outline of American film history
... film history we’ve studied this semester: photographic prehistory early cinema 1894-1903 silent cinema (1903-1929) Hollywood “classical” cinema: 1) early sound era: 1930-1934 2) 1934-1948 3 blocks within this: a) post-Depression b) WWII c) post-WWII Cinema in the television age and post-HUAC (1948-1966) Experimentation during Hollywood’s collapse (1967-1971) Hollywood “Renaissance:” 1972-1979 Technical sophistication and cultural nostalgia in the 80s Multiculturalism, global markets and digital technology in the 90s Terms: HUAC-- House Un-American Activities Committee, a committee that investigated alleged Soviet Communist ties in the Hollywood film industry, mainly in screenwriters instilling "propaganda" into their works throughout the 1940s and imprisoned dozens of film workers and interrogated countless moviemakers. ... 1948-- movie studios in the 1940s moved back towards vertical integration until the "Paramount Decree," which blocked it, demanding film studios must cut off their control and divest from exhibition venues. ... Choker Closeup melodrama-- a genre that emerges in the 1940s, that involves most centrally a buried emotional truth (this is reflected in the visual aspect of the film, usually). ... aspect ratio-- the proportional relationship between the length and width of a plane onto which film or video is projected or reproduced. ... technicolor-- a device for producing color film in which three strips of film are run through the film gate for exposure, one signaling each pure color of the spectrum-- one each of red, green, blue. The film is then printed onto one color film strip. ... ) the film and its narrative; 2.) that outside of the film, which the film parallels in theme and action, but which can usually not be represented directly because of issues of censorship. ... "fissuring" in commercial narrative film 16mm film-- originally used by WWII documentarians and film reporters, 16mm film has the advantage of using smaller, thus more portable and mobile, equipment. ... hand-held cinematography-- with the emergence of 16mm film and thus the more mobile camera, camera crews were permitted to carry cameras rather than having to mount them on large tripods. ... sync sound-- a development that went hand-in-hand with the emergence of 16mm film was synchronous sound, which prints sound directly onto the film. ... Michael Brault-- first to use sync sound in 16mm film Direct cinema-- a documentary style engaged by Fred Wiseman, among others, in which the film takes an entirely observational position towards its subject. Meaning, then, is forged not through narration or through the filmmaker describing meanings, but is created through the filmmaker inscribing meaning through other means, mainly editing and the juxtaposition or synergy of events or elements of the film. ... There is, then, an interaction between subject and filmmaker, and the filmmaker usually comments himself/ herself on the film. cinema16-- a film society established by Maya Deren and others which reviewed and discussed emerging 16mm films. film culture-- an industrial journal which runs features on independent filmmakers and their products. With cinema 16, it formed an important institutional support for the emerging art of 16mm film production. ... ) poverty row-- Off-Hollywood film production studios which produce mainly B-films, and are a source of distribution of films to drive-ins and other independent and non-commercial theater systems. ... Road movie-- a film in which characters, usually social outcasts and strangers to each other, share their journey. ... In a musical, an example of self-reflexivity would be a film purposefully framing a boom inside the frame to demand it be taken as a film, not as a seamless work of art in which the reproduction medium is invisible. direct address-- a cinematic rule broken by the musical in which performers address the film audience. Ironically, this often occurs indirectly, through a makeshift theater audience in the film into which we are meant to project ourselves as an audience. ... in a film, oneiric is used to refer to a fusion of "real life" and fiction in which the two are made indistinguishable . ... Star Wars was the first film to utilize the system. ... deconglomeration-- The process by which major corporations released their film production branches. ... HISTORY: 1. ... ) Edison -Invented Kinetograph, the first motion picture camera in 1877 using sprocket holes to feed the film. ... The novelty was, then, more the apparatus than the film itself. ... ) Spanish-American war films begin to instill narrative-- Edison shoots false documentaries using African-American actors (material couldnt be shipped home fast enough to keep up with paper coverage). ... ) censorship -MPPDA- "compensating values"- potentially immoral behaviors by stars on and offscreen (Fatty Arbuckle) will be okay if the characters they play portray positive American values (as in Im No Angel, the final move to monogamy). ... ) long term effects of conversion to sound -vertical integration reinforced -->made possible by bank financing -->risk of investment grows- only high-wealth companies have money necessary to cover costs of studio setup -indies suffer: restriction of access to filmmaking to women, minorities -Increased awareness of "national cultures"-- these were given some privilege inside the studio system (demand for new sources and types of talent) -internal market for film begins to collapse, but this is covered by expanding intl markets (these are angered by Hollywoods stereotyping, so the PCA makes appropriate cuts or bans).