Masters of European Formalist Cinema: Art Films from Buñuel to Bergman ・Luis Buñuel (1900-1983 Spanish/Mexican) ・Robert Bresson (1901-1999 France) ・Jacques Tati (1908-1982 France) ・Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007 Sweden) ・Federico Fellini (1920-1993 Italy) European Art Cinema • European film less commercial and more personal reflecting personal concerns to the almost obsessive level. • Being personal (less commercial) means more unconventional filmmaking. • European film as art film. Bold formal experiment and artistic formal attempt. • Innovations in narrative and visual styles. • Distinguished personal styles. • Auteurs Luis Buñuel • Luis Buñuel - friend of Salvatore Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca • Founded film club in Madrid and wrote film reviews • Entered film producing circles in Paris and made his first film Un Chien Andalou in 1928 • Film of instinct, Freudian and Surrealistic Luis Buñuel • L’Âge d’or (The Golden Age, 1930) radically antibourgeois and anti-clerical film backed by Freudian psychoanalytic theory. The cross-cutting of the scenes in which bourgeois audiences are attending a concert and a couple making love. Freudian revelation of bourgeois hypocrisy. Concert Luis Buñuel’s Surrealism • Left Spain after fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Found difficult to get work in US, he settled in Mexico. Returning to Europe after the war, he made a series of films attacking the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie and the church. • The Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie (1972) Luis Buñuel’s Surrealism • Written by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, and directed by Buñuel, the film is a satire about a group of bourgeois friends trying to have dinners together. • Surrealistic images; Surrealistic incidents (episodes) • Story within story; dream within dream Luis Buñuel’s Surrealism • Dream (surrealistic) elements - satire of bourgeois manners, concerns, pretensions, preoccupations and hypocrisy. • One lunch is postponed as the host and hostess have a sex outdoors - not because they cannot control their urge but because by suppressing it they admit they have it. Luis Buñuel’s Surrealism • In one failed dinner party, the group of middle class diners are seen on stage but one of them, Henri, is unable to memorize his lines. • (Freudian psychoanalytic) Fear of humiliation in front of the public. Luis Buñuel’s Surrealism • In one dream, the South American ambassador of a fictional country shoots his host for insulting his country. He does so, not because the insult is untrue, but you do not say such things in public. • Bourgeois pretension and keeping-up appearances • Absurdity of pride, public manners, and etiquette Magic of Ingmar Bergman • Bergman’s films are noted for the bleak depiction of human vulnerability, loneliness and torment. • Several stages of Bergman’s directorial career. • Psychological tension, religious anguish, sexual guilt, and other spiritual torment are presented through oneiric and magical images. Ingmar Bergman • Wild Strawberries (1957) - meditation of old age and the regret and guilt of adolescence Ingmar Bergman • Through a Glass Darkly (1961) is about the lack or loss of religious faith. (Corinthians 13.12) • Theatrical - Chamber film inspired by chamber plays of August Stringberg with a small cast and in a small place. Departure Ingmar Bergman • The film takes place in a single 24-hour period, features only four characters and takes place entirely on an island. • Little dramatic action and mainly words. • Shot in low-key lighting and in long take. Ingmar Bergman • Winter Light (1963) and Silence • Both deal with the boundary between sanity and madness, and human contact and estrangement. Ingmar Bergman • The Winter Light follows the existential crisis of Thomas Ericsson, pastor of a small Swedish church. The crisis involves in a love affair and losing his faith. • Six minutes long take shows Märta speaking to the camera the contents of the letter that she read. Ingmar Bergman • Silence is about two sisters – the sensuous younger sister and intellectual elder sister - and their tense relationship. Whether they are liberal or repressive, they are deeply lonely and estranged almost at the point of losing sanity. Ingmar Bergman • Study of narcissistic but confused and alienated characters Persona (1966) Federico Fellini • Fellini - the most original film director with the most distinctive film style. • Helped inaugurate Neorealismo as a screenwriter but developed his own distinctive cinema style a director. Dreams in Federico Fellini Recurring motifs and themes • Circus, festivals, music halls, parades, marches • Clowns, angelic figures, holy fools Dreams in Federico Fellini • Whores, nurturing mother figures, large women Dreams in Federico Fellini • Childhood and young adulthood memories and recollections Dreams in Federico Fellini • Mesmerizing images since his childhood Dreams in Federico Fellini • Empty seashores, desolate roads, deserted town squares at night Dreams in Federico Fellini • Characters at their most bizarre Dreams in Federico Fellini • Hallucinatory or dreamlike imagery • Jungian realization that ‘extra-sensory’ perceptions are the psychic manifestation of the unconscious • Oneiric 8 1/2 (1963) Images and Imagination of Fellini • Dolce Vita (1960) a work which marks the beginning of Fellini’s later film style. A journalist’s search for love and happiness in a new period of sexual liberation. • Strong images derive from free imagination Images and Imagination of Fellini • Bold compositions created by low-key lighting • Expressively erotic images which were not allowed in conventional film making. • Physical and sensuous: appeals to libidul sensitivity of the audience