CinemaWeek 8 – Humanities G125

Rasmussen CollegePaige Shreeve Welle

The Art of Creating Awe

Art and Propoganda

D.W. Griffith – Birth of a NationSympathetic after the Civil War to KKK and the South

Sergei Eisenstein – The Battleship PotemkinFavorable message to the Bolsheviks and Lenin

Features a scene in which Czarist soldiers massacre innocent people with a focus on a baby carriage.

Major Film Genres

Slapstick Comedy

Farce

Animated

Film Noir

Romantic Comedy

Screen Musical

The Western

Horror and Suspense Films

Social Issues

Documentaries and Docudramas

Fictionalized Biography

Slapstick ComedyCharlie Chaplin – The Little Tramp

Social Consciousness – showed the “survivor”

Outwits bullies and villains

Works hard

FarceThe Marx Brothers

Groucho, Chico and Harpo

Animated FilmBegan in the 1930s with Mickey Mouse, Snow White in 1936

New animated films appeal to both children and adults

Example: Ratatouille

Film Noir1940s and 50s

Portrayed dark and gloomy underworld of crime and corruption

Heroes are just as disillusioned as the villains

D.O.A

Romantic ComediesThese have been around since the 1930s—Depression era—Escapism films

Lots of well known actors

Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn

New RomComsNot always a rosy ending

RomComs have gone from gender equal to a “slacker/striver” formula – Knocked Up

As Good as it Gets

The MusicalDirty Dancing – no singing, just dancing—new

Chicago

Moulin Rouge

These were not the light-hearted musicals of the 40s and 50s

The WesternVery American and very Hollywood!

Remain popular today

Good example of how film can sway your opinion about something.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – two outlaws – you want them to win!!!

Horror and SuspenseAlfred Hitchcock

Luis Bunuel –Spanish Director – 1929 film Un Chien Andalou – appeared to show an eyeball being cut open –

Today? Saw, Paranormal, etc.

Social IssuesIt’s a Wonderful Life—Frank Capra

Do the Right Thing – Spike Lee

Film AuteurAuteur = author

Ingmar BergmanSwedish Director 1918 – 2007

The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries

Central characters wonder why they are in this world.

Does life have a purpose?

Federico FelliniMovies with very ambiguous meanings – is God angry, or is God missing from people’s lives?

Most famous movie was 8 1/2

Alfred HitchcockMaster of Suspense

First person to make movies about spies and murders among highly civilized people

Real terror comes from what is imagined by the audience before anything is shown.

The Birds

Hitchcock Psycho

Shower scene lasts only 45 seconds, is composed of 78 distinct shots – you don’t see the actual stabbing

Probably the most famous scene in movie history

Francis Ford CoppolaMade The Godfather Trilogy – one of the most famous movies or trilogies of all time.

Sins of the father condemn the next generations to repeat the same crimes and suffer the vengeance of their enemies.

Main character a lot like Hamlet – doesn’t want the life he inherits

Conventions of Film

Direction

Cinematography

Screenwriting

Sound

Editing

Art Direction

The End