Film movements/critical debates (S8)

• Modernism and silent film comedy:
• What was one of the main contributions of American popular cinema to European art cinema in 1920s?

  Silent Comedies
• Who were the most influential film figures at the time?

  Keaton, Chaplin, Arbuckle
• Silent comedy stars all knew each other and pushed at the boundaries of film form and technology
• What's an example of an element of popular culture that silent comedy experiments with?


  Vaudeville
• What's modernism?


  A global movement in society/culture that is a creative response to rapid modern technological advancement and what that means for humankind 
• “Keaton looked at [objects] and beheld endless comic possibilities...not only possibilities for the objects themselves, but also for the spaces around them.” 
• By modernizing traditional techniques, artists reflected the modernizing of culture
• What are three sub-movements that fall under modernism
• What are three sub-movements that fall under modernism?

  Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism
• What's futurism?

  An attempt to capture the experience of travelling at high speed - inspires by urbanisation and new technologies
• What's surrealism?

  Aims to revolutionize human experience by balancing a rational vision of life with one that asserts the power of the unconscious and dreams – find magic/beauty in the unexpected and uncanny 
• Who is one of the most prominent artists of the surrealist movement?

  Salvador Dali
• “There are visual echoes of the silent comedy genre...particularly the relationship between man and the modern machinery of the mechanized world” - Dali
• Modern technology is one of the themes Dali explores in his painting ‘Apparatus and Hand’ - was a significant theme in Keaton’s work  
• What's cubism?

  Revolutionary approach to representing reality – use of simple geometric shapes, fragmented and abstract
• What's the shock of the modern?

  Modernity as an experience of shock – the stimulation and shock of modern environments (transport, technology)
• Key word: mass consumption
• What's alienation in relation to modernism?


  Experiencing or inducing feelings of isolation, loneliness brought on by new modernity – fast-pace of industrializing world swallowed individual up by the vastness of life  
• Critical debate - Expressionism/Realism:
• What was French film critic Andre Bazin's debate he started in the 1940s?


  He argued German expressionist and soviet montage filmmaking goes against what he saw as realist cinema  
• The opposition between realist and expressive has informed thinking about early cinema and the opposition of the documentary realism of the Lumiere Brothers and the fantasy films of Melies 
• What's realism?


  The realists: don't distort time or space, accurate presentation of reality
• What did Bazin identify as the key features of realism?


  Long takes, deep focus/ depth of field, non-professional actors, limited editing
• What are the two groups of expressionism?

  The plastics and The montagists
• What were the key features of the plastics?

  Focus on lighting, decor, composition and acting (German Expressionism) 
• What were the key features of the montagists?

  Editing (Soviet montage)
• What are the differences in representation between realism and expressionism?

  Realism - unmediated as possible

  Expressionism - highly mediated
• What are the differences in visual aesthetic between realism and expressionism?

  Realism: accurate, simple depiction

  Expressionism: highly constructed
• What are the differences in the principles of realism and expressionism?

  Realism: respect/truth

  Expressionism: manipulation
• What are the differences between the intent of realism and expressionism?

  Realism: spectator reflection

  Expressionism: spectator agitation/discomfort
• What's the realist mode of filmmaking?


  The potential to capture the real world
• What's the expressive mode of filmmaking?


  The potential for cinema to create a fantasy world and create tricks/effects
• What mode did Keaton use?

  He combined them by using realist locations with surrealist gags