History of the World Pt. 1
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Directed, Wrote and Acted in:
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Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)
Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)
Life Stinks (1991)
Spaceballs (1987)
History of the World: Part 1 (1981)
High Anxiety (1977)
Silent Movie (1976)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
The Twelve Chairs (1970)
The Producers (1968)
Comic Geneious
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A Mel Brooks film usually contains four basic elements;
middlebrow verbal wit, genre parody, mild physical
comedy, and complete irrelevance. In addition, there’s
usually music involved.
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Served in WWII as a corporal clearing landmines.
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His first solo foray was with Carl Reiner, with whom he
co-wrote the legendary comedy sketch “The 2000 YearOld Man”.
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He also co-created the spy-spoof TV series Get Smart
before launching his film career writing and directing
The Producers (whose screenplay won him an Oscar).
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Most people don’t know that his production company,
Brooksfilms, was responsible for bringing to the screen
some quite serious material in the 1980’s, including
David Cronenberg’s The Fly and David Lynch’s The
Elephant Man.
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Recently he adapted The Producers into a big Broadway
musical that has become a huge smash.
History of History
• Mel Brooks produced, directed, wrote, and starred in
this episodic comedy in the spirit of Monty Python and
the 1957 studio travesty The Story of Mankind.
• The film is divided into five sequences that play like
vaudeville sketches –
1. "The Dawn of Man" (2001: A Space Odyssey Parody
narrated by Orson Welles)
2. "The Stone Age"
3. “The Spanish Inquisition"
4. "The Bible“
5. "The Future"
History Trivia
www.imdb.com
• Mel Brooks came up with the name for this film because he was tired of
people asking him what his next movie would be.
• The Red Sea scene used Universal Studios' attraction.
• The tune used in the 'Jews in Space' segment was later recycled into the
'Men in Tights' number from Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993).
• Director Trademark: [Mel Brooks] [sequel] At the end of the film, a trailer
is shown for "History of the World: Part II".
• When the Court Spokesman is whispering "Remember thou art mortal",
that actually happened. When a Roman general entered Rome after a
successful campaign, he had a servant riding in his carriage with him,
whispering that in his ear.
Filming Techniques
• Average Shot Length ~6.0 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~5.7 seconds.
• The film makes quite extensive use of matte paintings for backgrounds.
Every segment (except "The Stone Age" and "The Old Testament") features
backgrounds that are nothing more than paintings, especially in the
segments' establishing shots and in numerous wide shots. Such paintings
were used for the harbor and for many of the city shots in "The Roman
Empire", the castle in "The Spanish Inquisition" and both the city and the
countryside in "The French Revolution.“
• The scene where the showgirls rise out of the water (the Inquisition
routine) is actually being played in reverse. The shot was of the girls being
lowered.
• The scene of the Viking Funeral uses footage from The Vikings (1958).
Filming Goofs:
It happens to the best of Vs
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Continuity: In the beginning of the Roman Empire Segment, one of the running jokes was the use
of a V in place of a U. It seems that great care was taken to do this on every sign. Except the Annual
Orgy sign which has two Us on it that were not changed to Vs.
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Anachronisms: When Comicus, Josephus, Swiftus and Miriam are being chased by the Marcus
Vindictus, modern tire tracks are clearly visible on the road.
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Continuity: In Caesar's palace during the feast, wine is spilled on Caesar's toga but the stain
disappears in subsequent shots.
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Factual errors: In the Roman Era, the sign for the orgy states that it is held in the Temple of Eros.
Eros is the Greek God of Love not the Roman. It should be the Temple of Cupid.
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Revealing mistakes: In the Spanish Inquisition musical number, the nuns do an underwater show
that ends with them standing on a menorah. It is clearly visible in the movie that the action is in
reverse.
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Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Comicus is pulled into the Virgin room by Miriam, one of the
virgins' says "Who's that?", but her mouth does not match "that".
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Revealing mistakes: When Comicus, Miriam, Swiftus and Josephus reach the 'river', the tops of the
water remover are obviously visible just below the surface. Later, it is obvious that the water is
being dumped into a pool-like area in the middle of the river to create their path.
Film in the 1970’s
http://www.filmsite.org/70sintro.html
• Although the 1970s opened with Hollywood experiencing a
financial and artistic depression, the decade became a creative high
point in the US film industry.
• Restrictions on language, adult content and sexuality, and violence
had loosened up, and these elements became more widespread.
• Hollywood was renewed and reborn with the earlier collapse of the
studio system, and the works of many new and experimental filmmakers (nicknamed "Movie Brats") during a Hollywood New Wave.
• Many of the audiences and movie-makers of the late 60s had seen
a glimpse of new possibilities, new story-telling techniques and
more meaningful 'artistic' options, by the influences of various
European "New Wave" movements (French and Italian) and the
original works of other foreign-language film-makers.
Film oF the 70’s Cont.
• Motion picture art seemed to flourish at the same time
that the defeat in the Vietnam War, the Kent State
Massacre, the Watergate scandal, President Nixon's fall, the
Munich Olympics shoot-out, increasing drug use, and a
growing energy crisis showed tremendous disillusion, a
questioning politicized spirit among the public and a lack of
faith in institutions.
• Other films that were backed by the studios reflected the
tumultuous times, the discontent toward the government,
lack of US credibility, and hints of conspiracy paranoia.
• Even Spielberg's Jaws (1975) could be interpreted as an
allegory for the Watergate conspiracy.
Popular films
reflecting the times?
• 1960s social activism often turned into an inward
narcissism, and yet this uncertain age gave rise to some of
the finest, boldest, and most commercially-successful films
ever made, such as the instant Oscar-winning blockbuster :
• The Godfather (1972) by a virtually untested director
• William Friedkin's horror classic The Exorcist (1973)
• Spielberg's Jaws (1975)
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
• Lucas' Star Wars (1977).
• The decade also spawned equally memorable cult films:
• Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
• The quirky Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971).
The Search for
a Blockbuster
• The "so-called" Renaissance of Hollywood was built upon perfecting
some of the traditional film genres of Hollywood's successful past with bigger, block-buster dimensions.
• Oftentimes, studios would invest heavily in only a handful of
bankrolled films, hoping that one or two would succeed profitably.
• Focus was on box-office receipts and the production of action- and
youth-oriented, blockbuster films with dazzling special effects.
• Hollywood's economic crises in the 1950s and 1960s, especially
during the war against the lure of television, were somewhat eased
with the emergence in the 70s of summer "blockbuster" movies or
"event films" marketed to mass audiences, especially following the
awesome success of two influential films:
• 27 year-old Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975)
• 33 year-old George Lucas' Star Wars (1977)
What also started in the 70’s
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cable television - the first pay/premium television channel, Home Box Office (HBO),
was founded in 1972
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to maximize profits from weekend audiences, the industry decided to move major film
openings from mid-week to Fridays, in 1973
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multi-plex theaters - the proliferation of multi-screen chain theaters in suburban areas,
replacing big movie palaces, meant that more movies could be shown to smaller
audiences; the world's largest cineplex (with 18 theaters) opened in Toronto in 1979
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People Magazine - first published as a weekly magazine in March of 1974 (with Mia
Farrow on its first cover), took over the role of celebrity watching and film promotion
for the industry
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Hollywood realized that it could increase its profits by advertising its new releases on
television - first shown to be successful with the massive TV marketing campaign (of
$700,000) for Jaws (1975) - the film was also booked into almost 500 theatres for its
opening weekend - a record!
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Gone with the Wind (1939) first aired on network TV in 1976 and drew a huge
audience over two nights - about 34 million people - the largest ever film audience to
watch a feature film on television
the 70’s Were pretty
revolutionary
Home Video Revolution:
• earlier in the previous decade, Ampex in 1963 offered the first consumer version of a
videotape recorder at an exorbitant price of $30,000; other iterations would follow,
such as Sony's introduction of the videocassette recorder (VCR) in 1969, and the
introduction of the U-Matic in 1972
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the appearance of Sony's Betamax (the first home VCR or videocassette recorder) in
1975 offered a cheaper sales price of $2,000 and recording time up to one hour; this led
to a boom in sales - it was a technically-superior format when compared to the VHS
system that was marketed by JVC and Matsushita beginning in 1976
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by the late 70s, Sony's market share in sales of Betamax VCRs was below that of sales of
VHS machines; consumers chose the VHS' longer tape time and larger tape size, over
Sony's smaller and shorter tape time (of 1 hour)
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video rentals - in 1977