Chapter 9: Cinema in an
International Frame
The International Auteur Cinema

Auteurism



Film is an art
The director as artist
1950s-1960s

Emergence of ‘art cinema’ centered on key international
auteurs





Michelangelo Antonioni
Ingmar Bergman
Luis Bunuel
Federico Fellini
Akira Kurosawa
Michelangelo Antonioni
Theme of lovelessness and alienation
among the middle and upper classes
 Images that offer precise visual statements
of this theme
 The Trilogy:

 L’avventura
 La
Notte
 L’eclisse
Ingmar Bergman




Intense psychological focus on spiritual and
emotional distress
Close collaboration with cinematographers and
stock company of actors
The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries become
classics of the art cinema
The Trilogy:



Through a Glass Darkly
Winter Light
The Silence
Luis Bunuel
Film productions in Mexico, Spain, France,
the U.S.
 Surealism

 Opposition
to bourgeois morality
 Celebrating anarchy and impulse
 Un Chien Andalou – a classic of surrealist film

Film style assaults cinema’s conventions of
 Time
and space continuity
 Narrative logic
Federico Fellini
Turns away from the Italian cinema’s
tradition of realism
 Emphasizes spectacle, pageantry, and
dreams
 Radically anti-realistic and theatrical style
 La Dolce Vita, 8 ½, Juliet of the Spirits,
Amarcord

Akira Kurosawa
Best known for samurai films
 A major influence on American films
 1948-1965 – period of peak artistry

 Filmmaking

tied to Japan’s post-war recovery
Style based on rare combination of elements
 Montage
editing, camera movement
 The long take, static and motionless
compositions
New Wave Filmmaking

Film history is marked by periodic ‘new
waves’
 Alternative
film styles centered on new
generations of filmmakers
 Italian neo-realism (1940s)
 French New Wave (1950s-1960s)
 New German Cinema (1970s)
 Hong Kong Cinema (1980s)
Italian Neo-Realism



Emerges in opposition to glossy studio
filmmaking
Aims to portray contemporary social conditions
with focus on the lower classes
Film technique would be simple, direct,
unembellished


Ossessione (1943) and Open City (1945)
Tremendous influence and legacy

Defines a fundamental approach to realism in cinema
The French New Wave

Andre Bazin and Cahiers du Cinema


Film criticism and film directing
Francois Truffaut, “A Certain Tendency”


Debut year – 1959




Auteurism
The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
Breathless (Godard)
Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais)
Location shooting, fluid editing, and cinematic
self-consciousness
New German Cinema

1962 Oberhausen manifesto
 Call
to redefine German cinema and break with
existing traditions
State funding of film production stimulates
emergence of new auteurs
 Fassbinder and Hollywood melodrama
 Herzog and the mystical tradition
 Wenders and anti-narrative

Hong Kong Cinema



Tied to national anxieties about reunification with
China
Robust national cinema resists Hollywood
influences
John Woo


Hyperviolence and cultural apocalypse
Tsui Hark

Synthesis of martial arts, costume and ghost genres