramp, Hunchback of Notre Dame,
North by Northwest, The 7-Year Itch, The 10
Commandments, Sweet Smell of Success, The Night of the
Hunter (last 2 independent)
• Independent ﬁlms on the rise, big studio system
began to change
• Hitchcock: To Catch A Thief:
• http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?o_cid=mediaroomlink&cid=279552


Turner Classic Movies
• http://www.tcm.com
• Launched in 1994
• Goal - to create a haven for classic movie fans.
“Committed to showing the widest range of classic movies possible,
celebrating the greatest stars and ﬁlmmakers of all time and treating
their work with the respect it deserves. TCM gives people the chance
to discover movie gems that they might not have seen, and has
introduced a whole new audience to the world of classic movies.”


Classic Film Festival

• Viewing
highlights
• Photos


Films
• A Star Is Born (1954)
• Casablanca (1942) • North by Northwest
(1959)
• King Kong (1933)
• The Story of Temple
• Sweet Smell of Success Drake (1933)
(1956)
• Fragments (1916-1929)
• Top Hat (1935)
• Metropolis (1927)
• Sunset Boulevard
(1950)


Hollywood Today

• Iron Man 2 Premiere


Classic Film 101

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