Looking at Movies
Fourth Edition
Richard Barsam  Dave Monahan
CHAPTER TEN
Film History
What Is Film History?
• Film history traces the development of moving images
from early experiments with image reproduction and
photography through the invention of the movies in the
early 1890s, as well as subsequent stylistic, financial,
technological, and social developments in cinema that
have occurred up to now
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3
Four Traditional Approaches to
Studying Film History
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The aesthetic approach
The technological approach
The economic approach
Film as social history
4
The Aesthetic Approach
• Seeks to evaluate individual movies and/or directors
using criteria that assess their artistic significance and
influence
5
The Technological Approach
• Examines the circumstances surrounding the
development of each technological advance, as well as
subsequent improvements
• Focuses on the interaction of technology with
aesthetics, modes of production, and economic factors
6
The Economic Approach
• Examines the economic history of the individual
movie, as well as the place in the economic history of
the movie’s studio and the historical period and country
in which it was produced
7
Film as Social History
• Because society and culture influence the movies, and
vice versa, the movies serve as primary sources for
studying society
• Considers such factors as religion, politics, and cultural
trends and taboos
• Asks to what extent, if any, a particular movie was
produced to sway public opinion or effect social
change
• Examines the complex interaction between the movies
– as a social institution – and other social institutions
8
A Short Overview of Film History to
1947: Precinema
• Photography – “writing with light,” coined by Sir John
Herschel (1839)
• Camera obscura (Latin for dark chamber) – a location
large enough for a viewer to stand inside. Light
entering through a tiny hole on one side of the space
projects an image from outside the space onto the
opposite wall.
• Series photography – records the phases of an action
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10
Milestones in Photography
• Negative (William Henry Fox Talbot)
• Revolver photographique – chronophotographic gun
(Pierre-Jules-César Janssen, 1874)
• First series of photographs of continuous motion
(Eadweard Muybridge, 1877)
• Zoopraxiscope (Muybridge, 1880)
• Fusil photographique (Étienne-Jules Marey, 1882)
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The First Movies (1891–1903)
• Kinetograph and Kinetoscope (W. K. L. Dickson,
1891)
• Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (1894) – first
film
• Cinématographe (1895) and actualitiés – Auguste and
Louis Lumière
• Georges Méliès – the cinema’s first narrative artist
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1908–1927: Origins of the Classical
Hollywood Style – Silent Period
• D. W. Griffith’s developments in narrative form
• Crystallization of classical Hollywood style and
stature
• Development of movie genres
• Early experiments with color and animation
• Feature-length films began to replace short films
• The movie director was a central development
• Walt Disney made his first cartoon in 1922
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1919–1931: German Expressionism
• Distorted and exaggerated settings; compositions of
unnatural spaces
• Use of oblique angles and nonparallel lines
• Moving and subjective camera
• Highly stylized acting; unnatural costumes, hairstyles,
and makeup
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1918–1930: French Avant-Garde
• Short dadaist and surrealist films of an
anticonventional, absurdist nature
• Short naturalistic psychological studies
• Feature-length films that emphasized pure visual form
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1924–1930: Soviet Montage
Movement
• Directors: Dziga Vertov, Lev Kuleshov, Sergei
Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin
• Montage – to fragment and reassemble footage so as to
manipulate the viewer’s perception and understanding
• Eisenstein’s “montage of attractions”
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1927–1947: Classical Hollywood
Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age
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Transition from silent to sound production (1927)
Consolidation of the studio system
Exploitation of familiar genres
Motion Picture Production Code
A new “look” to movies
Economic success of feature-length narrative films
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Hollywood’s Golden Age: Cinematic
Style
• Narrative and editing conventions adapted to sound
production
• Significant innovations in design, cinematography,
lighting, acting, and editing
• Improvements in lighting, makeup, and film stock
• Black-and-white film stock – the industry standard
through the 1950s
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1927–1947: Hollywood’s Golden
Age: Citizen Kane
• A radical film for Hollywood that revolutionized the
medium 46 years after the invention of motion pictures
• Astonishing complexity and speed of narrative
• Achieved the highest degree of cinematic realism
• Sound design – an aural realism equivalent to the
movie’s visual realism
• The cast rehearsed for a month before shooting began
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1942–1951: Italian Neorealism
• Shot on location; used nonprofessional actors;
documentary visual style
• Long takes, spare dialogue, ambiguous endings
• Humanist – placed the highest value on the lives of
ordinary working people
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1959–1964: French New Wave
• Origins: 1930s poetic realism; philosophy of Jean-Paul
Sartre
• Cinéma vérité style – lightweight filmmaking devices
• André Bazin – realism, mise-en-scène, authorship;
Cahiers du cinéma
• Self-reflexive films
• Director as auteur
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French New Wave: Breathless
• Rapid action, handheld cameras, unusual camera
angles, direct address to the camera, borderline
improvisational acting, anarchic politics, emphasis on
sound’s importance, especially words.
• Radical, restless editing style
• Broad range of pastiche (intertextual reference)
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1947 to the Present: New Cinemas
in Britain, Europe, and Asia
• Made a clean break with the cinematic past
• Injected new vitality into filmmaking
• Explored cinema as a subject in itself
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England and the Free Cinema
Movement
• Free Cinema (1956–1959) – a cinema of social realism
and documentary films
• British New Cinema (1960s) – dealt with controversial
issues of class, race, gender, and sexual orientation
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Denmark and the Dogme 95
Movement
• Founded in 1995 by three directors, including Lars von
Trier
• “The Vow of Chastity” – manifesto of ten rules
• Directors often broke their vows
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Germany and Das Neue Kino
(1962–1980s)
• Oberhausen Manifesto (1962) – sought to create a new
cinema free from historical antecedents, one that
criticized bourgeois German society and exposed
viewers to new modes of looking at movies
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Japan’s and Postwar Filmmaking
• Owed much to Japanese literacy and theatrical
traditions
• Strongly influenced by John Ford, Howard Hawks, and
Orson Welles
• Akira Kurosawa is the most recognizable (and
Western-style) director, followed by Kenji Mizoguchi
and Yasujiro Ozu
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Japan’s Nubero Bagu (1950s–
1970s)
• Hiroshi Teshigahara, Yasuzo Masumura, Nagisa
Oshima
• Significantly influenced by the French New Wave
• Emphasis on upsetting cinematic and social
conventions
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China and Postwar Filmmaking:
People’s Republic
• Since 1976 (the death of Chairman Mao), filmmakers
are more concerned with individuals
• Chen Kaige, Yimou Zhang, Tian Zhuangzhuang have
managed to make films about taboo subjects despite a
repressive society
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China and Postwar Filmmaking:
Hong Kong
• 1920s–1970s – wuxia and kung fu
• Melodramatic plot; philosophical codes of honor
• Spectacular violence; brilliantly choreographed fight
sequences
• Conflicts between cops and gangsters; lavish
production values
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Hong Kong: Formal Characteristics
• Spectacular studio settings and natural locations
• Saturated colors; moody lighting
• Constant motion (slow and fast); disjointed editing
techniques
• Extensive computer manipulation of images and
motion
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Hong Kong New Wave (late 1970s–
early 1980s)
• Stimulated cinematic innovations
• Encouraged the movement of directors between TV
and mainstream cinema
• Introduced new genres and tackled formerly taboo
subjects
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China and Postwar Filmmaking:
Taiwan
• Developed independently of Hong Kong and the
People’s Republic
• Concerned with realistic depictions of ordinary people
• Ang Lee, Hsiao-hsien Hou, Edward Yang
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India
• Largest film industry in the world
• Produces 1,200 features and even more documentaries
each year; commonly known as Bollywood
• Satyajit Ray is the dominant figure in Indian cinema
• Ray’s work represents the “new Indian cinema,” or
Parallel Cinema, meaning it exists alongside the
mainstream commercial industries in the world’s sixthlargest economy
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1965–1995: The New American
Cinema
• Prevailing spirit of innovation led to a range of styles
• Adapted cinematic conventions to a new audience
• Predominance of sex and violence in content and
protagonists (male/female)
• More structurally complex plots, with new storytelling
techniques
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The New American Cinema Style
• Innovation in editing with more stylistic touches
• More films shot on location; depiction of recognizable
actuality
• Major experimentation with sound design
• Definite reliance on naturalistic acting styles
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New American Cinema: Other
Directions
• Documentary – Direct Cinema (Maysles Brothers,
D. A. Pennebaker)
• Experimental films – Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol
• Feature-length animated films have thrived
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Review
1. What are the four traditional approaches to studying film
history?
a. Technological, social, cultural, aesthetic
b. Aesthetic, technological, economic, social
c. Economic, cinematic, social, cultural
d. Cultural, technological, rhetorical, scholarly
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Review
2. The intermediary step between still photography and
cinematography is
a. series photography.
b. fusil photography.
c. revolver photography.
d. chronotography.
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Review
3. Black Maria was the first
a. motion picture film.
b. motion picture projector.
c. motion picture studio.
d. complete motion picture.
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Review
4. The Lumière brothers’ actualités are an example of what
type of nonfiction film?
a. Instructional
b. Propaganda
c. Factual
d. Documentary
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Review
5. Which film movement was based on the idea that the
movie director is an auteur?
a. German expressionism
b. Soviet montage
c. Italian neorealism
d. French New Wave
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Review
6. Which is NOT one of the ten rules of the Dogme 95
Manifesto?
a. Shooting must be done on location.
b. The camera must be handheld.
c. The film must be genre-specific.
d. The film must be in color.
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