SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
Hollywood in the 1950s
Key Names and Terms:
decline of the studio system
end of vertical distribution (US vs Paramount Pictures, Inc. 1948)
advent of television and decline of movie attendance
art houses/foreign films
studios countered with:
youth genres:
sex comedies:
musicals:
film epics:
increased violence
new screen sizes: wide screen, Cinerama
gimmicks: 3D
Red Scare
HUAC
Blacklisting
Hollywood Ten
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SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
Study Guide for: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1954)
Sci-Fi as a response to the atomic bomb and the Red Scare
Alien attacks and giant creatures
“pod people” as Sci-Fi trope
Prologue and Epilogue: Don Siegel and the studio release
Sierra Madre filming location
Possible film readings/meanings
Remakes and homages:
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SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
Study Guide for Hitchcock in Hollywood: North by Northwest (1959)
Key Names and Terms: Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)
German cinema beginnings/British years
Moved to Hollywood in 1939 at invitation from David O. Selznick
Technique, Style and Obsessions:
Preplanning
Storyboarding
Montage
Film/frame composition
Theory of suspense
Macguffin
Fear of authority
“cool blond”
cameo appearances
Reoccurring Themes:
mistaken identities
innocent on the run
question of guilt
depiction of evil
thematic use of famous monuments/public places
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SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
American Film in the 1950s: Wilder, Some Like it Hot (1959)
Key Names and Terms: Billy Wilder (1906-2002)
Billy Wilder: Austrian/German beginnings
Wilder in Hollywood 30’s: leaves to escape Nazis, writer
Wilder in Hollywood 40’s, writer/director: Double Indemnity (1944), Lost Weekend (1945)
Wilder in the 50’s: Sunset Blvd (1950), Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch
(1955)
Some Like it Hot:
Screwball Comedy:
Mismatched lovers
Comedy of mistaken identity/disguise
Characters take a journey to discovery/love
Film as an examination of American sex, sexuality and gender
Marilyn Monroe: American icon/problems on set
Tony Curtis: “straight man”/ Cary Grant impersonation
Jack Lemmon: comic bravado/signature role
Pat O’Brian/George Raft: Warner Brothers
Joe E. Brown: famous last line
Coronado Hotel/San Diego: historic setting
AFI film rating
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SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
Study Guide for International Film in the 1950s: Fellini, La Strada (1954)
Key Names and Terms: Federico Fellini (1920-1993)
Italian Neo-realism/film movement
Fellini’s neo-realist beginnings
La Strada as a “bridge” film to later Fellini style: (surrealistic, fantastical, pageantry, etc)
La Strada as metaphor:
“the road”
Gelsomina
Zampano
The Fool
Giulietta Masina
Nino Rota
International casting/Italian “post production dubbing
Loose scripts/improvisational style
Toward the “Felliniesque”: La Dolce Vita (1960) / 8 ½ (1963)
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)/Satyricon (1969)/Amarcord (1973)
Fellini targets/subjects:
A) social excess and hypocrisy
B) physical grotesques and outcasts
C) the circus as metaphor
D) the Church
E) romantic redemption, often symbolized by a young innocent
Along with Bergman, Antonioni, Godard, etc, Fellini will come to represent the “European” films
of the 50s and 60s – often referred to as “art films.”
Martin Scorsese’s introductory comments to La Strada:
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SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
International Cinema in the 1960s: Truffaut, The 400 Blows (1959)
Key Names and Terms:
nouvelle vague/The French New Wave
Cinematheque Francaise/Henri Langlois
Cahiers du Cimema/Andre Bazin
Truffaut, Godard, Eric Rohmer, Chabrol: film critics as filmmakers
le cinema de Papa / a new cinema
American films/auteur theory
New Wave camera/editing innovations:
hand held cameras
zoom lenses
jump cuts/wipes/slow motion/freeze frame
long takes/mise-en-scene
self-conscious/self-referential camera/narrative vs classical Hollywood cinema
1959: Godard, Breathless and Truffaut, The 400 Blows
Francois Truffaut (1932-1984)
troubled youth
mentored by Bazin
Renoir and Hitchcock
film as autobiography/troubled family life/adolescence
Jean-Pierre Leaud/Antoine Doinel as alter-ego figure
hand-held camera/location shooting/opening shots
freedom vs. entrapment
children/puppet show
final freeze frame
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SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
American Film in the 60s/70s : A Decade Under the Influence
Episode One : Influences and Independents
Key Names and Terms:
70s: Vietnam, Watergate era
Key films explore corruption, violence, politics, capitalism, etc. with speculation
So-called “last Golden-Age” of American filmmaking: personal, visionary, energetic
Also age of “blaxploitation” films: Superfly, Shaft, Sweetback
Film School Generation
The “New Hollywood”
Key “Players”
Roger Corman: AIP
Focus on “revisionist” genre films as opposed to Classical Hollywood Cinema
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SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
New Directions: Penn, Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Key Names and Terms:
Social upheaval approaches a climax as Vietnam War tears nation apart
Studios continue to lose audience with standard studio product
End of the Production Code/censorship
Beginning of American film renaissance:
Need to find a new audience
Influence of European cinema
Rise of the American underground film movement
Film industry begins to embrace “art film” audience
Changing social values reflected in new films
Bonnie and Clyde (1967):
Arthur Penn (1922): television/stage director
Film was marketed as a B film: initially a box office failure. Then it found its audience.
Re-released with a new ad campaign aimed at youth audience
Anti-heroes: charming outcasts as outlaws: They’re Young! They’re in Love! And they kill people!
Sexual ambiguity softened to fit Warren Beatty screen persona at Penn’s urging
Comedy/tragedy blurred: shooting of bank teller
Critical hit with some detractors over violence and tone
Level and treatment of film violence: abrupt changes of tone/famous slow-motion ending
Opens cinematic door to the likes of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) and other violent
films
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SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
Coppola, The Godfather (1972)
“Film School” Generation
Roger Corman: Dementia 13 (1963)
Francis Ford Coppola as film father figure/mentor
D.W. Griffith/Thomas Ince film figure: producer/director/screen writer
American Zoetrope (1969) w/Lucas: THX 1138 (1971)
The Godfather (1972), The Godfather II (1974), The Godfather III (1990)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Godfather:
Paramount Studios and Rober Evans
Selection of Coppola as director
Genre/auteur film
Mario Puzo
Gordon Willis
Nino Roto
Marlon Brando
Critical and box-office success
9
SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
Kubrick: The Shining (1980)
Key Names and Terms:
Look Magazine/photo journalist
Smaller, low budget noirs
Breakthrough film: Paths of Glory (1957)
Expatriate after Spartacus (1960)
Film auteur/film artist: later total film control with studio (Warner Brothers)
Astonishing visual control/film stylist
Obsessive pre-planner and notorious perfectionist
Misanthropic world view: man as corrupt, weak, selfish
Often cited as aloof, intellectual, cold director
The Shining (1980)
Kubrick vs Stephen King
Changes to the novel
Initial critical response and later re-evaluation
Steadicam use
Importance of mise-en-scene/overall set design
Abandoned “topiary” scenes
Charges of Kubrick “cruelty”
Fabled “cut” alternative ending
TV mini-series remake/reported King sequel, Dr. Sleep
10
SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
American Cinema in the 1980s: Scorsese, Raging Bull (1980)
Key Names and Terms:
Martin Scorsese
Italian-American background
The New York style
For Roger Corman: Box Car Bertha (1972)
Encouraged by John Cassavetes to make a more “personal film”
Ensemble acting: strong male presence
Violence: impending and physical
Strong film style: tracking shots, slow motion, heavy atmosphere, music
Fight sequences: changes to genre tradition
Taxi Driver (1976)
11
SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
American Cinema in the 1980s: Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (1982)
Key Names and Terms:
80s: Technology Era/Video era
Return of a new studio system: revitalized studios/actor contracts/vertical integration
Regan Era
Mainstream and Mavericks
The “neo-techno”: “high tech”/punk and new-wave era
Lang’s Metropolis
Sci-Fi/Noir hybrid
Phillip Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”
LA as “dystopia”
Voice-Over
Director control/loss
Restored unicorn dream
Forerunner of “apocalyptic sci-fi”: “A.I.,” “Minority Report,” The Matrix,” “Escape from New
York,” “Total Recall,” etc.
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SIERRA
THEATRE ARTS 7B
American Independent Cinema (and beyond)
Key Names and Terms:
Cassavettes/70s
Jim Jarmusch, John Sayles, Lynch, Spike Lee/80s
Gus Van Sant , Quentin Tarantino, Coen Brothers, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson, etc.
/90s
Film Festivals
Sundance Institute/Sundance Film Festival
Film Marketing/ “buzz” factor
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Paris Je T’Aime (2006)
1. MONTMARTRE: Buno Podalydes
2. QUAIS DE SEINE: Gurinder
Chadha
3. LE MARAIS: Gus van Sant
4. TUILERIES: Ehan and Joel Cohen
5. LOIN DU 16EME: Walter Salles and
Daniela Thomas
6. PORTE DE CHOISY: Christopher Doyle
7. BASTILLE: Isabel Coixet
8. PLACE DES VICTOIRES: Nobuhiro
9. TOUR EIFFEL: Sylvain
Suwa
Chomet
10. PARC MONSEAU: Alfonso
Cuarón
11. QUERTIER DES ENFANTS ROUGES:
12. PLACE DES FETES: Oliver
13. PIGALLE: Richard
Olivier Assayas
Schmitz
LaGravenese
14. QUARTIER DE LA MADELEINE: Vincenzo
15. PERE-LACHAISE: Wes
Natali
Craven
16. FAUBOURG SAINT-DENIS: Tom
17: QUARTIER LATIN: Gérard
Tykwer
Depardieu and Frédéric Auburtin
18: 14TH ARRONDISSEMENT: Alexander
Payne
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