Film History
ENGL 3870: Film History
Week 3 | Date: 2/1/12 | The Silent Era |
Reading: Short History of Film 3
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D. W. Griffith
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
F. W. Murnau
René Clair
Lev Kuleshov
Sergei Eisenstein
Abel Gance
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Un Chien Andalou
D. W. Griffith (American,
1875-1948)
 Born in Kentucky, son of a Confederate
soldier.
 Started acting at Biograph (hired by Porter)
and then turned to directing.
 Directed hundreds of one and two reelers—at
one point averaging 21 productions a week.
 The great cinematographer Billy Bitzer was
his constant collaborator.
 By 1913, Griffith ruled Hollywood and had a
powerful international reputation.
 His performance as a director defined the
role.
Film History
D. W. Griffith
 Claimed he did not understand the charges of
racism leveled against Birth.
 Intolerance was made in response to Birth’s
critics.
 One of the founders of United Artists—the
culmination of Griffith’s ambition to escape
studio control.
 Often worked with Lillian Gish.
 Declined during the Sound Era, his last 20
years unproductive.
 Responsible for approximately 550 films.
 Hypothesized that the movies would evolve
into a “esperanto of the eye.”
Film History
An artificial language,
invented in 1887, intended
for universal use. Based on
word roots common to the
major European languages.
Film History
United Artists (Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin, Griffith)
Film History
D. W. Griffith (American,
1875-1948)
Key Works
Birth of a Nation (1915)
Intolerance (1916)
Broken Blossoms
(1919)
Way Down East (1920)
Orphans of the Storm
(1921)
Film History
Griffith directs Intolerance (1916).
Film History
Red Grooms, Way Down East
Grooms and Northern Kentucky
University (where I was
professor of English 1983-1988)
Film History
Birth of a Nation/MTSU: Six
Degrees of Separation
1.
2.
3.
Griffith’s Birth of a Nation depicts the role
of the KKK after the Civil War.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a leader of
the Klan and at one time the KKK Grand
Dragon.
“The ROTC building at Middle Tennessee
State University was named Forrest Hall
in [Nathan Bedford Forrest’s] honor. In
2006, the frieze depicting General Forrest
on horseback that had adorned the side
of this building was removed amid
protests, but a major push to change its
name failed. Also, the university's Blue
Raiders' athletic mascot was changed to
a pegasus from a cavalier, in order to
avoid its mistaken association with
General Forrest.”--Wikipedia
Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915)
Production Cost: $125,000
Box Office: In the millions
Watch the entire film
Film History
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Germany,
Robert Weine, 1920)
Film History
The Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari
Expressionism
F. W. Murnau (German,
1888-1931)
 Made the first Dracula film.
 The Last Laugh, like Caligari, was
under the influence of expressionism.
 Came to Hollywood to direct Sunrise, “a
simple story of a farmer who tries to kill
his devoted wife because of another
woman” (Eyewitness Guide to Film
339).
 Upset at the imposition of happy
endings by Hollywood.
 Began working with Robert Flaherty in
the South Seas (resulting in Tabu).
 Killed in a car crash on the way to
Paramount Studios.
Film History
Film History
F. W. Murnau (German,
1888-1931)
Key Works
Nosferatu (1922)
The Last Laugh (1924)
Faust (1926)
Sunrise (1927)
Tabu: A Story of the
South Seas (1931)—
with Robert Flaherty
Film History
F. W. Murnau
Shadow of the Vampire
(E. Elias Merhige, 2000)
Shadow of the Vampire
Film History
Nosferatu (F.
W. Murnau,
1922)
Nosferatu
(entire film)
René Clair (French,
1898-1991)
 Entr’acte branded Clair as an
avant-garde filmmaker.
 Under the Roofs of Paris was
one of the first sound films.
 Worked in both the UK and
USA.
 Le Silence est d’Or (Silence
is Golden), made back in
France, was a tribute to the
Silent Era.
 Did not make a color film until
1955 (Les Grandes
Manoeuvres).
Film History
René Clair
Key Works
 Entr'acte (1924)
The Italian Straw Hat (1927)
Under the Roofs of Paris
(1930)
The Million (1931)
Freedom for Us (1931)
It Happened Tomorrow (1943)
Le Silence est d’Or (1947)
Les Belles de Nuit (1952)
Les Grandes Manoeuvres
(1955)
Film History
Film History
René Clair,
Entr'acte (1924)
Entr'acte (entire film)
Film History
Lev Kuleshov (Russian,
1899-1970): discoverer
of the “Kuleshov
Effect”
Abel Gance (French,
1889-1981)
Always an experimenter.
One of the first to use
subjective camera, split
screen, mirrors. montage
(before Eisenstein), handheld cameras (one mounted
on a horse), wide-angle
lenses, superimposition . . .
Napoleon was first screened
in a five hour cut.
Film History
Abel Gance
Did not fare well in the Sound
Era:
Poignant and paradoxical is the
sequence in The Life and Loves of
Beethoven [1936] when the great
composer loses his hearing, portrayed
by silent shots of violins, birds, and
bells. The loss of sound for Beethoven
and the coming of sound for Gance
were equally agonizing. (Eyewitness
Companion to Film 299)
Film History
Film History
Abel Gance (French,
1889-1981)
Key Works
The Tenth Symphony (1918)
J’Accuse (1919)
The Wheel (1922)
Napoleon (1927)
The Life and Loves of
Beethoven (1936)
Film History
Napoleon (Abel
Gance, 1927)
Kevin Brownlow Discusses
Abel Gance's Napoleon
Film History
Carl Theodor Dreyer
(Danish, 1889-1968)
Key Works
Master of the House (1925)
The Passion of Joan of Arc
(1928)
Vampyr (1932)
Day of Wrath (1943)
The Word (1955)
Gertrud (1964)
Carl Theodor Dreyer
 The Ingmar Bergman/Terence
Malick of his day: spiritual themes;
made very few films (10 year
break from filmmaking before
Gertrude).
 Day of Wrath follows a 17th
Century witch hunt and may be
read as a commentary on German
occupation of Denmark.--he
sought refuge in Sweden after its
release.
 Gertrud about an opera singer and
her many lovers.
 Brilliantly used shadow, light,
camera movement, settings.
 Signature: deceptively simple
means creating a restrained
emotional intensity.
Film History
Film History
The Passion of Joan of
Arc (Carl Theodor
Dreyer, 1928)
The Passion of Joan of
Arc (entire film in eight
parts)
Film History
Sergei Eisenstein
Key Works
Strike (1924)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
October (1927)
Alexander Nevsky (1938)
Ivan the Terrible, Part 1
(1944)
Ivan the Terrible, Part II
(1946—released 1958)
Sergei Eisenstein
(Russian, 1898-1948)
 One of the few great filmmakers
who was also a great theorist.
 Inventor/namer of “dynamic
montage.”
 Envisioned a “cinematic calculus”
inspired in part by his colleague
Pavlov.
 October used over 3,200 (more
than twice that of Potemkin).
 Major influences: Charles
Dickens, D. W. Griffith,
Shakespeare, Walt Whitman,
Kabuki Theatre.
Film History
Sergei Eisenstein
(Russian, 1898-1948)
 Collaborated with American novelist
Upton Sinclair to make a documentary
(unfinished) about the Mexican
revolution.
 Made Alexander Nevsky to reestablish
his position with the Communist party.
 Collaborated (on Nevsky) with famed
composer Sergei Prokofiev.
 Only completed two parts of Ivan the
Terrible, which Stalin eventually
disapproved of (seeing Part II as a
personal reflection?). Released only
after both Eisenstein and Stalin were
dead.
 Envisioned the cinema as an art that
would synthesize all the other arts.
Film History
Sergei Eisenstein
Film History
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei
Eisenstein, 1925)
Battleship Potemkin (entire film) | Odessa
Steps Sequence | Untouchables Steps
Film History
Film History
Luis Buñuel (Spanish, 1900-1983) (left)
and Salvador Dali (Spanish, 1904-1989)
(right)
Film History
Surrealism
 The name is intended to
mean above/beyond
realism
Dada and Surrealism
Surrealism
 Greatly influenced by
Freud’s Interpretation of
Dreams
Film History
Surrealism
Surrealism
“As beautiful as the chance
encounter of an umbrella and
a sewing machine on a
dissecting table.”—Comte de
Lautréamont (born in
Montevideo Uruguay, 1846)—
from Les Chants de Maldoror
Film History
Surrealism
Surrealism
Andre Breton (right):
Surrealism’s “pope”
Film History
Surrealism
An exemplary
Surrealist
activity: the
exquisite
corpse
Wikipedia article
on the exquisite
corpse
Surrealism
Film History
Salvador Dali
(1904-1989),
Spanish Painter
The only difference between
myself and a madman is that I am
not mad.
Salvador Dali
Surrealism
Film History
I believe that the moment is
near when, by a procedure of
active paranoiac thought, it will
be possible to systematize
confusion and contribute to the
total discrediting of the world of
reality.
--Salvador Dali
Surrealism
Film History
Asked why he had a pet lobster
(which the motorcycle-gogglewearing Dali sometimes walked—
with a leash—on the streets of
Paris), he replied: “It doesn’t bark,
and it knows the secrets of the
deep.”
Surrealism
Film History
Surrealism
Film History
Surrealism
1929
Film History
Surrealism
Venus de Milo of the Drawers
Film History
Surrealism
Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by
Her Own Chastity
Film History
Surrealism
Cannibalism in Autumn
Film History
Surrealism
Persistence of Memory
Film History
Asked why he was so fond of limp watches in his work, Dali replied: “Because they
keep such good time.”
Surrealism
Soft Construction with Boiled
Beans, Premonition of Civil War
Film History
Surrealism
The Weaning of Furniture
Nutrition
Film History
Rene Magritte
(1898-1967). Belgian
Painter
Surrealism
To be a surrealist means barring from
your mind all remembrance of what you
have seen, and being always on the
lookout for what has never been.
Rene Magritte
Film History
Surrealism
Personal Values
Film History
Film History
Surrealism
The Treachery of Images
ENGL 2020 Themes in Literature and
Culture: The Grotesque
Surrealism
The Lovers
Film History
Surrealism
The Rape
Film History
Luis Buñuel
Key Works
Un Chien Andalou (1928)
L’Age d’Or (1930)
Los Olvidados (1950)
Viridiana (1961)
The Exterminating Angel
(1962)
Diary of a Chambermaid
(1964)
Belle de Jour (1967)
Tristana (1970)
The Discreet Charm of the
Bourgeoisie (1972)
Film History
Film History
Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel
and Dali, 1929)
Un Chien Andalou
Film History