3720 lines
220 KiB
Plaintext
3720 lines
220 KiB
Plaintext
cinematography
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(sin-uh-muh-tahg'-ruh-fee)
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Cinematography is the technique and art of making motion pictures, which are a
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sequence of photographs of a single subject that are taken over time and then
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projected in the same sequence to create an illusion of motion. Each image of a
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moving object is slightly different from the preceding one.
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Projector
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A motion-picture projector projects the sequence of picture frames, contained
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on a ribbon of film, in their proper order. A claw engages perforations in the
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film and pulls the film down into the film gate, placing each new frame in
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exactly the same position as the preceding one. When the frame is in position,
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it is projected onto the screen by illuminating it with a beam of light. The
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period of time between the projection of each still image when no image is
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projected is normally not noticed by the viewer.
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Two perceptual phenomena--persistence of vision and the critical flicker
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frequency--cause a continuous image. Persistence of a vision is the ability of
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the viewer to retain or in some way remember the impression of an image after
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it has been withdrawn from view. The critical flicker frequency is the minimum
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rate of interruption of the projected light beam that will not cause the motion
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picture to appear to flicker. A frequency above about 48 interruptions a
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second will eliminate flicker.
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Camera
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Like a still camera (see CAMERA), a movie camera shoots each picture
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individually. The movie camera, however, must also move the film precisely and
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control the shutter, keeping the amount of light reaching the film nearly
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constant from frame to frame. The shutter of a movie camera is essentially a
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circular plate rotated by an electric motor. An opening in the plate exposes
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the film frame only after the film has been positioned and has come to rest.
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The plate itself continues to rotate smoothly.
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Photographic materials must be manufactured with great precision. The
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perforations, or holes in the film, must be precisely positioned. The
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pitch--the distance from one hole to another--must be maintained by correct
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film storage. By the late 1920s, a sound-on-film system of synchronous SOUND
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RECORDING was developed and gained widespread popularity. In this process, the
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sound is recorded separately on a machine synchronized with the picture camera.
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Unlike the picture portion of the film, the sound portion is recorded and
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played back continuously rather than in intermittent motion. Although editing
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still makes use of perforated film for flexibility, a more modern technique
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uses conventional magnetic tape for original recording and synchronizes the
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recording to the picture electronically (see TAPE RECORDER).
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If the number of photographs projected per unit time (frame rate) differs from
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the number produced per unit time by the camera, an apparent speeding up or
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slowing down of the normal rate is created. Changes in the frame rates are
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used occasionally for comic effect or motion analysis.
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Cinematography becomes an art when the filmmaker attempts to make moving images
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that relate directly to human perception, provide visual significance and
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information, and provoke emotional response.
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History of Film Technology
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Several parlor toys of the early 1800s used visual illusions similar to those
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of the motion picture. These include the thaumatrope (1825); the
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phenakistiscope (1832); the stroboscope (1832); and the zoetrope (1834).
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The photographic movie, however, was first used as a means of investigation
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rather than of theatrical illusion. Leland Stanford, then governor of
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California, hired photographer Eadweard MUYBRIDGE to prove that at some time in
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a horse's gallop all four legs are simultaneously off the ground. Muybridge
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did so by using several cameras to produce a series of photographs with very
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short time intervals between them. Such a multiple photographic record was
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used in the kinetoscope, which displayed a photographic moving image and was
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commercially successful for a time.
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The kinetoscope was invented either by Thomas Alva EDISON or by his assistant
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William K. L. Dickson, both of whom had experimented originally with moving
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pictures as a supplement to the phonograph record. They later turned to George
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EASTMAN, who provided a flexible celluloid film base to store the large number
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of images necessary to create motion pictures.
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The mechanical means of cinematography were gradually perfected. It was
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discovered that it was better to display the sequence of images intermittently
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rather than continuously. This technique allowed a greater presentation time
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and more light for the projection of each frame. Another improvement was the
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loop above and below the film gate in both the camera and the projector, which
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prevented the film from tearing.
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By the late 1920s, synchronized sound was being introduced in movies. These
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sound films soon replaced silent films in popularity. To prevent the
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microphones from picking up camera noise, a portable housing was designed that
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muffled noises and allowed the camera to be moved about. In recent years,
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equipment, lighting, and film have all been improved, but the processes
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involved remain essentially the same. RICHARD FLOBERG
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Bibliography
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Bibliography: Fielding, Raymond, ed., A Technological History of Motion
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Pictures and Television (1967); Happe, I. Bernard, Basic Motion Picture
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Technology, 2d ed. (1975); Malkiewicz, J. Kris, and Rogers, Robert E.,
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Cinematography (1973); Wheeler, Leslie J., Principles of Cinematography, 4th
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ed. (1973).
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film:
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film, history of
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The history of film has been dominated by the discovery and testing of the
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paradoxes inherent in the medium itself. Film uses machines to record images
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of life; it combines still photographs to give the illusion of continuous
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motion; it seems to present life itself, but it also offers impossible
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unrealities approached only in dreams.^The motion picture was developed in the
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1890s from the union of still PHOTOGRAPHY, which records physical reality, with
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the persistence-of-vision toy, which made drawn figures appear to move. Four
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major film traditions have developed since then: fictional narrative film,
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which tells stories about people with whom an audience can identify because
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their world looks familiar; nonfictional documentary film, which focuses on the
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real world either to instruct or to reveal some sort of truth about it;
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animated film, which makes drawn or sculpted figures look as if they are moving
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and speaking; and experimental film, which exploits film's ability to create a
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purely abstract, nonrealistic world unlike any previously seen.^Film is
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considered the youngest art form and has inherited much from the older and more
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traditional arts. Like the novel, it can tell stories; like the drama, it can
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portray conflict between live characters; like painting, it composes in space
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with light, color, shade, shape, and texture; like music, it moves in time
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according to principles of rhythm and tone; like dance, it presents the
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movement of figures in space and is often underscored by music; and like
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photography, it presents a two-dimensional rendering of what appears to be
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three-dimensional reality, using perspective, depth, and shading.^Film,
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however, is one of the few arts that is both spatial and temporal,
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intentionally manipulating both space and time. This synthesis has given rise
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to two conflicting theories about film and its historical development. Some
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theorists, such as S. M. EISENSTEIN and Rudolf Arnheim, have argued that film
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must take the path of the other modern arts and concentrate not on telling
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stories or representing reality but on investigating time and space in a pure
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and consciously abstract way. Others, such as Andre Bazin and Siegfried
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KRACAUER, maintain that film must fully and carefully develop its connection
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with nature so that it can portray human events as excitingly and revealingly
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as possible.^Because of his fame, his success at publicizing his activities,
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and his habit of patenting machines before actually inventing them, Thomas
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EDISON received most of the credit for having invented the motion picture; as
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early as 1887, he patented a motion picture camera, but this could not produce
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images. In reality, many inventors contributed to the development of moving
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pictures. Perhaps the first important contribution was the series of motion
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photographs made by Eadweard MUYBRIDGE between 1872 and 1877. Hired by the
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governor of California, Leland Stanford, to capture on film the movement of a
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racehorse, Muybridge tied a series of wires across the track and connected each
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one to the shutter of a still camera. The running horse tripped the wires and
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exposed a series of still photographs, which Muybridge then mounted on a
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stroboscopic disk and projected with a magic lantern to reproduce an image of
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the horse in motion. Muybridge shot hundreds of such studies and went on to
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lecture in Europe, where his work intrigued the French scientist E. J. MAREY.
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Marey devised a means of shooting motion photographs with what he called a
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photographic gun.^Edison became interested in the possibilities of motion
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photography after hearing Muybridge lecture in West Orange, N.J. Edison's
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motion picture experiments, under the direction of William Kennedy Laurie
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Dickson, began in 1888 with an attempt to record the photographs on wax
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cylinders similar to those used to make the original phonograph recordings.
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Dickson made a major breakthrough when he decided to use George EASTMAN's
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celluloid film instead. Celluloid was tough but supple and could be
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manufactured in long rolls, making it an excellent medium for motion
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photography, which required great lengths of film. Between 1891 and 1895,
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Dickson shot many 15-second films using the Edison camera, or Kinetograph, but
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Edison decided against projecting the films for audiences--in part because the
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visual results were inadequate and in part because he felt that motion pictures
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would have little public appeal. Instead, Edison marketed an electrically
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driven peep-hole viewing machine (the Kinetoscope) that displayed the marvels
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recorded to one viewer at a time.^Edison thought so little of the Kinetoscope
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that he failed to extend his patent rights to England and Europe, an oversight
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that allowed two Frenchmen, Louis and Auguste LUMIERE, to manufacture a more
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portable camera and a functional projector, the Cinematographe, based on
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Edison's machine. The movie era might be said to have begun officially on Dec.
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28, 1895, when the Lumieres presented a program of brief motion pictures to a
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paying audience in the basement of a Paris cafe. English and German inventors
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also copied and improved upon the Edison machines, as did many other
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experimenters in the United States. By the end of the 19th century vast
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numbers of people in both Europe and America had been exposed to some form of
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motion pictures.^The earliest films presented 15- to 60-second glimpses of real
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scenes recorded outdoors (workmen, trains, fire engines, boats, parades,
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soldiers) or of staged theatrical performances shot indoors. These two early
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tendencies--to record life as it is and to dramatize life for artistic
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effect--can be viewed as the two dominant paths of film history.^Georges MELIES
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was the most important of the early theatrical filmmakers. A magician by
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trade, Melies, in such films as A Trip to the Moon (1902), showed how the
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cinema could perform the most amazing magic tricks of all: simply by stopping
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the camera, adding something to the scene or removing something from it, and
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then starting the camera again, he made things seem to appear and disappear.
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Early English and French filmmakers such as Cecil Hepworth, James Williamson,
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and Ferdinand Zecca also discovered how rhythmic movement (the chase) and
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rhythmic editing could make cinema's treatment of time and space more exciting.
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American Film in the Silent Era (1903-1928)
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A most interesting primitive American film was The Great Train Robbery (1903),
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directed by Edwin S. PORTER of the Edison Company. This early western used
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much freer editing and camera work than usual to tell its story, which included
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bandits, a holdup, a chase by a posse, and a final shoot-out. When other
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companies (Vitagraph, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, Lubin, and
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Kalem among them) began producing films that rivaled those of the Edison
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Company, Edison sued them for infringement of his patent rights. This
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so-called patents war lasted 10 years (1898-1908), ending only when nine
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leading film companies merged to form the Motion Picture Patents Company.^One
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reason for the settlement was the enormous profits to be derived from what had
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begun merely as a cheap novelty. Before 1905 motion pictures were usually
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shown in vaudeville houses as one act on the bill. After 1905 a growing number
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of small, storefront theaters called nickelodeons, accommodating less than 200
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patrons, began to show motion pictures exclusively. By 1908 an estimated 10
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million Americans were paying their nickels and dimes to see such films. Young
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speculators such as William Fox and Marcus Loew saw their theaters, which
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initially cost but $1,600 each, grow into enterprises worth $150,000 each
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within 5 years. Called the drama of the people, the early motion pictures
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attracted primarily working-class and immigrant audiences who found the
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nickelodeon a pleasant family diversion; they might not have been able to read
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the words in novels and newspapers, but they understood the silent language of
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pictures.^The popularity of the moving pictures led to the first attacks
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against it by crusading moralists, police, and politicians. Local censorship
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boards were established to eliminate objectionable material from films. In
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1909 the infant U.S. film industry waged a counterattack by creating the first
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of many self-censorship boards, the National Board of Censorship (after 1916
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called the National Board of Review), whose purpose was to set moral standards
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for films and thereby save them from costly mutilation.^A nickelodeon program
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consisted of about six 10-minute films, usually including an adventure, a
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comedy, an informational film, a chase film, and a melodrama. The most
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accomplished maker of these films was Biograph's D. W. GRIFFITH, who almost
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singlehandedly transformed both the art and the business of the motion picture.
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Griffith made over 400 short films between 1908 and 1913, in this period
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discovering or developing almost every major technique by which film
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manipulates time and space: the use of alternating close-ups, medium shots,
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and distant panoramas; the subtle control of rhythmic editing; the effective
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use of traveling shots, atmospheric lighting, narrative commentary, poetic
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detail, and visual symbolism; and the advantages of understated acting, at
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which his acting company excelled. The culmination of Griffith's work was The
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Birth of a Nation (1915), a mammoth, 3-hour epic of the Civil War and
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Reconstruction. Its historical detail, suspense, and passionate conviction
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were to outdate the 10-minute film altogether.^The decade between 1908 and 1918
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was one of the most important in the history of American film. The full-length
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feature film replaced the program of short films; World War I destroyed or
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restricted the film industries of Europe, promoting greater technical
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innovation, growth, and commercial stability in America; the FILM INDUSTRY was
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consolidated with the founding of the first major studios in Hollywood, Calif.
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(Fox, Paramount, and Universal); and the great American silent comedies were
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born. Mack SENNETT became the driving force behind the Keystone Company soon
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after joining it in 1912; Hal Roach founded his comedy company in 1914; and
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Charlie CHAPLIN probably had the best-known face in the world in 1916.^During
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this period the first movie stars rose to fame, replacing the anonymous players
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of the short films. In 1918, America's two favorite stars, Charlie Chaplin and
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Mary PICKFORD, both signed contracts for over $1 million. Other familiar stars
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of the decade included comedians Fatty ARBUCKLE and John Bunny, cowboys William
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S. HART and Bronco Billy Anderson, matinee idols Rudolph VALENTINO and John
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Gilbert, and the alluring females Theda BARA and Clara BOW. Along with the
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stars came the first movie fan magazines; Photoplay published its inaugural
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issue in 1912. That same year also saw the first of the FILM SERIALS, The
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Perils of Pauline, starring Pearl White.^The next decade in American film
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history, 1918 to 1928, was a period of stabilization rather than expansion.
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Films were made within studio complexes, which were, in essence, factories
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designed to produce films in the same way that Henry Ford's factories produced
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automobiles. Film companies became monopolies in that they not only made films
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but distributed them to theaters and owned the theaters in which they were
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shown as well. This vertical integration formed the commercial foundation of
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the film industry for the next 30 years. Two new producing companies founded
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during the decade were Warner Brothers (1923), which would become powerful with
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its early conversion to synchronized sound, and Metro-Goldwyn (1924; later
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), the producing arm of Loew's, under the direction of Louis
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B. MAYER and Irving THALBERG.^Attacks against immorality in films intensified
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during this decade, spurred by the sensual implications and sexual practices of
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the movie stars both on and off the screen. In 1921, after several nationally
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publicized sex and drug scandals, the industry headed off the threat of federal
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CENSORSHIP by creating the office of the Motion Picture Producers and
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Distributors of America (now the Motion Picture Association of America), under
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the direction of Will HAYS. Hays, who had been postmaster general of the
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United States and Warren G. Harding's campaign manager, began a series of
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public relations campaigns to underscore the importance of motion pictures to
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American life. He also circulated several lists of practices that were
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henceforth forbidden on and off the screen.^Hollywood films of the 1920s became
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more polished, subtle, and skillful, and especially imaginative in handling the
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absence of sound. It was the great age of comedy. Chaplin retained a hold on
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his world-following with full-length features such as The Kid (1920) and The
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Gold Rush (1925); Harold LLOYD climbed his way to success--and got the girl--no
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matter how great the obstacles as Grandma's Boy (1922) or The Freshman (1925);
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Buster KEATON remained deadpan through a succession of wildly bizarre sight
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gags in Sherlock Jr. and The Navigator (both 1924); Harry Langdon was ever the
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innocent elf cast adrift in a mean, tough world; and director Ernst LUBITSCH,
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fresh from Germany, brought his "touch" to understated comedies of manners,
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sex, and marriage. The decade saw the United States's first great war film
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(The Big Parade, 1925), its first great westerns (The Covered Wagon, 1923; The
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Iron Horse, 1924), and its first great biblical epics (The Ten Commandments,
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1923, and King of Kings, 1927, both made by Cecil B. DE MILLE). Other films
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of this era included Erich Von STROHEIM's sexual studies, Lon CHANEY's
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grotesque costume melodramas, and the first great documentary feature, Robert
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J. FLAHERTY's Nanook of the North (1922).
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European Film in the 1920s
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In the same decade, the European film industries recovered from the war to
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produce one of the richest artistic periods in film history. The German
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cinema, stimulated by EXPRESSIONISM in painting and the theater and by the
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design theories of the BAUHAUS, created bizarrely expressionistic settings for
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such fantasies as Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1919), F. W.
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MURNAU's Nosferatu (1922), and Fritz LANG's Metropolis (1927). The Germans
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also brought their sense of decor, atmospheric lighting, and penchant for a
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frequently moving camera to such realistic political and psychological studies
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as Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924), G. W. PABST's The Joyless Street (1925),
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and E. A. Dupont's Variety (1925).^Innovation also came from the completely
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different approach taken by filmmakers in the USSR, where movies were intended
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not only to entertain but also to instruct the masses in the social and
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political goals of their new government. The Soviet cinema used MONTAGE, or
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complicated editing techniques that relied on visual metaphor, to create
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excitement and richness of texture and, ultimately, to affect ideological
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attitudes. The most influential Soviet theorist and filmmaker was Sergei M.
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Eisenstein, whose Potemkin (1925) had a worldwide impact; other innovative
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Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s included V. I. PUDOVKIN, Lev Kuleshov, Abram
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Room, and Alexander DOVZHENKO.^The Swedish cinema of the 1920s relied heavily
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on the striking visual qualities of the northern landscape. Mauritz Stiller
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and Victor Sjostrom mixed this natural imagery of mountains, sea, and ice with
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psychological drama and tales of supernatural quests. French cinema, by
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contrast, brought the methods and assumptions of modern painting to film.
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Under the influence of SURREALISM and dadaism, filmmakers working in France
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began to experiment with the possibility of rendering abstract perceptions or
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dreams in a visual medium. Marcel DUCHAMP, Rene CLAIR, Fernand LEGER, Jean
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RENOIR--and Luis BUNUEL and Salvador DALI in Un Chien andalou (1928)--all made
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antirealist, antirational, noncommercial films that helped establish the
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avant-garde tradition in filmmaking. Several of these filmmakers would later
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make significant contributions to the narrative tradition in the sound era.
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The Arrival of Sound
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The era of the talking film began in late 1927 with the enormous success of
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Warner Brothers' The Jazz Singer. The first totally sound film, Lights of New
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York, followed in 1928. Although experimentation with synchronizing sound and
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picture was as old as the cinema itself (Dickson, for example, made a rough
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synchronization of the two for Edison in 1894), the feasibility of sound film
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was widely publicized only after Warner Brothers purchased the Vitaphone from
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Western Electric in 1926. The original Vitaphone system synchronized the
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picture with a separate phonographic disk, rather than using the more accurate
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method of recording (based on the principle of the OSCILLOSCOPE) a sound track
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on the film itself. Warners originally used the Vitaphone to make short
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musical films featuring both classical and popular performers and to record
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musical sound tracks for otherwise silent films (Don Juan, 1926). For The Jazz
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Singer, Warners added four synchronized musical sequences to the silent film.
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When Al JOLSON sang and then delivered several lines of dialogue, audiences
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were electrified. The silent film was dead within a year.^The conversion to
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synchronized sound caused serious problems for the film industry. Sound
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recording was difficult; cameras had to shoot from inside glass booths; studios
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had to build special soundproof stages; theaters required expensive new
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equipment; writers had to be hired who had an ear for dialogue; and actors had
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to be found whose voices could deliver it. Many of the earliest talkies were
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ugly and static, the visual images serving merely as an accompaniment to
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endless dialogue, sound effects, and musical numbers. Serious film critics
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||
mourned the passing of the motion picture, which no longer seemed to contain
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either motion or picture.^The most effective early sound films were those that
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played most adventurously with the union of picture and sound track. Walt
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DISNEY in his cartoons combined surprising sights with inventive sounds,
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||
carefully orchestrating the animated motion and musical rhythm. Ernst Lubitsch
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||
also played very cleverly with sound, contrasting the action depicted visually
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||
with the information on the sound track in dazzlingly funny or revealing ways.
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||
By 1930 the U.S. film industry had conquered both the technical and the
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||
artistic problems involved in using sight and sound harmoniously, and the
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European industry was quick to follow.
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Hollywood's Golden Era
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||
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The 1930s was the golden era of the Hollywood studio film. It was the decade
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||
of the great movie stars--Greta GARBO, Marlene DIETRICH, Jean HARLOW, Mae WEST,
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||
Katharine HEPBURN, Bette DAVIS, Cary GRANT, Gary COOPER, Clark GABLE, James
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||
STEWART--and some of America's greatest directors thrived on the pressures and
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||
excitement of studio production. Josef von STERNBERG became legendary for his
|
||
use of exotic decor and sexual symbolism; Howard HAWKS made driving adventures
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||
and fast-paced comedies; Frank CAPRA blended politics and morality in a series
|
||
of comedy-dramas; and John FORD mythified the American West.^American studio
|
||
pictures seemed to come in cycles, many of the liveliest being those that could
|
||
not have been made before synchronized sound. The gangster film introduced
|
||
Americans to the tough doings and tougher talk of big-city thugs, as played by
|
||
James CAGNEY, Paul MUNI, and Edward G. ROBINSON. Musicals included the witty
|
||
operettas of Ernst Lubitsch, with Maurice CHEVALIER and Jeanette MACDONALD; the
|
||
backstage musicals, with their kaleidoscopically dazzling dance numbers, of
|
||
Busby BERKELEY; and the smooth, more natural song-and-dance comedies starring
|
||
Fred ASTAIRE and Ginger ROGERS. Synchronized sound also produced SCREWBALL
|
||
COMEDY, which explored the dizzy doings of fast-moving, fast-thinking, and,
|
||
above all, fast-talking men and women.^The issue of artistic freedom versus
|
||
censorship raised by the movies came to the fore again with the advent of
|
||
talking pictures. Spurred by the depression that hit the industry in 1933 and
|
||
by the threat of an economic boycott by the newly formed Catholic Legion of
|
||
Decency, the motion picture industry adopted an official Production Code in
|
||
1934. Written in 1930 by Daniel Lord, S.J., and Martin Quigley, a Catholic
|
||
layman who was publisher of The Motion Picture Herald, the code explicitly
|
||
prohibited certain acts, themes, words, and implications. Will Hays appointed
|
||
Joseph I. Breen, the Catholic layman most instrumental in founding the Legion
|
||
of Decency, head of the Production Code Administration, and this awarded the
|
||
industry's seal of approval to films that met the code's moral standards. The
|
||
result was the curtailment of explicit violence and sexual innuendo, and also
|
||
of much of the flavor that had characterized films earlier in the decade.
|
||
|
||
Europe During the 1930s
|
||
|
||
The 1930s abroad did not produce films as consistently rich as those of the
|
||
previous decade. With the coming of sound, the British film industry was
|
||
reduced to satellite status. The most stylish British productions were the
|
||
historical dramas of Sir Alexander KORDA and the mystery-adventures of Alfred
|
||
HITCHCOCK. The major Korda stars, as well as Hitchcock himself, left Britain
|
||
for Hollywood before the decade ended. More innovative were the
|
||
government-funded documentaries and experimental films made by the General Post
|
||
Office Film Unit under the direction of John Grierson.^Soviet filmmakers had
|
||
problems with the early sound-film machines and with the application of montage
|
||
theory (a totally visual conception) to sound filming. They were further
|
||
plagued by restrictive Stalinist policies, policies that sometimes kept such
|
||
ambitious film artists as Pudovkin and Eisenstein from making films altogether.
|
||
The style of the German cinema was perfectly suited to sound filming, and
|
||
German films of the period 1928-32 show some of the most creative uses of the
|
||
medium in the early years of sound. When the Nazis came to power in 1933,
|
||
however, almost all the creative film talent left Germany. An exception was
|
||
Leni RIEFENSTAHL, whose theatrical documentary Triumph of the Will (1934)
|
||
represents a highly effective example of the German propaganda films made
|
||
during the decade.^French cinema, the most exciting alternative to Hollywood in
|
||
the 1930s, produced many of France's most classic films. The decade found
|
||
director Jean Renoir--in Grand Illusion (1937) and Rules of the Game (1939)--at
|
||
the height of his powers; Rene Clair mastered both the musical fantasy and the
|
||
sociopolitical satire (A Nous la liberte, 1931); Marcel PAGNOL brought to the
|
||
screen his trilogy of Marseilles life, Fanny; the young Jean VIGO, in only two
|
||
films, brilliantly expressed youthful rebellion and mature love; and director
|
||
Marcel CARNE teamed with poet Jacques Prevert to produce haunting existential
|
||
romances of lost love and inevitable death in Quai des brumes (1938) and Le
|
||
Jour se leve (1939).
|
||
|
||
Hollywood: World War II, Postwar Decline
|
||
|
||
During World War II, films were required to lift the spirits of Americans both
|
||
at home and overseas. Many of the most accomplished Hollywood directors and
|
||
producers went to work for the War Department. Frank Capra produced the "Why
|
||
We Fight" series (1942-45); Walt Disney, fresh from his Snow White (1937) and
|
||
Fantasia (1940) successes, made animated informational films; and Garson KANIN,
|
||
John HUSTON, and William WYLER all made documentaries about important battles.
|
||
Among the new American directors to make remarkable narrative films at home
|
||
were three former screenwriters, Preston STURGES, Billy WILDER, and John
|
||
Huston. Orson WELLES, the boy genius of theater and radio fame, also came to
|
||
Hollywood to shoot Citizen Kane (1941), the strange story of a newspaper
|
||
magnate whose American dream turns into a loveless nightmare.^Between 1946 and
|
||
1953 the movie industry was attacked from many sides. As a result, the
|
||
Hollywood studio system totally collapsed. First, the U.S. House of
|
||
Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities investigated alleged
|
||
Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry in two separate sets of
|
||
hearings. In 1948, The HOLLYWOOD TEN, 10 screenwriters and directors who
|
||
refused to answer the questions of the committee, went to jail for contempt of
|
||
Congress. Then, from 1951 to 1954, in mass hearings, Hollywood celebrities
|
||
were forced either to name their associates as fellow Communists or to refuse
|
||
to answer all questions on the grounds of the 5th Amendment, protecting
|
||
themselves against self-incrimination. These hearings led the industry to
|
||
blacklist many of its most talented workers and also weakened its image in the
|
||
eyes of America and the world.^In 1948 the United States Supreme Court, ruling
|
||
in United States v. Paramount that the vertical integration of the movie
|
||
industry was monopolistic, required the movie studios to divest themselves of
|
||
the theaters that showed their pictures and thereafter to cease all unfair or
|
||
discriminatory distribution practices. At the same time, movie attendance
|
||
started a steady decline; the film industry's gross revenues fell every year
|
||
from 1947 to 1963. The most obvious cause was the rise of TELEVISION, as more
|
||
and more Americans each year stayed home to watch the entertainment they could
|
||
get most comfortably and inexpensively. In addition, European quotas against
|
||
American films bit into Hollywood's foreign revenues.^While major American
|
||
movies lost money, foreign art films were attracting an enthusiastic and
|
||
increasingly large audience, and these foreign films created social as well as
|
||
commercial difficulties for the industry. In 1951, The Miracle, a 40-minute
|
||
film by Roberto ROSSELLINI, was attacked by the New York Catholic Diocese as
|
||
sacrilegious and was banned by New York City's commissioner of licenses. The
|
||
1952 Supreme Court ruling in the Miracle case officially granted motion
|
||
pictures the right to free speech as guaranteed in the Constitution, reversing
|
||
a 1915 ruling by the Court that movies were not equivalent to speech. Although
|
||
the ruling permitted more freedom of expression in films, it also provoked
|
||
public boycotts and repeated legal tests of the definition of
|
||
obscenity.^Hollywood attempted to counter the effects of television with a
|
||
series of technological gimmicks in the early 1950s: 3-D, Cinerama, and
|
||
Cinemascope. The industry converted almost exclusively to color filming during
|
||
the decade, aided by the cheapness and flexibility of the new Eastman color
|
||
monopack, which came to challenge the monopoly of Technicolor. The content of
|
||
postwar films also began to change as Hollywood searched for a new audience and
|
||
a new style. There were more socially conscious films--such as Fred
|
||
ZINNEMANN's The Men (1950) and Elia KAZAN's On The Waterfront (1954); more
|
||
adaptations of popular novels and plays; more independent (as opposed to
|
||
studio) production; and a greater concentration on FILM NOIR--grim detective
|
||
stories in brutal urban settings. Older genres such as the Western still
|
||
flourished, and MGM brought the musical to what many consider its pinnacle in a
|
||
series of films produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Vincente MINNELLI,
|
||
Gene KELLY, and Stanley Donen.
|
||
|
||
The Film in Europe and Australia From 1950
|
||
|
||
The stimulus for defining a new film content and style came to the United
|
||
States from abroad, where many previously dormant film industries sprang to
|
||
life in the postwar years to produce an impressive array of films for the
|
||
international market. The European film renaissance can be said to have
|
||
started in Italy with such masters of NEOREALISM as Roberto Rossellini, in Open
|
||
City (1945), Vittorio DE SICA, in The Bicycle Thief (1948) and Umberto D
|
||
(1952), and Luchino VISCONTI, in La Terra Trema (1948). Federico FELLINI broke
|
||
with the tradition to make films of a more poetic and personal nature such as I
|
||
Vitelloni (1953) and La Strada (1954) and then shifted to a more sensational
|
||
style in the 1960s with La Dolce Vita (1960) and the intellectual 8 1/2 (1963).
|
||
Visconti in the 1960s and '70s would also adopt a more flamboyant approach and
|
||
subject matter in lush treatments of corruption and decadence such as The
|
||
Damned (1970). A new departure--both artistic and thematic--was evidenced by
|
||
Michelangelo ANTONIONI in his subtle psychosocial trilogy of films that began
|
||
with L'Aventura (1960). The vitality of a second generation of Italian
|
||
filmmakers was impressively demonstrated by Lina WERTMULLER in The Seduction of
|
||
Mimi (1974) and Seven Beauties (1976) and by Bernardo BERTOLUCCI, who in films
|
||
like Before the Revolution (1964), The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris
|
||
(1972), and 1900 (1977) fused radical social and political ideology with a
|
||
stunning aestheticism.^With the coming of NEW WAVE films in the late 1950s, the
|
||
French cinema reasserted the artistic primacy it had enjoyed in the prewar
|
||
period. Applying a personal style to radically different forms of film
|
||
narrative, New Wave directors included Claude CHABROL (The Cousins, 1959),
|
||
Francois TRUFFAUT (The 400 Blows, 1959; Jules and Jim, 1961), Alain RESNAIS
|
||
(Hiroshima Mon Amour, 1959), and Jean-Luc GODARD, who, following the success of
|
||
his offbeat Breathless (1960), became progressively more committed to a Marxist
|
||
interpretation of society, as seen in Two or Three Things I Know About Her
|
||
(1966), Weekend (1967), and La Chinoise (1967). Eric ROHMER, mining a more
|
||
traditional vein, produced sophisticated "moral tales" in My Night at Maud's
|
||
(1968) and Claire's Knee (1970); while Louis MALLE audaciously explored such
|
||
charged subjects as incest and collaborationism in Murmur of the Heart (1971)
|
||
and Lacombe Lucien (1974). The Spaniard Luis Bunuel, working in Mexico, Spain,
|
||
and France--and defying all categorization--continued to break new ground with
|
||
ironic examinations of the role of religion (Nazarin, 1958; Viridiana, 1961;
|
||
The Milky Way, 1969) and absurdist satires on middle-class foibles (The
|
||
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, 1972).^From Sweden Ingmar BERGMAN emerged in
|
||
the 1950s as the master of introspective, often death-obsessed studies of
|
||
complex human relationships. Although capable of comedy, as in Smiles of a
|
||
Summer Night (1955), Bergman was at his most impressive in more despairing,
|
||
existentialist dramas such as The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries
|
||
(1957), Persona (1966), and Cries and Whispers (1972), in all of these aided by
|
||
a first-rate acting ensemble and brilliant cinematography.^British film,
|
||
largely reduced to a spate of Alec GUINNESS comedies by the early 1950s, was
|
||
revitalized over the next decade by the ability of directors working in England
|
||
to produce compelling cinematic translations of the "angry young man" novelists
|
||
and playwrights, of Harold PINTER's existentialist dramas, and of the
|
||
traditional great British novels. Britain regained a healthy share of the
|
||
market with films such as Jack Clayton's Room at the Top (1958); Tony
|
||
Richardson's Look Back in Anger (1959), The Entertainer (1960), A Taste of
|
||
Honey (1961), and Tom Jones (1963); Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday
|
||
Morning (1960) and Morgan (1966); Lindsay ANDERSON's This Sporting Life (1963);
|
||
Joseph LOSEY's The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967); Ken RUSSELL's Women in
|
||
Love (1969); and John Schlesinger'S Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971). The
|
||
popularity of the James Bond spy series, which began in 1962, gave the industry
|
||
an added boost.^The internationalism both of the film market and of film
|
||
distribution after 1960 was underscored by the emergence even in smaller
|
||
countries of successful film industries and widely recognized directorial
|
||
talent: Andrzej WAJDA and Roman POLANSKI in Poland; Jan KADAR, Milos FORMAN,
|
||
Ivan PASSER, and Jiri Menzel in Czechoslovakia; and, more recently, Wim
|
||
WENDERS, Werner HERZOG, and Rainer Werner FASSBINDER in West Germany. The
|
||
death (1982) of Fassbinder ended an extraordinary and prolific career, but his
|
||
absence has yet to be felt--particularly in the United States, where many of
|
||
his earlier films are being shown for the first time.^Australia is a relatively
|
||
new entrant into the contemporary world film market. Buoyed by government
|
||
subsidies, Australian directors have produced a group of major films within the
|
||
past decade: Peter WEIR's Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave (1977),
|
||
Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career (1979) and Star Struck (1982), Fred
|
||
Schepisi's The Devil's Playground and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith (1978), and
|
||
Bruce Beresford's Breaker Morant (1980). Beresford, Weir, and Schepisi have
|
||
since directed films with U.S. backing; Beresford's Tender Mercies (1983) is
|
||
about that most American phenomenon, the country-western singer.
|
||
|
||
Postwar Film in Asia
|
||
|
||
Thriving film industries have existed in both Japan and India since the silent
|
||
era. It was only after World War II, however, that non-Western cinematic
|
||
traditions became visible and influential internationally. The Japanese
|
||
director Akira KUROSAWA opened a door to the West with his widely acclaimed
|
||
Rashomon (1950), an investigation into the elusive nature of truth. His
|
||
samurai dramas, such as The Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), an
|
||
adaptation of Macbeth, Yojimbo (1961), and Kagemusha (1980), were ironic
|
||
adventure tales that far transcended the usual Japanese sword movies, a genre
|
||
akin to U.S. westerns. Kenzi MIZOGUCHI is known for his stately period films
|
||
Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1955). Yoshiro Ozu's poetic studies of
|
||
modern domestic relations (Tokyo Story, 1953; An Autumn Afternoon, (1962)
|
||
introduced Western audiences to a personal sensitivity that was both intensely
|
||
national and universal. Younger directors, whose careers date from the postwar
|
||
burgeoning of the Japanese film, include Teinosuke Kinugasa (Gate of Hell,
|
||
1953), Hiroshi Teshigahara (Woman of the Dunes, 1964, from a script by the
|
||
novelist ABE KOBO), Masahiro Shinoda (Under the Cherry Blossoms, 1975), Nagisa
|
||
Oshima (The Ceremony, 1971) and Musaki Kobayashi, best known for his nine-hour
|
||
trilogy on the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, The Human Condition (1959-61),
|
||
and Harakiri (1962), a deglamorization of the samurai tradition.^The film
|
||
industry in India, which ranks among the largest in the world, has produced
|
||
very little for international consumption. Its most famous director, Satyajit
|
||
RAY, vividly brings to life the problems of an India in transition, in
|
||
particular in the trilogy comprising Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956),
|
||
and The World of Apu (1958). Bengali is the language used in almost all Ray's
|
||
films. In 1977, however, he produced The Chess Players, with sound tracks in
|
||
both Hindi and English.
|
||
|
||
American Film Today
|
||
|
||
Throughout the 1960s and '70s, the American film industry accommodated itself
|
||
to the competition of this world market; to a film audience that had shrunk
|
||
from 80 million to 20 million weekly; to the tastes of a primarily young and
|
||
educated audience; and to the new social and sexual values sweeping the United
|
||
States and much of the rest of the industrialized world. The Hollywood studios
|
||
that have survived in name (Paramount, Warners, Universal, MGM, Fox) are today
|
||
primarily offices for film distribution. Many are subsidiaries of such huge
|
||
conglomerates as the Coca Cola Company or Gulf and Western. Increasingly,
|
||
major films are being shot in places other than Hollywood (New York City, for
|
||
example, is recovering its early status as a filmmaking center), and Hollywood
|
||
now produces far more television movies, series, and commercials than it does
|
||
motion pictures.^American movies of the past 20 years have moved more strongly
|
||
into social criticism (Doctor Strangelove, 1963; The Graduate, 1967; The
|
||
Godfather, 1971; One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975; The Deer Hunter, 1978;
|
||
Norma Rae, 1979; Apocalypse Now, 1979; Missing, 1982); or they have offered an
|
||
escape from social reality into the realm of fantasy, aided by the often
|
||
beautiful, sometimes awesome effects produced by new film technologies (2001:
|
||
A Space Odyssey, 1968; Jaws, 1975; Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third
|
||
Kind, 1977; Altered States, 1979; E. T., 1982); or they have returned to
|
||
earnest or comic investigations of the dilemmas of everyday life (a troubled
|
||
family, in Ordinary People, 1980; divorce life and male parenting, in Kramer v.
|
||
Kramer, 1979; women in a male world, in Nine to Five, 1979, and Tootsie, 1982).
|
||
The most successful directors of the past 15 years--Stanley KUBRICK, Robert
|
||
ALTMAN, Francis Ford COPPOLA, Woody ALLEN, George LUCAS, and Steven
|
||
SPIELBERG--are those who have played most imaginatively with the tools of film
|
||
communication itself. The stars of recent years (with the exceptions of Paul
|
||
NEWMAN and Robert REDFORD) have, for their part, been more offbeat and less
|
||
glamorous than their predecessors of the studio era--Robert DE NIRO, Jane Fonda
|
||
(see FONDA FAMILY), Dustin HOFFMAN, Jack NICHOLSON, Al PACINO, and Meryl
|
||
STREEP.^The last two decades have seen the virtual extinction of animated film,
|
||
which is too expensive to make well, and the rebirth of U.S. documentary film
|
||
in the insightful work of Fred WISEMAN, the Maysles brothers, Richard Leacock
|
||
and Donn Pennebaker, and, in Europe, of Marcel OPHULS. Even richer is the
|
||
experimental, or underground, movement of the 1960s and 1970s, in which
|
||
filmmakers such as Stan BRAKHAGE, Kenneth Anger, Bruce Baillie, Hollis
|
||
Frampton, Michael Snow, and Robert Breer have worked as personally and
|
||
abstractly with issues of visual and psychological perception as have modern
|
||
painters and poets. The new vitality of these two opposite traditions--the one
|
||
devoted to revealing external reality, the other to revealing the life of the
|
||
mind--underscores the persistence of the dichotomy inherent in the film medium.
|
||
In the future, film will probably continue to explore these opposing
|
||
potentialities. Narrative films in particular will probably continue trends
|
||
that began with the French New Wave, experimenting with more elliptical ways of
|
||
telling film stories and either borrowing or rediscovering many of the images,
|
||
themes, and devices of the experimental film itself. GERALD MAST
|
||
|
||
Bibliography
|
||
|
||
Bibliography:GENERAL HISTORIES AND CRITICISM: Arnheim, Rudolf, Film as Art
|
||
(1957; repr. 1971); Bazin, Andre, What is Cinema?, 2 vols., trans. by Hugh
|
||
Gray (1967, 1971); Cook, David A., A History of Narrative Film, 1889-1979
|
||
(1981); Cowie, Peter, ed., Concise History of the Cinema, 2 vols. (1970);
|
||
Eisenstein, Sergei M., Film Form (1949; repr. 1969); Halliwell, Leslie,
|
||
Filmgoer's Companion, 6th ed. (1977); Jowett, Garth, Film: The Democratic Art
|
||
(1976); Kael, Pauline, Reeling (1976), and 5,000 Nights at the Movies: A Guide
|
||
from A to Z (1982); Kracauer, Siegfried, Theory of Film: The Redemption of
|
||
Physical Reality (1960); Mast, Gerald, A Short History of the Movies, 2d ed.
|
||
(1976); Mast, Gerald, and Cohen, Marshall, Film Theory and Criticism:
|
||
Introductory Readings (1974); Monaco, James, How to Read a Film (1977); Peary,
|
||
Danny, Cult Movies (1981); Robinson, David, The History of World Cinema
|
||
(1973).^ NATIONAL FILM HISTORIES: AMERICAN: Higham, Charles, The Art of
|
||
American Film, 1900-1971 (1973); Monaco, James, American Film Now: The People,
|
||
the Power, the Movies (1979); Sarris, Andrew, The American Cinema: Directors
|
||
and Directions, 1929-1968 (1968); Sklar, Robert, Movie-Made America
|
||
(1975).^AUSTRALIAN: Stratton, David, The Last New Wave: The Australian Film
|
||
Revival (1981).^BRITISH: Armes, Roy, A History of British Cinema (1978); Low,
|
||
Rachael, The History of British Film, 4 vols. (1973); Manvell, Roger, New
|
||
Cinema in Britain (1969).^FRENCH: Armes, Roy, The French Cinema Since 1946, 2
|
||
vols., rev. ed. (1970); Harvey, Sylvia, May '68 and Film Culture (rev. ed.,
|
||
1980); Monaco, James, The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette
|
||
(1976); Sadoul, Georges, French Film (1953; repr. 1972).^GERMAN: Barlow, John
|
||
D., German Expressionist Film (1982); Hull, David S., Film of the Third Reich:
|
||
A Study of the German Cinema, 1933-1945 (1969); Manvell, Roger, and Fraenkel,
|
||
Heinrich, The German Cinema (1971); Sandford, John The New German Cinema
|
||
(1980); Wollenberg, H. H., Fifty Years of German Film (1948; repr.
|
||
1972).^ITALIAN: Jarratt, Vernon, Italian Cinema (1951; repr. 1972); Leprohon,
|
||
Pierre, The Italian Cinema (1972); Rondi, Gian, Italian Cinema Today (1965);
|
||
Witcombe, Roger, The New Italian Cinema (1982).^JAPANESE: Mellen, Joan, The
|
||
Waves at Genji's Door: Japan Through Its Cinema (1976); Richie, Donald, The
|
||
Films of Akira Kurosawa (1965), and The Japanese Movie: An Illustrated History
|
||
(1966); Sato, Tadao, Currents in Japanese Cinema (1982).^RUSSIAN: Cohen, Louis
|
||
H., The Cultural-Political Traditions and Development of the Soviet Cinema,
|
||
1917-1972 (1974); Dickenson, Thorold, and De La Roche, Catherine, Soviet Cinema
|
||
(1948; repr. 1972); Leyda, Jay, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet
|
||
Film (1960; repr. 1973); Taylor, Richard, Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and
|
||
Nazi Germany (1979).^SWEDISH: Cowie, Peter, Swedish Cinema (1966); Donner,
|
||
Jorn, The Personal Vision of Ingmar Bergman (1964); Hardy, Forsyth, The
|
||
Scandinavian Film (1952; repr. 1972).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Porter, Cole
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Cole Porter, b. Peru, Ind., June 9, 1892, d. Oct. 15, 1964, was an American
|
||
lyricist and composer of popular songs for stage and screen. A graduate of
|
||
Yale College, he attended Harvard School of Arts and Sciences for 2 years and
|
||
later studied under the French composer Vincent d'Indy. Both his lyrics and
|
||
music have a witty sophistication, technical virtuosity, and exquisite sense of
|
||
style that have rarely been paralleled in popular music. He contributed
|
||
brilliant scores to numerous Broadway musicals, such as Anything Goes (1934)
|
||
and Kiss Me, Kate (1948), and to motion pictures. His best songs have become
|
||
classics; these include "Begin the Beguine," "Night and Day," and "I Love
|
||
Paris." DAVID EWEN
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Eells, George, The Life that Late He Led: A Biography of Cole
|
||
Porter (1967); Kimball, Robert, ed., Cole (1971); Schwartz, Charles, Cole Porter
|
||
(1977).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Griffith, D. W.
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
David Lewelyn Wark Griffith, b. La Grange, Ky., Jan. 23, 1875, d. July 23,
|
||
1948, is recognized as the greatest single film director and most consistently
|
||
innovative artist of the early American film industry. His influence on the
|
||
development of cinema was worldwide.
|
||
|
||
After gaining experience with a Louisville stock company, he was employed as an
|
||
actor and writer by the Biograph Film Company of New York in 1907. The
|
||
following year he was offered a director-producer contract and, for the next
|
||
five years, oversaw the production of more than 400 one- and two-reel films.
|
||
As his ideas grew bolder, however, he felt increasingly frustrated by the
|
||
limitations imposed by his employers. Griffith left Biograph in 1913 to join
|
||
Reliance-Majestic as head of production, and in 1914, he began his most famous
|
||
film, based on the novel The Clansman by Thomas Dixon. This Civil War
|
||
Reconstruction epic, known as The Birth of a Nation (1915), became a landmark
|
||
in American filmmaking, both for its artistic merits and for its unprecedented
|
||
use of such innovative techniques as flashbacks, fade-outs, and close-ups. The
|
||
film was harshly condemned, however, for its racial bias and glorification of
|
||
the Ku Klux Klan; several subsequent lynchings were blamed on the film. In
|
||
response to this criticism, Griffith made what many consider his finest film,
|
||
Intolerance (1916), in which the evils of intolerance were depicted in four
|
||
parallel stories--a framework that required a scope of vision and production
|
||
never before approached. Although Griffith made numerous other films up to
|
||
1931, none ranked with his first two classics. Among the best of these later
|
||
efforts were Hearts of the World (1918); Broken Blossoms (1919), released by
|
||
his own newly formed corporation, United Artists; Way Down East (1920); Orphans
|
||
of the Storm (1922); America (1924); Isn't Life Wonderful? (1924); and Abraham
|
||
Lincoln (1930). Of the many actors trained by Griffith and associated with his
|
||
name, Mary PICKFORD, Dorothy and Lillian GISH, and Lionel Barrymore (see
|
||
BARRYMORE family) are the most famous. In 1935, Griffith was honored by the
|
||
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a special award.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Barry, Iris, D. W. Griffith, American Film Master (1940);
|
||
Brown, Karl, Adventures with D. W. Griffith (1976); Geduld, Harry M., ed.,
|
||
Focus on D. W. Griffith (1971); Gish, Lillian, Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr.
|
||
Griffith and Me (1969); Henderson, Robert M., D. W. Griffith: His Life and
|
||
Work (1972) and D. W. Griffith: The Years at Biograph (1970); O'Dell, Paul,
|
||
Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood (1970); Wagenknecht, Edward C., The Films of
|
||
D. W. Griffith (1975).
|
||
|
||
|
||
film industry
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
|
||
The first four decades of the film age (roughly 1908-48) saw the increasing
|
||
concentration of control in the hands of a few giant Hollywood concerns. Since
|
||
the late 1940s, however, that trend has been reversed; the monolithic studio
|
||
system has given way to independent production and diversification at all
|
||
levels of the industry.^Although in the silent era small, independent producers
|
||
were common, by the 1930s, in the so-called golden age of Hollywood, the
|
||
overwhelming majority of films were produced, distributed, and exhibited by one
|
||
of the large California studios. Led by M-G-M, Paramount, RKO,
|
||
20th-Century-Fox, Warner Brothers, Columbia, and Universal, the industry
|
||
enjoyed the benefits of total vertical integration: because the studios owned
|
||
their own theater chains, they could require theater managers to charge fixed
|
||
minimum admission rates, to purchase groups of pictures rather than single
|
||
releases ("block booking"), and to accept films without first previewing them
|
||
("blind buying"). For more than two decades the major studios completely
|
||
controlled their contracted stars, managed vast indoor and outdoor studio sets,
|
||
and in general profited from what amounted to a virtual monopoly of the
|
||
industry.^Shortly after World War II, three factors contributed to the loss of
|
||
the majors' hegemony. First, a number of federal court decisions forced the
|
||
studios to end discriminatory distribution practices, including block booking,
|
||
blind selling, and the setting of fixed admission prices; in 1948 the Supreme
|
||
Court ordered divestiture of their theater chains. Second, the House Committee
|
||
on Un-American Activities investigated the industry, which responded by
|
||
blacklisting several prominent screenwriters and directors--an action that
|
||
called into question the industry's reliability as a promoter of unfettered
|
||
creative talent. Third, television began to deprive Hollywood of large
|
||
segments of its audience, and the industry reacted timidly and late to the
|
||
possibilities for diversification presented by the new medium.^The effects of
|
||
these developments were immediate and long lasting. Weekly attendance figures
|
||
fell from 80 million in 1946 to just over 12 million by 1972. Box-ofice
|
||
revenues in the same period dropped from $1.75 billion to $1.4 billion--and
|
||
this despite constant inflation and admission prices that were often 10 times
|
||
the prewar average. The movie colony experienced unprecedented unemployment.
|
||
The number of films made yearly declined from an average of 445 in the 1940s to
|
||
under 150 in the 1970s, as the industry sought solvency in "blockbusters"
|
||
rather than in the solid but unspectacular products that had brought it a mass
|
||
audience before the age of television. Between 1948 and 1956 the number of
|
||
U.S. theaters fell from 20,000 to 10,000, and although 4,000 new drive-in
|
||
theaters somewhat offset this attrition, by the mid-1970s less than half of the
|
||
American spectator's amusement dollar was being spent on movies; in the 1940s
|
||
the yearly average had been over 80 cents.^By the late 1960s the major studios
|
||
had entered a grave economic slump, for many of their "big picture" gambles
|
||
fell through. In 1970, 20th-Century-Fox lost $36 million, and United Artists,
|
||
which as the industry leader had more to lose, ended up more than $50 million
|
||
in the red. In response to this devastation of its profits, the industry
|
||
underwent a profound reorganization. Following the 1951 lead of United
|
||
Artists, the majors backed away from production (since its cost had contributed
|
||
heavily to their decline) and restructured themselves as loan guarantors and
|
||
distributors. At the same time, most of them became subsidiaries of
|
||
conglomerates such as Gulf and Western, Kinney National Service, and
|
||
Transamerica and began to look to television sales and recording contracts for
|
||
the revenues that previously had come from the theater audience alone.^In
|
||
setting up these new contractual relationships the independent producer played
|
||
a central role. Such a figure, who by now has replaced the old studio mogul as
|
||
the industry's driving force, brings together the various properties associated
|
||
with a film (including actors, a director, and book rights) to create a
|
||
"package" often financed independently but distributed by a film company in
|
||
exchange for a share of the rental receipts. Working with the conglomerates
|
||
and accepting the reality of a permanently reduced market, these private
|
||
promoters have partially succeeded in revitalizing the industry.^The rise of
|
||
independent production has been accompanied by diversification of subject
|
||
matter, with close attention to the interests of specialized audiences. This
|
||
trend, which began in the 1950s as an attempt to capture the "art house"
|
||
audience and the youth market, is evident today in the success of martial-arts,
|
||
rock-music, pornographic, documentary, and black-culture films.
|
||
Simultaneously, production has moved away from the Hollywood sets and toward
|
||
location filming. For many producers, New York City has become the New
|
||
filmmakers' mecca, while shooting in foreign countries, where cheap labor is
|
||
often plentiful, has given the modern film a new international texture; foreign
|
||
markets have also become increasingly important. Both geographically and
|
||
financially, therefore, the film industry has begun to recapture some of the
|
||
variety and independence that were common in the days before studio control.
|
||
THADDEUS F. TULEJA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Balio, Tino, ed., The American Film Industry (1976); Brownlow,
|
||
Kevin, Hollywood: The Pioneers (1980); David, Saul, The Industry: Life in the
|
||
Hollywood Fast Lane (1981); Phillips, Gene D., The Movie Makers: Artists in an
|
||
Industry (1973); Stanley, Robert H., The Celluloid Empire (1978).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Table: TEN TOP-GROSSING FILMS
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
|
||
TEN TOP-GROSSING FILMS (as of Jan. 1, 1984)
|
||
---------------------------------------------------------
|
||
Film Year Gross Earnings*
|
||
---------------------------------------------------------
|
||
1. E.T. The ExtraTerrestrial 1982 $209,567,000
|
||
2. Star Wars 1977 193,500,000
|
||
3. Return of the Jedi 1983 165,500,000
|
||
4. The Empire Strikes Back 1980 141,600,000
|
||
5. Jaws 1975 133,435,000
|
||
6. Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981 115,598,000
|
||
7. Grease 1978 96,300,000
|
||
8. Tootsie 1982 94,571,613
|
||
9. The Exorcist 1973 89,000,000
|
||
10. The Godfather 1972 86,275,000
|
||
---------------------------------------------------------
|
||
SOURCE: Variety (1984). *Distributors' percentage has been subtracted.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Sennett, Mack
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(sen'-et)
|
||
A pioneer of slapstick film comedy, Mack Sennett, b. Michael Sinnott,
|
||
Richmond, Quebec, Jan. 17, 1880, d. Nov. 5, 1960, was an uneducated
|
||
Irish-Canadian who drifted into films as D. W. Griffith's apprentice. In
|
||
1912 he started his own comedy studio, called Keystone, where he developed the
|
||
Keystone Kops and discovered such major talents as Charlie Chaplin and Frank
|
||
Capra. With the advent of sound films, comedy shorts became less popular, and
|
||
in the 1930s Sennett, who failed to change with the times, lost his entire
|
||
fortune. Sennett is, however, still remembered as Hollywood's "King of Comedy"
|
||
and received a special Academy Award in 1937 for his contribution to cinema
|
||
comedy. LEONARD MALTIN
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Fowler, Gene, Father Goose (1934; repr. 1974); Lahue, Kalton C.,
|
||
and Brewer, Terry, Kops and Custards: The Legend of Keystone Films (1968);
|
||
Sennett, Mack, King of Comedy (1954; repr. 1975).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Chaplin, Charlie
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Charles Spencer Chaplin, b. Apr. 16, 1889, d. Dec. 25, 1977, cinema's most
|
||
celebrated comedian-director, achieved international fame with his portrayals
|
||
of the mustachioed Little Tramp. As the director, producer, writer, and
|
||
interpreter of his many movies, he made a major contribution to establishing
|
||
film comedy as a true art form. Reared in poverty in London's slums, Chaplin,
|
||
like his parents, became a music hall performer, appearing as a clown in Fred
|
||
Karno's Mumming Birds company from 1906. While touring the United States in
|
||
1913, Mack SENNETT persuaded him to join his Keystone studio; Chaplin's first
|
||
slapstick, Making a Living (1914), followed. In Kid Auto Races at Venice
|
||
(1914), he originated the gentleman tramp routine--twirling cane, bowler, tight
|
||
jacket, and baggy pants--that became his trademark in dozens of two-reelers.
|
||
He also learned to direct his own short films.
|
||
|
||
During the next four years, Chaplin consolidated his growing international
|
||
reputation by a prolific output of shorts for Essanay, Mutual, and First
|
||
National studios. At the same time, he refined his tramp character into a
|
||
poetic figure that combined comedy and pathos, yet retained his meticulously
|
||
timed acrobatic skills. His films grew in length and subtlety with A Dog's
|
||
Life and Shoulder Arms (both 1918). After cofounding United Artists in 1919,
|
||
Chaplin began independent production of his best feature-length films in the
|
||
1920s: A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), City
|
||
Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940), his first
|
||
all-talking film, in which he abandoned the tramp to parody Hitler. Among his
|
||
later films, only the poignant Limelight (1952) achieved popularity; the
|
||
apparent cynicism of Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and A King in New York (1957)
|
||
alienated audiences, while his last effort, A Countess from Hong Kong (1966),
|
||
left little impression.
|
||
|
||
Although loved and appreciated throughout the world as the inimitable Charlot
|
||
or Charlie, Chaplin's personal life, including his four marriages, a 1944
|
||
paternity suit, and his refusal to accept U.S. citizenship, gained him adverse
|
||
publicity in America. In 1953, accused of Communist sympathies, he was denied
|
||
reentry into the country. Thereafter, he settled in Switzerland with his wife
|
||
Oona O'Neill, surrounded by luxury and a family of nine children. Initially
|
||
embittered by his rejection in the United States, he returned in triumph in
|
||
1972 to receive a special achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture
|
||
Arts and Sciences, followed in 1973 by an Academy Award for his score to
|
||
Limelight. In 1975, at age 86, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. Chaplin's
|
||
My Autobiography appeared in 1964, and a filmed biography, The Gentleman Tramp,
|
||
in 1978. ROGER MANVELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Chaplin, Charles, My Life in Pictures (1975); Hu ff, Theodore,
|
||
Charlie Chaplin (1951; repr. 1972); Manvell, Roger, Chaplin (1973); McCabe,
|
||
John, Charlie Chaplin (1978); Tyler, Parker, Last of the Clowns (1947; repr.
|
||
1972).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Pickford, Mary
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(pik'-furd)
|
||
Mary Pickford, stage name of Gladys Mary Smith, b. Toronto, Apr. 8, 1893, d.
|
||
May 29, 1979, became one of the world's first film stars after beginning her
|
||
cinema career in 1909 under the tutelage of D. W. Griffith. Together with
|
||
her second husband, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin, she founded United
|
||
Artists in 1919. Despite considerable business acumen, her career faltered
|
||
with the advent of talkies. Her best-known films include Rebecca of Sunnybrook
|
||
Farm (1917), Pollyanna (1920), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921), and Little Annie
|
||
Rooney (1925). She received an Academy Award for Coquette (1929) and a special
|
||
Academy Award in 1976.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Pickford, Mary, Sunshine and Shadow (1955); Windeler, Robert,
|
||
Sweetheart (1974).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Hart, William S.
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
William S. Hart, b. Newburgh, N.Y., Dec. 6, 1870, d. June 23, 1946, was a
|
||
top box-office draw in American silent films, especially in Westerns. His
|
||
dour, commanding presence had the same kind of appeal found years later in
|
||
Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. The Return of Draw Egan (1916), The Toll
|
||
Gate (1920), Travellin' On (1922), Wild Bill Hickok (1923), and Tumbleweeds
|
||
(1925) were among Hart's most popular films. LESLIE HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
film serials
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Film serials, the bulk of which were produced in Hollywood between 1913 and the
|
||
late 1940s, were interrupted melodramas or mysteries ("cliffhangers") that
|
||
typically consisted of 12 to 15 episodes varying in length from 18 to 30
|
||
minutes. Up to 1930, approximately 300 silent serials appeared--the first was
|
||
The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913), the most popular was Pathe's The Perils of
|
||
Pauline (1914), starring Pearl White. At least a part of their charm derived
|
||
from carefully timed dramatic sequences that substituted for a lack of
|
||
narrative depth. Among the best-known serials of the sound era, during which
|
||
Westerns, space stories, and other fantasy-oriented fare dominated, were The
|
||
Lone Ranger, Captain Video, Flash Gordon, Zorro, The Masked Marvel, and The
|
||
Green Hornet. BRUCE BERMAN
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Barbour, Alan G., Cliffhanger (1977) and Serial Showcase (1968);
|
||
Lahue, Kalton C., Bound and Gagged (1968) and Continued Next Week (1964);
|
||
Stedman, Raymond W., The Serials, 2d ed. (1977).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Arbuckle, Fatty
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, b. Mar. 24, 1887, d. June 29, 1933, was one of the
|
||
movies' first comedy stars. His boyish face, ample girth, and acrobatic skill
|
||
made him a natural comic in silent films. After achieving stardom at Mack
|
||
Sennett's studio, he went on to write, direct, and star in his own films. His
|
||
on-screen career was ruined by a 1921 scandal involving the death of a young
|
||
woman. Although cleared of manslaughter charges, Arbuckle was unable to work
|
||
again in films except as a writer-director in 1931-32, using the pseudonym
|
||
William Goodrich. LEONARD MALTIN
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Maltin, Leonard, The Great Movie Comedians (1978); Yallop,
|
||
David, The Day the Laughter Stopped (1976).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Mayer, Louis B.
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(may'-ur)
|
||
Louis Burt Mayer, b. Minsk, Russia, 1882 or 1885, d. Oct. 29, 1957, was a
|
||
Hollywood film mogul who for many years headed the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
|
||
Corporation, ruling his studio like a patriarch in order to make "decent,
|
||
wholesome pictures for Americans." Initially a scrap-metal dealer, he made a
|
||
fortune as a New England movie-theater owner before forming the Louis B. Mayer
|
||
Pictures Corporation in 1918. Merging his company with Marcus Loew's Metro and
|
||
the Goldwyn Company to found MGM in 1924, he became vice-president of the new
|
||
company, acting as general manager of the Culver City studio until forced to
|
||
retire in 1951.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Crowther, Bosley, Hollywood Rajah (1960); Marx, Samuel, Mayer
|
||
and Thalberg: The Make-Believe Saints (1975).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Muybridge, Eadweard
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(my'-brij, ed'-wurd)
|
||
The Englishman Eadweard Muybridge, b. Edward James Muggeridge, Apr 9, 1830, d.
|
||
May 8, 1904, one of the great photographers of the American West, became even
|
||
better known for his pioneering photographic studies of motion. Photographing
|
||
throughout California in the 1860s and '70s, he made the large, impressive
|
||
landscapes of the Yosemite wilderness that won him initial fame. In 1872,
|
||
Leland Stanford, the former governor of the state, bet a friend that once in
|
||
every stride all four legs of a running horse were simultaneously off the
|
||
ground. He hired Muybridge to settle the bet, and in 1877 Muybridge's
|
||
pictures, which recorded the horse's motion in sequential frames, proved
|
||
Stanford right. (The work took 5 years because it was interrupted while
|
||
Muybridge was tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife's lover.) In 1879,
|
||
Muybridge invented the zoopraxiscope, a machine that reconstructed motion from
|
||
his photographs and a forerunner of cinematography. After a European tour,
|
||
during which his work was acclaimed by artists and scientists alike, he
|
||
continued (1884-86) his photographic motion studies; Animal Locomotion (1887),
|
||
containing 781 groups of sequential frames, was the first of several such
|
||
publications, which also included The Human Figure in Motion (1901). PETER
|
||
GALASSI
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Muybridge, Eadweard, Descriptive Zoopraxography (1893) and Animals
|
||
in Motion (1899, repr. 1957); Hendricks, Gordon, Eadweard Muybridge: The Father
|
||
of the Motion Picture (1975); Mozley, A. V., Eadweard Muybridge: The Stanford
|
||
Years, 1872-1882 (1972).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Eakins, Thomas
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(ay'-kinz)
|
||
Although he received little recognition in his lifetime, Thomas Cowperthwaite
|
||
Eakins, b. July 25, 1844, d. June 25, 1916, has come to be regarded in the
|
||
20th century as the greatest realist in the history of American art. He was
|
||
born in Philadelphia, where he received his early training and later spent his
|
||
adult life. From 1866 to 1869 he was a pupil of Jean Leon GEROME at the Ecole
|
||
des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and in 1870 he visited Spain and was strongly
|
||
influenced by the works of Diego VELAZQUEZ and Jusepe de RIBERA. He became an
|
||
uncompromising realist, bringing to his work a close personal involvement with
|
||
his subjects and intense scientific interest in anatomy, light, and
|
||
perspective.
|
||
|
||
After his return to Philadelphia in 1870, Eakins painted outdoor scenes that
|
||
included views of sportsmen on rivers and bays near the city, such as Max
|
||
Schmitt in a Single Scull (1871; Metropolitan Museum, New York City). In 1875
|
||
he painted a far more ambitious picture, now accepted as his masterpiece, a
|
||
large portrait of the eminent surgeon Dr. Samuel Gross, The Gross Clinic
|
||
(1875; Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia). Gross is shown scalpel in
|
||
hand, lecturing to his students about the operation he is performing, the
|
||
details of which, including an open incision, are clearly depicted. The
|
||
painting's bold realism appropriately reflects the clinical objectivity of Dr.
|
||
Gross's approach to medicine, but offended Eakins's prudish audience.
|
||
|
||
Eakins taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1876 to 1886, when
|
||
he was forced to resign after a dispute caused by his insistence that students
|
||
of both sexes be allowed to draw from nude models. He continued to teach
|
||
privately, and one of his most accomplished students, Susan Macdowell, became
|
||
his wife in 1884. During the 1880s, Eakins conducted photographic experiments
|
||
at the University of Pennsylvania into the movement of human bodies that
|
||
anticipated the invention of the motion picture and coincided with the
|
||
pioneering work of Eadweard MUYBRIDGE. After 1880 most of his works were
|
||
portraits, often of the scientists, physicians, scholars, and students of
|
||
Philadelphia who were his friends. He had little commercial success and was
|
||
largely ignored by the art world despite the fact that he was an outstanding
|
||
figure painter and the best portraitist in America since Gilbert STUART, whose
|
||
work was much narrower in scope. In 1902 he was belatedly elected to the
|
||
National Academy of Design, by which time his creative powers had begun to
|
||
wane. After 1910 he was in ill health and ceased to paint. His influence on
|
||
the so-called ASHCAN SCHOOL realists of the early 20th century was great,
|
||
although full recognition of his many achievements as an artist and teacher
|
||
came only in the 1930s.
|
||
|
||
Among Eakins's finest paintings is William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure
|
||
of the Schuylkill (1877; Philadelphia Museum of Art), a subject to which he
|
||
returned late in his career. (William RUSH was a Philadelphia wood-carver of
|
||
the Federal period whose use of a nude model aroused a controversy of the kind
|
||
that Eakins was often involved in.) The psychological penetration of his
|
||
portraits is evident in the mirthful spirit of his Walt Whitman (1888;
|
||
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts) and the introspective serenity of Miss Van
|
||
Buren (c.1891; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.).
|
||
|
||
Eakins also worked as a sculptor, and his contributions to the art of
|
||
photography are also notable, but his paintings were his supreme achievement.
|
||
Along with those of his contemporary Winslow HOMER, they represent the
|
||
culmination of the development of American art in the 19th century. DAVID
|
||
TATHAM
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Goodrich, Lloyd, Thomas Eakins: His Life and Work (1933; repr.
|
||
1970); Hendricks, Gordon, The Life and Works of Thomas Eakins (1974); Schendler,
|
||
Sylvan, Eakins (1967); Siegl, Theodor, The Thomas Eakins Collection (1978).
|
||
|
||
Hays, Will
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
William Harrison Hays, b. Sullivan, Ind., Nov. 5, 1879, d. Mar. 7, 1954,
|
||
was for many years the censor of the U.S. film industry. He served as
|
||
chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1918 to 1921 and was
|
||
postmaster general under President Warren G. Harding in 1921-22. From 1922 to
|
||
1945, Hays was president of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors. In
|
||
1934 that association implemented a system of self-censorship, the so-called
|
||
Production Code, that came to be known as the Hays Code.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Lloyd, Harold
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(loyd)
|
||
Harold Lloyd, b. Burchard, Nebr., Apr. 20, 1893, d. Mar. 8, 1971, was one
|
||
of the most popular screen comedians of the 1920s, a living symbol of the shy
|
||
but optimistic all-American boy. This ingratiating character started evolving
|
||
in the short subjects Lloyd made during the second decade of the 20th century,
|
||
but crystallized only after he became a major star in such 1920s silent feature
|
||
films as Grandma's Boy (1922) and The Freshman (1925). Lloyd's trademarks were
|
||
a straw hat and horn-rimmed glasses, but he is perhaps even better remembered
|
||
for the "thrill comedy" of films like Safety Last (1923), in which he scales
|
||
the side of a building. Snippets from his many early films appeared in two
|
||
1963 screen compilations: Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy and Harold Lloyd's
|
||
Funny Side of Life. His methodical, unpretentious approach to comedy received
|
||
wider attention after his "rediscovery" in the 1970s. LEONARD MALTIN
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Lloyd, Harold, An American Comedy (1928; repr. 1971); Maltin,
|
||
Leonard, The Great Movie Comedians (1978); Reilly, Adam, Harold Lloyd: The King
|
||
of Daredevil Comedy (1977); Schickel, Richard, Harold Lloyd: The Shape of
|
||
|
||
Keaton, Buster
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(keet'-uhn)
|
||
Joseph Francis "Buster" Keaton, b. Piqua, Kans., Oct. 4, 1895, d. Feb. 1,
|
||
1966, actor and director, was one of the giants of silent film comedy. Raised
|
||
in a vaudeville family, Keaton entered the film industry in 1917 as a protege
|
||
of Fatty Arbuckle and quickly mastered film technique on both sides of the
|
||
camera. A superb acrobat from youth, Keaton developed both a keen appreciation
|
||
for movie sight gags and the perfectionist's desire to execute them without
|
||
flaw. In 1921, under the banner of his own company, he began his solo starring
|
||
career and refined his unique deadpan character--a loner caught in the flurry
|
||
of modern life who somehow manages to triumph over even the most mind-boggling
|
||
disasters. Such classic shorts as One Week (1920), The High Sign (1921), The
|
||
Boat (1921), Cops (1922), and The Balloonatic (1923) led to feature films in
|
||
which he expanded his highly individual comic views: Our Hospitality (1923),
|
||
The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The General (1926), and his
|
||
cinematic tour de force, Sherlock Jr. (1924). Bad business advice coupled
|
||
with personal problems sabotaged his career in the early 1930s. He continued
|
||
to work in films and television the rest of his life, but after his move to MGM
|
||
in 1928, he never again exercised the creative control he had enjoyed in the
|
||
silent era. His memoirs, My Wonderful World of Slapstick, appeared in 1960.
|
||
LEONARD MALTIN
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Anobile, Richard J., ed., The Best of Buster (1976); Blesh,
|
||
Rudi, Keaton (1966); Dardis, Tom, Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down
|
||
(1979); Maltin, Leonard, The Great Movie Comedians (1978); Moews, Daniel,
|
||
Keaton: The Silent Features Close Up (1977); Wead, George, and Lellis, George,
|
||
eds., The Film Career of Buster Keaton (1977).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Lubitsch, Ernst
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(loo'-bich, airnst)
|
||
Ernst Lubitsch, b. Berlin, Jan. 28, 1892, d. Nov. 30, 1947, was a
|
||
German-American film director known for his sophisticated comedies of manners.
|
||
He had already achieved success as an actor and director in Europe when Mary
|
||
Pickford brought him to Hollywood to direct her in Rosita (1923); Lubitsch's
|
||
subsequent silent films--The Marriage Circle (1924), Forbidden Paradise (1924),
|
||
Lady Windermere's Fan (1925), and So This Is Paris (1926)--established his
|
||
reputation as a master of urbane, sardonic humor.
|
||
|
||
The "Lubitsch touch" survived the transition to sound. In the 1930s, beginning
|
||
with The Love Parade (1930), he directed musicals, often using the team of
|
||
Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. The cynical wit that was his
|
||
trademark was especially evident in Trouble in Paradise (1932); Ninotchka
|
||
(1939), starring Greta Garbo; and To Be Or Not To Be (1942), which satirized
|
||
Nazism. He departed from his usual brand of humor in The Shop around the
|
||
Corner (1940), another comedy directed at the Nazi threat.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Poague, Leland A., The Cinema of Ernst Lubitsch (1978); Weinberg,
|
||
Herman G., The Lubitsch Touch: A Critical Study (1968).
|
||
|
||
|
||
animation
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Film animation applies techniques of cinematography to the graphic and plastic
|
||
arts in order to give the illusion of life and movement to cartoons, drawings,
|
||
paintings, puppets, and three-dimensional objects. Beginning with crude and
|
||
simple methods, animation has become a highly sophisticated form of filmmaking,
|
||
involving the use of automation, computer, and even laser technology to achieve
|
||
its effects. Some animation techniques overlap with those used to produce
|
||
special effects in live-action cinematography. In watching such films as
|
||
2001--A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars (1977), a person often finds it
|
||
difficult to tell whether a certain result has been achieved through animation
|
||
or through special effects.
|
||
|
||
ANIMATION TECHNIQUES
|
||
|
||
Basic graphic animation is produced by a technique called stop-frame
|
||
cinematography. The camera records, frame by frame, a sequence or succession
|
||
of drawings or paintings that differ only fractionally from one another. The
|
||
illusion of progressive movement is created by projecting the series of frames
|
||
through a camera at the normal rate for sound film (24 frames a second). The
|
||
same method is used in puppet or object animation; the position of the figures
|
||
or objects is changed very slightly prior to each exposure. In graphic
|
||
animation, the drawings may vary from the simplest outlines, as in such
|
||
traditional animated films as Felix the Cat, to elaborately modeled and colored
|
||
paintings, such as those produced in Walt DISNEY's studios during the 1930s.
|
||
The first animated cartoons were produced before 1910 by pioneers such as Emile
|
||
Cohl of France and Winsor McCay of the United States, whose Sinking of the
|
||
Lusitania (1918) has been called the first animated feature film. In these
|
||
early productions, a simple drawing of a mobile figure was photographed against
|
||
an equally simple background, and a new drawing was required for each exposure.
|
||
Relief from the labor of drawing hundreds of pictures for each minute of action
|
||
came only when the figures could be made momentarily static. The evolution of
|
||
cel (for celluloid) animation after 1913 enabled animators to use a single,
|
||
more elaborate background for each shot or scene in the action. The mobile
|
||
figures in the foreground were inked in black silhouette on transparent
|
||
celluloid sheets and then superimposed in series on the background. With the
|
||
introduction of color filming early in the 1930s, animators began to use opaque
|
||
paints in place of black ink. Greater efficiency was achieved when artists
|
||
began to specialize in particular figures or other mobile elements of cartoons.
|
||
Such teams of animators collectively created drawings for feature-length films,
|
||
for example, Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fantasia
|
||
(1940). Most animated films are recorded by an automated rostrum camera. The
|
||
many improvements made in this camera since the 1950s have contributed to the
|
||
increased technical capabilities of the medium. The adjustable camera is
|
||
suspended above the horizontal table on which the combination of cels, one upon
|
||
the other, have been superimposed on the background and locked or pegged into
|
||
position. The cels are then successively photographed to produce a precision
|
||
image offering a faultless illusion of movement. Such cinematic effects as
|
||
tracking, panning, and zooming may also be achieved.
|
||
|
||
HISTORY OF ANIMATION
|
||
|
||
Since the early, popular shorts involving such animals as Felix the Cat and
|
||
Mickey Mouse, the international history of animation has been characterized by
|
||
the almost constant introduction of ever more complex forms. Many advances
|
||
were made in Europe: Lotte Reiniger employed mobile silhouettes; Oskar
|
||
FISCHINGER and Len Lye experimented with abstract designs choreographed to
|
||
music; and George Pal of Holland created techniques of puppet animation. Since
|
||
World War II, animation was increasingly used in instructional films and in
|
||
television and cinema commercials. Advanced forms of graphic design, both in
|
||
black and white and in color, and new methods of puppet and object animation
|
||
have been developed. From the 1940s until the early 1980s, Norman MCLAREN, one
|
||
of the versatile of all animators, experimented with three-dimensional
|
||
animation and with other innovations as drawing images directly on film.
|
||
|
||
Beginning in the 1960s, films showing abstract color designs in motion were
|
||
programmed by means of computers that calculate intricate movements with
|
||
amazing precision. Today, computer animation has achieved the ability to
|
||
create moving images and backgrounds of great complexity. The basic tool,
|
||
usually called a PAINTBOX, is an electronic surface on which the artist draws
|
||
figures and backgrounds and selects colors. Other devices manipulate the
|
||
figures and change the backgrounds. The work is reproduced on a TV monitor and
|
||
stored on a computer disk. Computerized animation is widely used in television
|
||
commercials, titles, and in making music videos (see VIDEO, MUSIC), and
|
||
provides many of the special effects in the films of directors like George
|
||
Lucas (see COMPUTER GRAPHICS, VIDEO ART).
|
||
|
||
Old-style cel animation continues to be the sole technique by which quality
|
||
animators, such as Disney Productions, create their characters. Backgrounds,
|
||
and the movement of objects within a scene, however, are often
|
||
computer-generated.
|
||
|
||
Television, with its insatiable need for new material, introduced a type of
|
||
semianimation in its cartoon programs for children. Compared with traditional
|
||
animation, on television the movement of characters is primitive in its
|
||
rendition, colors are limited, and detail is stripped down to bare essentials.
|
||
The cost of an animated minute on television is one-tenth the cost of a Disney
|
||
minute; $10,000 to $100,000 or more. Disney's The Black Cauldron (1985) cost
|
||
about $30 million and was nine years in the making.
|
||
|
||
International animation film festivals, where the latest work is displayed, are
|
||
annual events in Europe. ROGER MANVELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Feild, Robert Durant, The Art of Walt Disney (1942); Fox, D.,
|
||
and Waite, M., Computer Animation Primer (1984); Halas, John, ed., Computer
|
||
Animation (1974); Halas, John, and Manvell, Roger, Art in Movement: New
|
||
Directions in Animation (1970), Design in Motion (1962), and The Technique of
|
||
Film Animation, 3d ed. (1971); Rubin, S., Animation: The Art and the Industry
|
||
(1984); Stephenson, Ralph, Animation in the Cinema (1967); Thomas, F., and
|
||
Johnstone, O., Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life (1981).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Edison, Thomas Alva
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most prolific inventors of the late 19th
|
||
century. He is most famous for his development of the first commercially
|
||
practical incandescent lamp (1879). Perhaps his greatest contribution,
|
||
however, was the development (1882) of the world's first central electric
|
||
light-power station. His early laboratories were forerunners of the modern
|
||
industrial research laboratory, where skilled researchers jointly solve
|
||
technological problems.^Edison was born in the village of Milan, Ohio, on Feb.
|
||
11, 1847, and his family later moved to Port Huron, Mich. His formal schooling
|
||
was limited to three months, at the age of seven, but thereafter his mother
|
||
tutored him, and he was an avid reader. At age 12 he became a train-boy,
|
||
selling magazines and candy on the Grand Trunk Railroad. He spent all he
|
||
earned on books and apparatus for his chemical laboratory. An accident at
|
||
about this time eventually led to a loss of hearing.^A station agent taught him
|
||
telegraph code and procedures, and at age 15 Edison became manager of a
|
||
telegraph office. His first inventions were the transmitter and receiver for
|
||
the automatic telegraph. At 21, Edison produced his first major invention, a
|
||
stock ticker for printing stock-exchange quotations in brokers' offices. With
|
||
the $40,000 he was paid for improvements in tickers, he established a
|
||
manufacturing shop and a small laboratory in Newark, N.J. Deciding to give up
|
||
manufacturing, he moved the laboratory to Menlo Park, N.J., where he directed
|
||
groups of employees working on various projects. The original Menlo Park
|
||
facility is now at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.^In 1878, Edison
|
||
began work on an electric lamp and sought a material that could be electrically
|
||
heated to incandescence in a vacuum. At first he used platinum wire in glass
|
||
bulbs at 10 volts. He connected these bulbs in series to utilize a higher
|
||
supply voltage; however, he realized that independent lamp control would be
|
||
necessary for home and office use. He then developed a three-wire system with
|
||
a supply of 220 volts. Each lamp operated at 110 volts, and the higher voltage
|
||
required a resistance greater than that of platinum. Edison conducted an
|
||
extensive search for a filament material to replace platinum until, on Oct.
|
||
21, 1879, he demonstrated a lamp containing a carbonized cotton thread that
|
||
glowed for 40 hours.^Edison installed the first large central power station on
|
||
Pearl Street in New York City in 1882; its steam-driven generators of 900
|
||
horsepower provided enough power for 7,200 lamps. The success of this station
|
||
led to the construction of many other central stations. Edison founded The
|
||
Edison Electric Light Company (1878), which eventually merged with other
|
||
companies into the General Electric Company (1892), one of the largest U.S.
|
||
manufacturers. He consistently opposed, however, switching the power stations
|
||
from direct current to alternating current, a change that would have increased
|
||
transmission voltages considerably.^During his experiments on the incandescent
|
||
bulb, Edison noted a flow of electricity from a hot filament across a vacuum to
|
||
a metal wire. This phenomenon, known as THERMIONIC EMISSION, or the Edison
|
||
effect, was the foundation of electronic inventions of the 20th century.^Edison
|
||
also invented (1877) the PHONOGRAPH, the invention he was most proud of; it
|
||
used tinfoil and wax cylinders to record the sound. His introduction of
|
||
flexible celluloid film and his invention of the movie projector aided the
|
||
development of motion pictures (see FILM, HISTORY OF). His other inventions
|
||
include the alkaline storage battery, a magnetic process to separate iron ore,
|
||
and the carbon microphone. After World War I he became interested in domestic
|
||
sources of rubber and investigated various plant species for rubber content.
|
||
By the time he died at West Orange, N.J., on Oct. 18, 1931, he had patented
|
||
over 1,000 inventions. J. D. RYDER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Clark, Ronald W., Edison: The Man Who Made the Future (1977);
|
||
Josephson, Matthew, Edison: A Biography (1959; repr. 1963); Silverberg,
|
||
Robert, Light for the World (1967); Wachhorst, Wyn, Thomas Alva Edison: an
|
||
American Myth (1981).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Chaney, Lon
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(chay'-nee)
|
||
Lon Chaney, b. Apr. 1, 1883, d. Aug. 26, 1930, Hollywood's "man of a
|
||
thousand faces," was a leading character actor specializing in macabre roles.
|
||
His ability to mime, to change physical appearance, and skill with makeup
|
||
served him well in such films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The
|
||
Phantom of the Opera (1925). LESLIE HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Andersen, Robert Gordon, Faces, Forms, Films: The Artistry of
|
||
Lon Chaney (1971).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Fischinger, Oskar
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(fish'-ing-ur)
|
||
The German animator Oskar Fischinger, b. July 22, 1900, d. Jan. 31, 1967,
|
||
made films that used abstract forms to interpret music. Examples are the
|
||
numbered series Studien 1-12 (1925-36), An American March (1940), and Motion
|
||
Painting No. 1 (1947). Fischinger also created special effects for Hollywood
|
||
films and invented the lumigraph light-producing device (1951).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Minnelli, Vincente
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The Hollywood director whose name is most often associated with the most
|
||
imaginative musicals of the 1940s and 1950s is Vincente Minnelli, b. Chicago,
|
||
Feb. 28, 1913. Beginning with Cabin in the Sky in 1943, Minnelli set new
|
||
standards for the musical genre with such films as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
|
||
and The Pirate (1948) both starring his then wife Judy GARLAND, An American in
|
||
Paris (1951), The Band Wagon (1953), and Gigi (1958), which won nine Academy
|
||
Awards. The visual dynamism and stylish decor of these films can also be seen
|
||
in such nonmusical Minnelli efforts as The Clock (1945), The Bad and the
|
||
Beautiful (1952), and Designing Woman (1957). His and Garland's daughter is
|
||
the performer Liza Minnelli (see MINNELLI, LIZA). His autobiography, I
|
||
Remember It Well, appeared in 1974. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Casper, Joseph, Vincente Minnelli and the Film Musical (197
|
||
7).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Kelly, Gene
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
A dancer, singer, and actor whose cheerful manner and innovative dance
|
||
sequences enlivened some of Hollywood's most memorable musicals, Gene Kelly, b.
|
||
Eugene Curran Kelly, Pittsburgh, Pa., Aug. 23, 1912, turned choreography into
|
||
a virile, athletic American art. Synthesizing ballet with the tattoo of tap,
|
||
the rhythms of jazz, and a sense of fun and grace, he was at his best in The
|
||
Pirate (1948), On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the
|
||
Rain (1952), and Brigadoon (1954). Kelly has also directed films, including
|
||
Hello Dolly (1969), and was a principal in the MGM reprises That's
|
||
Entertainment (1974), That's Entertainment Part Two (1976), and That's Dancing
|
||
(1985). He won the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement award in
|
||
1985. ELEANOR M. GATES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Hirschhorn, Clive, Gene Kelly: A Biography (1975); Thomas, Tony,
|
||
Films of Gene Kelly (1974).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Vigo, Jean
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Jean Vigo, b. Apr. 26, 1905, d. Oct. 5, 1934, in spite of his tragically
|
||
short life, proved himself one of the great French filmmakers. The son of a
|
||
celebrated anarchist who was later murdered in prison, Vigo led a disordered
|
||
childhood. A Propos de Nice (About Nice, 1930) is a short, personal film essay
|
||
mixing sharp observation and adroit camera technique. His two major films,
|
||
Zero de conduite (Zero for Conduct, 1933) and L'Atalante (Atalanta, 1934), were
|
||
both commercial disasters, and at the time of his death at the age of 29, Vigo
|
||
remained almost unknown. His tiny output, however, now ranks as one of the
|
||
great achievements of French cinema. His work draws uniquely sensitive
|
||
pictures of private worlds (those of a group of schoolboys and a newly married
|
||
couple, respectively), combining a respect for reality with virtually
|
||
surrealist imagery. ROY ARMES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Sales Gomes, P. E., Jean Vigo (1972); Smith, John M., Jean Vigo
|
||
(1972).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Carne, Marcel
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(kahr-nay')
|
||
The French film director Marcel Carne, b. Aug. 18, 1909, achieved fame in the
|
||
1930s when he worked with the poet Jacques Prevert on such classics as Quai des
|
||
brumes (Misty Quay, 1938) and Le Jour se leve (Day Begins, 1939), both starring
|
||
Jean Gabin. Carne learned his craft as assistant to Rene Clair and Jacques
|
||
Feyder before making (1936) his feature debut. During the German occupation of
|
||
France, Carne and Prevert produced two theatrical spectacles, Les Visiteurs du
|
||
soir (Evening Visitors, 1942) and Children of Paradise (1945). Although Carne
|
||
continues to exhibit a fine technical command, his recent films have been less
|
||
impressive than his earlier work. ROY ARMES
|
||
|
||
|
||
Pagnol, Marcel
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(pahn-yohl')
|
||
A successful French dramatist of the late 1920s, Marcel Pagnol, b. Feb. 28,
|
||
1895, d. Apr. 18, 1974, turned to the cinema with the advent of sound and
|
||
created for himself a still more remarkable career as a writer-director. At
|
||
first, he merely adapted his own plays for others to direct; of the Marseille
|
||
trilogy, Marius (1931), Fanny (1932), and Cesar (1936), only the third was
|
||
directed by Pagnol himself. In 1934, however, he set up his own studios and,
|
||
surrounded by a company of actors that included Raimu and Fernandel, he began
|
||
to adapt the Provencal stories of Jean Giono into the films that constitute his
|
||
major achievements: Joffroi (1934), Angele (1934), Regain (1937), and The
|
||
Baker's Wife (1938). His last two films, Manon des sources (1952) and Lettres
|
||
de mon moulin (1954), are also the work of a master storyteller. ROY ARMES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Pagnol, Marcel, The Days Were Too Short (1960) and The Time of
|
||
Secrets, trans. by Rita Barisse (1962).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Korda, Sir Alexander
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(kohr'-duh)
|
||
Alexander Korda, the professional name of Sandor Kellner, b. Sept. 16, 1893,
|
||
d. Jan. 23, 1956, was a major figure in British cinema for almost 25 years.
|
||
He began his producing and directing career in Hungary but left his native land
|
||
in 1919 to embark on an international career in Europe and Hollywood. After
|
||
establishing London Film Productions in Britain in 1932, Korda achieved world
|
||
recognition with The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). Specializing in
|
||
historical films and using international directors, he turned out such
|
||
successes as Rembrandt (1936), The Four Feathers (1939), The Third Man (1949),
|
||
and Richard III (1956). He was knighted in 1942. ROY ARMES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Kulik, Karol, Alexander Korda: The Man Who Could Work Miracles
|
||
(1975).
|
||
|
||
Hitchcock, Alfred
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(hich'-kahk)
|
||
Probably no contemporary film director was better known to the general public
|
||
or more admired by his colleagues and critics than Alfred Hitchcock. Born in
|
||
London, Aug. 13, 1899, he began his directorial career in the silent era with
|
||
The Lodger (1927). Hitchcock's work during the next decade--Blackmail (1929),
|
||
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935), and The Lady
|
||
Vanishes (1938)--established him worldwide as the preeminent director of witty
|
||
suspense thrillers. It also established his personal trademark: the seemingly
|
||
casual appearance in all his films of his own portly figure. Hitchcock, who
|
||
received a knighthood in 1980, died on Apr. 29 of that year.
|
||
|
||
His first film after moving to Hollywood in 1939 was the immensely successful
|
||
romantic thriller Rebecca (1940). Subsequently, Foreign Correspondent (1940)
|
||
successfully harked back to his British style. Although Shadow of a Doubt
|
||
(1943) won praise for its handling of an American setting and Notorious (1946)
|
||
was popular with critics and public alike, many of Hitchcock's admirers were
|
||
disappointed by other American works, such as Suspicion (1941), Saboteur
|
||
(1942), Lifeboat (1943), Spellbound (1945), and Rope (1948). The witty,
|
||
ingenious Strangers on a Train (1951), with its sensational merry-go-round
|
||
sequence, and North by Northwest (1959), which treated thriller conventions
|
||
humorously, were both praised as a return to form. The popularity of the
|
||
intervening films exceeded their critical esteem--Dial M for Murder (1954),
|
||
Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1953), and a remake of The Man Who Knew
|
||
Too Much (1956). What critics missed in them, while acknowledging their
|
||
technical mastery, was the wit and sense of milieu that had distinguished
|
||
Hitchcock's British suspense thrillers.
|
||
|
||
Increasingly, however, after the appearance of Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960),
|
||
and The Birds (1963), it was recognized that Hitchcock was going beyond
|
||
suspense to plumb greater depths of terror. Some critics have emphasized the
|
||
Catholic content of Hitchcock's work, others, the Freudian. Whether or not
|
||
such explications stand scrutiny, the critical ascendancy of American-period
|
||
Hitchcock now seems secure, and the director's technical wizardry remains
|
||
unassailable. Hitchcock also enjoyed success as the host (1955-65) of the
|
||
popular television suspense series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and as the
|
||
editor of such short-story collections as Stories To Be Read with the Lights On
|
||
(1973). WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Durgnat, Raymond, The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock (1974);
|
||
LaValley, Albert, ed., Focus on Hitchcock (1972); Spoto, Donald, The Art of
|
||
Alfred Hitchcock (1976); Taylor, John Russell, The Life and Work of Alfred
|
||
Hitchcock (1978); Truffaut, Francois, in collaboration with Helen G. Scott,
|
||
Hitchcock (1967); Wood, Robin, Hitchcock's Films (1965).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Disney, Walt
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The creator of the cartoon character Mickey Mouse and a film innovator who won
|
||
a record 30 Academy Awards, Walter Elias Disney, b. Chicago, Dec. 5, 1901, d.
|
||
Dec. 15, 1966, was also among the most successful American entrepreneurs. The
|
||
entertainment empire he founded includes two giant amusement parks (Disneyland
|
||
and Walt Disney World) as well as his film studios. The licensing of
|
||
reproduction rights to Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters for use on
|
||
clothing, books, and innumerable other objects makes the Disney fantasies ever
|
||
present in American life and that of much of the rest of the world as
|
||
well.^Disney's childhood was spent in Marceline, Mo. (whose main street may
|
||
have inspired the nostalgia-laden main streets of the amusement parks), and in
|
||
Kansas City, Mo., where he met Ub Iwerks, who became a Disney collaborator.
|
||
When their Kansas City animation studio failed in 1923, Disney founded a new
|
||
studio in Hollywood, and Iwerks became chief artist and special-effects
|
||
designer.^By 1928, Disney and Iwerks had perfected the immortal Mickey Mouse,
|
||
who made history the same year in Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon with
|
||
sound. (Mickey's squeaky voice was supplied by Disney.) In succeeding Disney
|
||
cartoons--including the famous series Silly Symphonies--the characters moved to
|
||
the rhythm of a pre-recorded soundtrack, making possible a humorous and
|
||
ingenious match of motion to sound (see ANIMATION). By the mid-1930s all
|
||
Disney cartoons were made in color, and his stable of eccentric animal
|
||
characters (Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and the rest) was almost complete,
|
||
produced by a studio that came to employ hundreds of artists.^The world's first
|
||
feature-length animated film, Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938),
|
||
proved a stunning financial success and was followed by a number of other
|
||
full-length animations, including Fantasia (1940), which combined classical
|
||
music with animated sequences, Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi
|
||
(1942). The Reluctant Dragon (1941) was the first of many Disney films to use
|
||
a sophisticated matte technique that allowed live and cartoon characters to
|
||
appear together.^In the 1950s, Disney turned to films with live characters,
|
||
such as Treasure Island (1950), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), and the
|
||
musical fantasy Mary Poppins (1964); to nature films whose fine photography was
|
||
marred for some critics by the sentimentality of approach; and to films
|
||
produced for television--the Davy Crockett series, for example. TV's "Mickey
|
||
Mouse Club" (1955-59, 1975-77) revived the old cartoon figures for a new
|
||
generation of children who would meet them again--more or less live--at
|
||
Disneyland and Disney World.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Canemaker, John, Treasures of Disney Animation Art, ed. by W.
|
||
Rawls (1982); Finch, Christopher, The Art of Walt Disney (1973); Maltin,
|
||
Leonard, The Disney Films (1973); Schickel, Richard, The Disney Version (1968);
|
||
Thomas, Bob, Walt Disney (1976).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Riefenstahl, Leni
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(ree'-fen-shtahl)
|
||
Adolf Hitler's favorite film director, Leni Riefenstahl, b. Berlin, Aug. 22,
|
||
1902, achieved an international reputation on the basis of two extraordinary
|
||
documentaries. Her first film, the mystical Blue Light (1932), excited
|
||
Hitler's imagination, and following her short documentary of the Nazi party's
|
||
1933 Nuremberg rally, Victory of Faith (1934), he commissioned her to give
|
||
feature-length treatment to the same event in 1934. The result, Triumph of the
|
||
Will (1935), was an impressive spectacle of Germany's adherence to Hitler and
|
||
to National Socialist ideals, and a masterpiece of romanticized propaganda.
|
||
Equally famous, and far less controversial, was her coverage of the 1936
|
||
Olympic Games in Berlin, the four-hour epic Olympia (1938). Blacklisting by
|
||
the Allies (1945-52) and postwar ostracism ended Riefenstahl's career as a
|
||
filmmaker. She was subsequently acclaimed for The Last of the Nuba (1974), a
|
||
superb volume of photographs of Nuba tribal life in southern Sudan. ROGER
|
||
MANVELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Infield, Glenn B., Leni Riefenstahl (1976); Sarris, Andrew,
|
||
Interviews with Film Directors (1967).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Stroheim, Erich von
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(shtroh'-hym)
|
||
A legendary figure in the Hollywood of the silent era, actor, director, and
|
||
scriptwriter Erich von Stroheim, b. Vienna, Sept. 22, 1885, d. May 12, 1957,
|
||
is celebrated both for his ruinous extravagances as a filmmaker and his screen
|
||
portrayals of stiff-necked German officers. As a director he demonstrated his
|
||
brilliance as well as his limitations. His only successfully completed
|
||
films--Blind Husbands (1919), the Devil's Passkey (1919), and Foolish Wives
|
||
(1921), in two of which he played the lead--bear the stamp of his wit,
|
||
sophistication, lavish attention to detail, and sometimes brutal realism.
|
||
Thereafter, his career was marked by frustration as his ambitious artistic
|
||
schemes for such films as Merry-Go-Round (1922), Greed (1923), and The Wedding
|
||
March (1926) repeatedly ran afoul of whistle-blowing producers at Universal,
|
||
MGM, and Paramount, who cut and distorted his work beyond recognition. His
|
||
most famous failure, Queen Kelly (1928), which was to star Gloria Swanson,
|
||
effectively ended his directorial hopes. Concentrating exclusively on acting
|
||
after 1936, von Stroheim gave his most distinguished performances in Jean
|
||
Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937) and in Billy Wilder's inspired film a clef,
|
||
Sunset Boulevard (1950), playing a former director opposite Gloria Swanson's
|
||
evocation of an aging, fantasy-ridden silent-film star. ELEANOR M. GATES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Curtiss, Thomas Q., Von Stroheim (1971); Noble, Peter, Hollywood
|
||
Scapegoat (1950; repr. 1972).
|
||
|
||
Chaney, Lon
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(chay'-nee)
|
||
Lon Chaney, b. Apr. 1, 1883, d. Aug. 26, 1930, Hollywood's "man of a
|
||
thousand faces," was a leading character actor specializing in macabre roles.
|
||
His ability to mime, to change physical appearance, and skill with makeup
|
||
served him well in such films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The
|
||
Phantom of the Opera (1925). LESLIE HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Andersen, Robert Gordon, Faces, Forms, Films: The Artistry of Lon
|
||
Chaney (1971).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Flaherty, Robert Joseph
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(flay'-urt-ee)
|
||
Robert Joseph Flaherty, b. Iron Mountain, Mich., Feb. 16, 1884, d. July 23,
|
||
1951, was a filmmaker whose originality and poetic vision helped create a
|
||
romantic tradition in documentary films. Before making Nanook of the North
|
||
(1922), a depiction of Eskimo life and his first and most famous film, Flaherty
|
||
explored Canada as a mapmaker. His interest in native cultures and the simple
|
||
agrarian life is reflected in later films--Moana (1926), Tabu (1931), Man of
|
||
Aran (1934), and Louisiana Story (1948).
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Flaherty, Frances H., The Odyssey of a Film-maker: Robert
|
||
Flaherty's Story (1960; repr. 1972); Griffith, Richard, The World of Robert
|
||
Flaherty (1953; repr. 1972).
|
||
|
||
|
||
EXPRESSION
|
||
|
||
expressionism
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(literature, theater, and film)
|
||
Expressionism, a term applied to avant-garde German painting in 1911, rapidly
|
||
gained currency in literature, but does not describe a cohesive literary
|
||
movement. In poetry and drama, expressionism represented a reaction to the
|
||
sentimentality of late-19th-century romanticism. Expressionist poets, writing
|
||
in Germany and Austria between 1910 and 1924, were influenced by Freudian
|
||
theories of the subconscious, the antirationalism of Friedrich Nietzsche, and
|
||
the novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky to probe their own imaginations for subject
|
||
matter. The poems of Johannes BECHER, Gottfried BENN, Georg HEYM, Ernst
|
||
TOLLER, Georg TRAKL, and Franz WERFEL are characterized by chaotic, frenzied
|
||
imagery and a vehement tone that threatens to overwhelm their literary form.
|
||
Expressionism reveals latent energies beneath the surface of appearances and
|
||
evokes extreme states of mind. Certain qualities of expressionism are also
|
||
found in the prose of Franz KAFKA, but the movement was strongest in the
|
||
theater. The dramas of August STRINDBERG and Frank WEDEKIND provided a strong
|
||
impetus to later writers such as Georg Kaiser, Carl Sternheim, Fritz von Unruh,
|
||
Reinhard Sorge, and Walter Hasenclever, whose works are characterized by terse
|
||
dialogue, disturbing incident, and intensely subjective emotion presented in a
|
||
succession of scenes or "stations." After 1917 expressionist drama dominated
|
||
the German theater for about 6 years--during which time production styles also
|
||
cultivated expressive exaggerations and distortion--and left its mark on the
|
||
silent cinema, especially in the films of Fritz LANG and Robert Wiene.
|
||
Expressionism left an important legacy of technique to many later writers. The
|
||
aims of the expressionist movement were assimilated by DADA, and can also be
|
||
discerned in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones (1921) and The Hairy Ape
|
||
(1922), and in Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine (1923).
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Furness, R. S., Expressionism (1973); Krispyn, Egbert, Style and
|
||
Society in German Literary Expressionism (1964); Willett, John, Expressionism
|
||
(1971).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bauhaus
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(bow'-hows)
|
||
The Bauhaus (full name staatliches Bauhaus, "state building house") was the
|
||
most famous school of architecture and design of the 20th century. Founded by
|
||
Walter GROPIUS at Weimar, Germany, in 1919, the Bauhaus was originally a
|
||
combined school of fine art and school of arts and crafts. In his opening
|
||
manifesto, Gropius issued a call for the unification of all the creative arts
|
||
under the leadership of architecture. He declared that a mastery of materials
|
||
and techniques was essential for all creative design. Students were to have
|
||
two teachers in every course, one an expert craftsman, the other a master
|
||
artist. The preliminary course, organized by Johannes Itten, introduced
|
||
students to rudiments of design, freed from historic associations: size,
|
||
shape, line, color, pattern, texture, rhythm, and density. This course has
|
||
become the foundation for design education in many countries. It was followed
|
||
in the curriculum by advanced work with form and materials, including workshops
|
||
in stone, wood, metal, pottery, glass, painting, and textiles. Industrial
|
||
design became a major focus at the Bauhaus, which hoped to improve radically
|
||
the quality of all manufactured goods.
|
||
|
||
Teachers appointed in the early years included Lyonel FEININGER, Gerhard
|
||
Marcks, Johannes Itten, and Adolf Meyer (1919); Georg Muche (1920); Paul KLEE
|
||
and Oskar SCHLEMMER (1921); Wassily KANDINSKY (1922); and Laszlo MOHOLY-NAGY
|
||
(1923). From the beginning, the striking newness of the concepts developed at
|
||
the Bauhaus and the liberal beliefs of many of the people associated with it
|
||
aroused strong opposition.
|
||
|
||
In 1925 political pressures forced the removal of the school from Weimar to
|
||
Dessau, where Gropius designed a new complex of buildings for it, including
|
||
classrooms, shops, offices, and dwellings for faculty and students. This group
|
||
of buildings in Dessau came to symbolize the Bauhaus to the rest of the world.
|
||
Although Gropius repeatedly insisted that it was never his intention to codify
|
||
a Bauhaus style or dogma, the need for a new architectural image appropriate to
|
||
a technological age caused the Bauhaus to be adopted as a model for what came
|
||
to be known as the INTERNATIONAL STYLE, or, more generally, MODERN
|
||
ARCHITECTURE.
|
||
|
||
Gropius left the Bauhaus for private practice in 1928 and was succeeded as
|
||
director by Hannes Meyer. Strong political pressures continued. In 1930
|
||
Ludwig MIES VAN DER ROHE took over as director, moved the school to Berlin in
|
||
1932, and finally closed and disbanded it under pressure from the Nazis in
|
||
1933. Among the former students who became important teachers at the Bauhaus
|
||
were Joseph ALBERS, Marcel BREUER, and Herbert Bayer. The Bauhaus became
|
||
influential around the world as a result of the continued active teaching and
|
||
designing by former faculty and students, including many Americans. In the
|
||
United States, Gropius became dean of the School of Architecture at Harvard
|
||
University, Mies van der Rohe became dean of architecture at Illinois Institute
|
||
of Technology, and Moholy-Nagy founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago.
|
||
|
||
The work and principles of the Bauhaus have been further disseminated by many
|
||
publications and exhibitions that have circulated internationally. A major
|
||
Bauhaus Archive, founded at Darmstadt in 1961, was moved in the 1970s to
|
||
Berlin. Another Bauhaus Archive is kept at Harvard University. The design
|
||
philosophy of the Bauhaus continues pervasive to the present day. RON
|
||
WIEDENHOEFT
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Franciscono, Marcel, Walter Gropius and the Creation of the
|
||
Bauhaus in Weimar (1971); Wingler, Hans, The Bauhaus (1969).
|
||
|
||
Eastman, George
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
George Eastman, b. Waterville, N.Y., July 12, 1854, d. Mar. 14, 1932,
|
||
founded (1892) the Eastman Kodak Company. While working as a bank clerk, he
|
||
became interested in PHOTOGRAPHY. He refined the process for making
|
||
photographic plates, which he soon began to manufacture, and in 1884 he
|
||
introduced flexible FILM. He produced his Kodak box CAMERA in 1888, marketing
|
||
it on a mass basis for amateur photographers. Large investments in research
|
||
led to further innovations in cameras and equipment, including daylight-loading
|
||
film and pocket cameras. Eastman gave enormous sums to educational
|
||
institutions, and in his company introduced the first employee profit-sharing
|
||
system in the United States.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Coe, Brian, George Eastman (1976).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Lang, Fritz
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
A long and distinguished career in Germany made Fritz Lang, b. Vienna, Dec.
|
||
5, 1890, d. Aug. 2, 1976, probably the most famous of the many European film
|
||
directors who fled Hitler for Hollywood during the 1930s. Lang's early studies
|
||
of painting and architecture clearly influenced the expressionist style and
|
||
grand scale of such films as Destiny (1921), the two-part Nibelung Saga (1924),
|
||
and his celebrated depiction of a futuristic slave society, Metropolis (1927).
|
||
During the same period Lang was also making smaller-scaled studies of criminal
|
||
society in Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) and The Spy (1928), which, with The
|
||
Last Will of Dr. Mabuse (1932), strongly suggested his anti-Nazi sentiments.
|
||
Lang's interest in the criminal mind produced his masterpiece--the chilling
|
||
portrait of a child killer, M (1931), Lang's first sound film, starring Peter
|
||
Lorre. Lang left Germany for France in 1933.
|
||
|
||
Lang made a highly successful American debut with Fury (1936), an indictment of
|
||
mob violence, followed by a plea for social justice in You Only Live Once
|
||
(1937). These films gave way to a succession of melodramas, most notably The
|
||
Ministry of Fear (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street
|
||
(1945), that painted a picture of society less in terms of social issues than
|
||
of a nameless, oppressive sense of dread. These expressionist nightmares,
|
||
along with M, constitute the height of Lang's achievement. Thereafter,
|
||
although he directed an offbeat Western in Rancho Notorious (1952), a
|
||
first-rate police thriller in The Big Heat (1953), and a stylish costume drama
|
||
in Moonfleet (1955), his films were of diminishing interest. A distinctive
|
||
stylist despite the multiplicity of genres in which he worked, Lang was much
|
||
admired by the French New Wave directors of the 1960s. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Bogdanovich, Peter, Fritz Lang in America (1968); Eisner, Lotte,
|
||
Fritz Lang (1977); Jensen, Paul M., The Cinema of Fritz Lang (1969).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Murnau, F. W.
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(moor'-now)
|
||
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, originally surnamed Plumpe, b. Dec. 28, 1888,
|
||
directed films during the German cinema's most experimental period and was
|
||
perhaps the greatest of all filmmakers of the 1920s. Fewer than half of his 22
|
||
films have been preserved, but what remains is proof that he excelled in every
|
||
genre he tried: the horror film, as in Nosferatu (1922); realistic lowlife
|
||
drama, as in The Last Laugh (1924); and classical adaptation, as in Faust
|
||
(1926). His command of lighting and composition, together with his fluent
|
||
moving camera style, are also apparent in his Hollywood films--especially his
|
||
masterpiece, Sunrise (1927), which transmutes melodrama into the purest
|
||
cinematic poetry. Murnau was killed in a car crash near Monterey on Mar. 11,
|
||
1931, a week before the opening of his romantic South Seas narrative, Tabu.
|
||
ROY ARMES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Eisner, Lotte H., Murnau (1973).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Pabst, G. W.
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(pahpst)
|
||
A major contributor to the German cinema during its experimental silent and
|
||
early sound eras, director George William Pabst, b. Bohemia, Aug. 27, 1885,
|
||
d. May 30, 1967, is especially identified with the straightforward portrayal
|
||
of human degradation, as in two of his greatest films, Joyless Street (1925)
|
||
and Pandora's Box (1929). In these he combined realism and social commentary,
|
||
although he was equally adept at working in naturalistic and expressionist
|
||
genres. Equally well known are Pabst's first sound films, the pacifist
|
||
Westfront 1918 (1930) and Kameradschaft (1931)--whose appeal to
|
||
internationalist sentiment displeased the Nazis--and his version of Brecht and
|
||
Weill's Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera, 1931). His Don Quixote (1933),
|
||
made in France, starred the renowned Russian singer Chaliapin in his only film
|
||
role. Following World War II, Pabst made The Trial (1947) and Ten Days to Die
|
||
(1955), an account of Hitler's end.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Kracauer, Siegfried
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(krah'-kow-ur, zeek'-freet)
|
||
Siegfried Kracauer, b. Feb. 8, 1889, d. Nov. 26, 1966, was an influential
|
||
German-Jewish film historian and theoretician best known for his championship
|
||
of realism as the truest function of cinema. Cultural affairs editor (1920-33)
|
||
of the Frankfurter Zeitung, Kracauer left Germany after the rise of Adolf
|
||
Hitler, and during World War II he conducted research into Nazi propaganda
|
||
films for New York's Museum of Modern Art. His From Caligari to Hitler (1947)
|
||
was an exploration of the roots of Nazism in the German cinema of the 1920s.
|
||
Kracauer's most important work, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical
|
||
Reality (1960), argues--with more intensity than consistency--for a cinema
|
||
devoted to the presentation of real-life people in real-life situations in a
|
||
style from which all theatrical or aesthetically formal elements would be
|
||
excluded. ROGER MANVELL
|
||
|
||
|
||
Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(ize'-en-shtine, sir-gay' mee-ky'-loh-vich)
|
||
Sergei Eisenstein, b. Jan. 23 (N.S.), 1898, d. Feb. 11, 1948, was a seminal
|
||
figure in the history of FILM, known for his stylistic innovations and theory
|
||
of MONTAGE. His theoretical and practical work are still intensely studied.
|
||
Of a well-to-do family from Riga, now in the USSR, Eisenstein studied
|
||
engineering and architecture in Petrograd, where he witnessed both the February
|
||
and October revolutions of 1917. His service in the Red Army during Russia's
|
||
Civil War led him to design (1920) for a front-line mobile theater troupe.
|
||
Following the war, Eisenstein worked in Moscow's experimental theaters and
|
||
studied under Vsevolod Meyerhold. As a designer and director for the
|
||
Proletcult Theatre, Eisenstein and the experimental group he gathered around
|
||
him staged Aleksandr Ostrovsky's Even a Wise Man Stumbles (1923) as a circus,
|
||
incorporating into the production a short film interlude. This foreshadowed
|
||
Eisenstein's subsequent theater work, all of which contained significant
|
||
cinematic elements. Placed in charge of Proletcult's first large film project,
|
||
Towards the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, envisioned as a series of seven
|
||
historical films, Eisenstein began work on Strike (1925); combining exaggerated
|
||
theatrical elements with some of the most realistic footage ever filmed by
|
||
Eisenstein, this was recognized for its artistic and political power.
|
||
Eisenstein's next film, a treatment of the June 1905 naval mutiny on the
|
||
battleship Potemkin, received international acclaim after it was shown in
|
||
Berlin. The Battleship Potemkin (1925) demonstrated abroad that the USSR could
|
||
produce an original film masterpiece and also demonstrated Eisenstein's use of
|
||
montage, a revolutionary film editing technique. October (1928), also known as
|
||
Ten Days That Shook the World, was similarly innovative, introducing sequences
|
||
that tested Eisenstein's theory of an "intellectual cinema," which aimed at
|
||
nothing less than the communication of abstract thought by visual means. A
|
||
propaganda film (The General Line) on behalf of the collectivization of Soviet
|
||
agriculture was released in 1929 under the title Old and New. Between 1929 and
|
||
1932 Eisenstein studied foreign sound-film systems in western Europe; signed a
|
||
contract with Paramount Pictures (later canceled); and, with the financial
|
||
backing of Upton Sinclair, began filming an epic of Mexican culture to be
|
||
called Que Viva Mexico!, all footage of which was seized by the Sinclairs after
|
||
production was halted (1932).
|
||
|
||
Trouble also plagued Eisenstein's projects in the USSR, where, in the 1930s,
|
||
Stalin's socialist realism supplanted earlier Soviet experimentalism. The
|
||
historical drama Alexander Nevsky (1938) temporarily restored Eisenstein to
|
||
favor, besides showing what he could do in sound film (in collaboration with
|
||
composer Sergei Prokofiev). His last film, made in Kazakhstan during World War
|
||
II, was Ivan the Terrible (1944-46), of which only Part I was seen in uncensored
|
||
form. Eisenstein's thoughts on film theory and practice can be found in
|
||
translations of his The Film Sense (1942), Film Form (1949), Notes of a Film
|
||
Director (1959), and Film Essays (1968). JAY LEYDA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Barna, Yon, Eisenstein (1974); Moussinac, Leon, Sergei Eisenstein
|
||
(1970); Montagu, Ivor, With Eisenstein in Hollywood (1968); Nizhniy, Vladimir,
|
||
Lessons with Eisenstein (1962); Seton, Marie, Sergei M. Eisenstein (1952).
|
||
|
||
surrealism
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(film, literature, theater)
|
||
Surrealism, meaning above realism, is an antiaesthetic movement that grew out
|
||
of the nihilistic DADA movement of the years during and immediately after World
|
||
War I. Its range being that of human thought itself, surrealism is limited in
|
||
scope and application only by the human capacity for self-expression, which
|
||
surrealists aim to expand. Writing, painting, film, sculpture, or any other
|
||
art form assumes significance for the surrealist when it expresses a surrealist
|
||
state of mind.
|
||
|
||
Surrealism began as a revolt against the control exercised by rationality over
|
||
accepted modes of communication. The first surrealists attacked inherited
|
||
preconceptions about the nature and function of word poems. In 1919, Andre
|
||
BRETON and Philippe Soupault produced the first specifically surrealist text,
|
||
Les Champs magnetiques (Magnetic Fields, 1921), by so-called automatic writing,
|
||
in which the surrealist banishes deliberate intent, leaving the pen free to
|
||
express on paper the uncensored images that well up from the subconscious.
|
||
Seeking to embrace all forms of creative expression in their liberative effort
|
||
to attain what Breton in his 1924 Manifeste du surrealisme (Manifesto of
|
||
Surrealism) called "the true functioning of thought," the surrealists set about
|
||
attacking, on the broadest possible front, conventions, prescribed rules, and
|
||
consecrated values--cultural as well as aesthetic. This explains, for
|
||
instance, their enthusiasm for the films of Luis BUNUEL, whose L'Age d'or (The
|
||
Golden Age, 1930) surpassed in violent iconoclasm even his first movie, Un
|
||
Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1928).
|
||
|
||
In its negative attitude toward literary and artistic tradition, and in its
|
||
opposition to the heritage of Western culture, surrealism superficially
|
||
resembled Dada, the movement with which some of its earliest members, including
|
||
Louis ARAGON, Roger VITRAC, Breton, Soupault, and its greatest poet, Benjamin
|
||
Peret, all had been affiliated. However, surrealism marked a stage beyond the
|
||
nihilism that had inevitably brought Dada to self-destruction. Surrealism was
|
||
truly international, and exponents of its revolutionary principles shared an
|
||
unshakable faith in the power of the imagination to revitalize poetry and art,
|
||
and to compensate for the sociopolitical and religious forces that they found
|
||
so oppressive and stultifying in contemporary society. J. H. MATTHEWS
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Alquie, Ferdinand, The Philosophy of Surrealism (1965); Breton,
|
||
Andre, What Is Surrealism? (1978); Gascoyne, David, A Short Survey of
|
||
Surrealism (1935); Matthews, J. H., An Introduction to Surrealism (1965);
|
||
Nadeau, Maurice, The History of Surrealism (1965); Read, Herbert, ed.,
|
||
Surrealism (1936; repr. 1971).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Kazan, Elia
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{kuh-zan', eel'-yuh}^An American stage and film director, Elia Kazan
|
||
(originally Kazanjoglous), b. Istanbul, Turkey, Sept. 7, 1909, to Greek
|
||
parents, became a director after a brief career as an actor with New York's
|
||
Group Theater in the 1930s. His greatest success was directing plays by Arthur
|
||
Miller and Tennessee Williams, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947, film,
|
||
1951) and Death of a Salesman (1949). He directed the Academy Award-winning
|
||
films Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and On The Waterfront (1954), as well as
|
||
East of Eden (1955), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Splendor in the Grass (1961),
|
||
and The Last Tycoon (1976). His two autobiographical novels, America, America
|
||
(1962) and The Arrangement (1967), were turned into films in 1963 and 1968.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Koszarski, Richard, Hollywood Directors, 1941-1976 (1977).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Jolson, Al
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(johl'-suhn)
|
||
The singer Al Jolson, b. Asa Yoelson in Lithuania, c.1886, d. Oct. 23, 1950,
|
||
immigrated with his family to Washington, D.C., around 1895. After a long
|
||
apprenticeship as a singer in burlesque, minstrel shows, and vaudeville, he won
|
||
(1911) his first important role in the Broadway show La Belle Paree. Jolson's
|
||
style was notable for its vigor and volume, its blatant sentimentality, and for
|
||
his use of blackface, a leftover theatrical convention from the already
|
||
moribund minstrel show. His work--especially his film roles, beginning with
|
||
The Jazz Singer (1927), the first major sound picture--won him a large audience
|
||
during his lifetime. Jolson was awarded the Congressional Medal of Merit
|
||
posthumously for his many overseas tours of wartime army camps, the last at the
|
||
beginning of the Korean War in 1950.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Friedland, Michael, Jolson (1972). Discography:Best of Al
|
||
Jolson: Steppin' Out and California, Here I Come (1911-29).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Duchamp, Marcel
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(doo-shahm')
|
||
Marcel Duchamp, b. July 28, 1887, d. Oct. 2, 1968, was a French painter and
|
||
theorist, a major proponent of DADA, and one of the most influential figures of
|
||
avant-garde 20th-century art. After a brief early period in which he was
|
||
influenced chiefly by Paul CEZANNE and Fauve color (see FAUVISM), Duchamp
|
||
developed a type of symbolic painting, a dynamic version of facet CUBISM
|
||
(similar to FUTURISM), in which the image depicted successive movements of a
|
||
single body. It closely resembled the multiple exposure photography documented
|
||
in Eadward MUYBRIDGE's book The Horse in Motion (1878).
|
||
|
||
In 1912, Duchamp painted his famous Nude Descending A Staircase, which caused a
|
||
scandal at the 1913 ARMORY SHOW in New York City. In the same year he
|
||
developed, with Francis PICABIA and Guillaume APOLLINAIRE, the radical and
|
||
ironic ideas that independently prefigured the official founding of Dada in
|
||
1916 in Zurich. In Paris in 1914, Duchamp bought and inscribed a bottle rack,
|
||
thereby producing his first ready-made, a new art form based on the principle
|
||
that art does not depend on established rules or on craftsmanship. Duchamp's
|
||
ready-mades are ordinary objects that are signed and titled, becoming
|
||
aesthetic, rather than functional, objects simply by this change in context.
|
||
Dada aimed at departure from the physical aspect of painting and emphases in
|
||
ideas as the chief means of artistic expression.
|
||
|
||
In 1915, Duchamp moved to New York City, where he was befriended by Louise and
|
||
Walter Arensberg and their circle of artists and poets, which constituted New
|
||
York Dada. That same year he began his major work, The Large Glass, or The
|
||
Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915-23), a construction of wire
|
||
and painted foil fitted between plates of transparent glass. In 1918 he
|
||
completed his last major painting, Tu m', a huge oil and graphite on canvas, a
|
||
unique combination of real and painted objects and illusionistic and flat
|
||
space. Following his maxim never to repeat himself, Duchamp "stopped" painting
|
||
(1923) after 20 works and devoted himself largely to the game of chess.
|
||
Nevertheless, by 1944 he had secretly begun sketches on a new project, and
|
||
between 1946 and 1949 created his last work, the Etant Donnes (Philadelphia
|
||
Museum of Art). BARBARA CAVALIERE
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Alexandrian, Sarane, Duchamp (1977); d'Harnoncourt, Anne, and
|
||
McShine, Kynaston, eds., Marcel Duchamp (1973); Duchamp, Marcel, From the Green
|
||
Box, trans. by George H. Hamilton (1957); Golding, John, Duchamp (1973);
|
||
Schwarz, Arturo, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, 2d ed. (1970); Tomkins,
|
||
Calvin, The World of Marcel Duchamp (1966).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Renoir, Jean
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(ren-wahr')
|
||
One of the greatest and best-loved of all French filmmakers, Jean Renoir, b.
|
||
Sept. 15, 1894, d. Feb. 13, 1979, the second son of the impressionist
|
||
painter Auguste Renoir, exercised a major influence on French cinema for almost
|
||
50 years. From his beginnings in the silent era, aspects of his mature film
|
||
style were apparent: a love of nature, rejection of class values, and a
|
||
mixture of joy and sorrow. Some of his earliest films were made with his wife
|
||
Catherine Hessling as star, among them an interpretation of Zola's Nana (1926),
|
||
and The Little Match Girl (1928).
|
||
|
||
During the 1930s Renoir was at the top of his form in two celebrations of
|
||
anarchy, La Chienne (The Bitch, 1931) and Boudu sauve des eaux (Boudu Saved
|
||
from Drowning, 1932). A new social concern appeared in Toni (1935), Le Crime
|
||
de Monsieur Lange (1936), and especially La Vie est a nous (People of France,
|
||
1936), made for the French Communist party during the heyday of the Popular
|
||
Front. Renoir's reputation, however, rests mainly on A Day in the Country
|
||
(1936, completed 1946), based on a bittersweet de Maupassant story; a free
|
||
adaptation of Gorki's The Lower Depths (1936); and the widely acclaimed Grand
|
||
Illusion (1937). Two very different masterpieces written and directed by
|
||
Renoir, the tightly structured The Human Beast (1938) and the largely
|
||
improvised Rules of the Game (1939)--which perfectly captured the mood of
|
||
France before its collapse in 1940--crowned this prolific period.
|
||
|
||
Renoir spent the war years in Hollywood, but even the best of his films made in
|
||
the United States, such as The Southerner (1945) and The Diary of a Chambermaid
|
||
(1946), lack the excitement of his prewar work. He found a new approach and a
|
||
new philosophy in India, where he made his first color film, The River (1950),
|
||
before returning to Europe to make the colorful and relaxed films of his
|
||
maturity: The Golden Coach (1952), French Can Can (1954), and Paris Does
|
||
Strange Things (1956). Always an innovator, Renoir used television techniques
|
||
in the 1959 filming of Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier and Picnic on the
|
||
Grass, the latter strongly evocative of the sun-filled landscapes beloved by
|
||
his father. For his last film, The Elusive Corporal (1962), set in World War
|
||
II, he returned to themes earlier explored in Grand Illusion and The Lower
|
||
Depths. Renoir's considerable influence on the French New Wave directors of
|
||
the late 1950s can be seen especially in the films of Francois Truffaut. ROY
|
||
ARMES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Bazin, Andre, Jean Renoir, ed. by Francois Truffaut (1973);
|
||
Braudy, Leo, Jean Renoir--The World of His Films (1972); Durgnat, Raymond, Jean
|
||
Renoir (1974); Gilliatt, Penelope, Jean Renoir: Essays, Conversations, and
|
||
Reviews (1975); Renoir, Jean, My Life and My Films (1974).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Melies, Georges
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{may-lee-es'}^A major contributor to the development of world cinema in its
|
||
formative years, the Frenchman Georges Melies, b. Paris, Dec. 6, 1861, d.
|
||
Jan. 21, 1938, began his career as a conjurer. He was attracted to the cinema
|
||
immediately after seeing the first Lumiere showings in 1895 and soon developed
|
||
his own distinctive studio-based style. Melies was fascinated by the spectacle
|
||
and trickery possible in the cinema, and his hundreds of little films, mostly
|
||
dealing with fantastic subjects, are full of dancing girls and acrobatic
|
||
devils, awe-inspiring disasters and miraculous transformations. For 10 years
|
||
after 1896, Melies's Star Film company was a dominant force in the film
|
||
industry, producing such inventive and amusing short subjects as A Trip to the
|
||
Moon (1902) and New York-Paris by Automobile (1908). His production methods
|
||
and conception of film action as a sequence of tableaux, however, gradually
|
||
became outdated. He ceased production in 1912 and was reduced to poverty. ROY
|
||
ARMES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Hammond, Paul, Marvellous Melies (1974).
|
||
|
||
neorealism
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Neorealism as an Italian literary movement can be said to have begun in 1929
|
||
with Alberto MORAVIA's Time of Indifference (Eng. trans., 1932), a novel that
|
||
unflinchingly addressed highly sensitive moral, social, and political issues
|
||
during the early repressive years of Mussolini's dictatorship. The movement
|
||
developed slowly, however, until the overthrow of the fascist regime in 1943.
|
||
Neorealist novels of the next 12 years by such disparate writers as Vasco
|
||
PRATOLINI, Domenico Rea, and Italo CALVINO focused on the plight of
|
||
working-class people and thus represented a break with the elitist tradition
|
||
that had characterized Italian literature for centuries. Neorealism, both as a
|
||
style and as a political outlook, became even better known internationally
|
||
through the 1940s and postwar films of Italian directors Luchino VISCONTI
|
||
(Ossessione, 1942; La Terra Trema, 1948), Roberto ROSSELLINI (Open City, 1945;
|
||
Paisan, 1947), and Vittorio DE SICA (Shoeshine, 1946; The Bicycle Thief, 1948;
|
||
Umberto D., 1952). SERGIO PACIFICI
|
||
|
||
|
||
De Sica, Vittorio
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(day see'-kah)
|
||
The Italian film director and actor Vittorio De Sica, b. July 7, 1901, d.
|
||
Nov. 13, 1974, achieved international recognition after World War II for his
|
||
important contributions to Italian neorealistic cinema as well as for his
|
||
numerous, mostly comic, starring roles. Trained in the 1920s for the stage, De
|
||
Sica won success as a film actor in the 1930s and directed his first film, Rose
|
||
Scarlette, in 1940. The Children Are Watching Us (1942) marked the beginning
|
||
of his long collaboration with the screenwriter and theorist of neorealism
|
||
Cesare Zavattini. Fame came with Shoeshine (1946), a harsh social commentary
|
||
on war-ravaged Italy that exemplified the neorealist style. This was followed
|
||
by Bicycle Thieves (1948), the story of an unemployed man's search for work;
|
||
the fantasy Miracle in Milan (1951); and Umberto D (1952), a haunting portrayal
|
||
of a poor and hopeless old man.
|
||
|
||
During the 1950s, De Sica appeared in more than 50 films, playing his most
|
||
memorable role as the scoundrel-turned-hero of General della Rovere (1959). In
|
||
the 1960s he concentrated on commercial successes, two of which--Two Women
|
||
(1960) and Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1963)--won Academy Awards. With The
|
||
Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), about the plight of Jews in Fascist Italy,
|
||
De Sica returned to the social commentary, but not the style, of his earlier
|
||
films. His last picture was A Brief Vacation (1973). GAUTAM DASGUPTA
|
||
|
||
|
||
Losey, Joseph
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{loh'-zee}^Although forced to abandon his career in the United States when
|
||
blacklisted in the 1950s, Joseph Losey, b. La Crosse, Wis., Jan. 14, 1909, d.
|
||
June 22, 1984, went on to become an important director in the British film
|
||
industry. After extensive stage experience, Losey made his first feature film,
|
||
The Boy with Green Hair, in 1948. This was followed by several taut
|
||
melodramas--The Lawless (1950), The Prowler (1951), M (1951; a remake of Fritz
|
||
Lang's classic), and The Big Night (1951)--that some still consider his best
|
||
work. In 1952, during a period in which he was forced to work pseudonymously,
|
||
he moved to London. There Losey gained international recognition with The
|
||
Servant (1963), a film that marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration
|
||
with playwright Harold PINTER, later resumed in Accident (1967) and The
|
||
Go-Between (1971). The charged atmospherics of these films also characterized
|
||
such subsequent Losey efforts without Pinter as The Romantic Englishwoman
|
||
(1975) and Mr. Klein (1977). WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Hirsch, Joseph, Joseph Losey (1980); Leahy, James, The Cinema of
|
||
Joseph Losey (1967); Losey, Joseph, Losey on Losey, ed. by Tom Milne (1968).
|
||
|
||
Visconti, Luchino
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
An aristocrat by birth and a Marxist by inclination, Italian filmmaker Luchino
|
||
Visconti, b. Nov. 2, 1906, d. Mar. 17, 1976, is known both for his
|
||
contributions to NEOREALISM and his frank aestheticism. After working with
|
||
Renoir, he directed his first film, Ossessione (1942), an antecedent, and
|
||
arguably one of the masterpieces, of neorealist cinema. In the film
|
||
self-destructive sexual passions are played out against a landscape of
|
||
extraordinary beauty. Visconti used documentary techniques in his next film,
|
||
La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles, 1948), to describe the lives of peasants in
|
||
a Sicilian fishing village. One of his favorite themes was the tension between
|
||
family solidarity and the destructive power of family relationships, best
|
||
expressed in Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Damned (1969). Visconti's
|
||
first film in color, Senso (1953), brilliantly portraying political and sexual
|
||
conflicts during the Austro-Italian war of 1866, displayed the lavish attention
|
||
to detail and love for period reconstructions that would become his hallmarks
|
||
in such literary adaptations as The Leopard (1963), The Stranger (1967), Death
|
||
in Venice (1971), and The Innocent (1978). GAUTAM DASGUPTA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, Luchino Visconti (1973); Stirling,
|
||
Monica, Screen of Time: A Study of Luchino Visconti (1979).
|
||
|
||
Fellini, Federico
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{fel-lee'-nee, fay-day-ree'-koh}^Federico Fellini, Italy's most famous
|
||
filmmaker, b. Jan. 20, 1920, has worked with equal enthusiasm and
|
||
undiminished energy as an exponent of neorealism, as the creator of symbolic
|
||
fantasies, and as a popularizer of the flamboyant and grotesque. His personal
|
||
signature is nowhere more evident than in the cinematic classics La Strada and
|
||
La Dolce Vita.^After starting in Rome as a cartoonist and sketch writer,
|
||
Fellini turned in 1939 to script writing, collaborating with Roberto Rossellini
|
||
on such neorealist films as Open City (1945) and The Miracle (1948)--in which
|
||
he also acted--before emerging as a director on his own. The White Skeikh
|
||
(1952), his first solo effort, showed his inventiveness as a comic director,
|
||
and I Vitelloni (1953), an evocation of the Rimini of his youth, demonstrated
|
||
his insight into the provincial bourgeoisie. La Strada (1954), starring his
|
||
wife Giulietta Masina, secured his position as a major director and won a 1956
|
||
Academy Award as the best foreign film. With its comedy and pathos, stunning
|
||
visual effects, and haunting musical score, it prodded the viewer into an
|
||
awareness of the quixotic nature of life that remains for Fellini a central
|
||
truth. This mood was continued in Nights of Cabiria (1956).^In later films
|
||
Fellini began to explore more fully the relationship between reality and dream.
|
||
La Dolce Vita (1960), a sensational indictment of the indolence and decadence
|
||
of modern Rome, was followed by the more openly symbolic 81/2 (1963), in which
|
||
Fellini used Pirandellian techniques to comment on his creative problems as an
|
||
artist, and Juliet of the Spirits (1965). Critics were less happy with the
|
||
exaggerations and thematic repetitiveness of Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972), and
|
||
Casanova (1976). All Fellini's strengths--and few of his excesses--coalesced
|
||
in Amarcord (1974), a brilliantly nostalgic portrait of his boyhood in Rimini
|
||
during the early years of the fascist era. This and his television film, The
|
||
Clowns (1970), reveal the essentially autobiographical wellsprings of Fellini's
|
||
art. City of Women (1981) returned to his dream theme. His later films
|
||
include And the Ship Sails On (1984) and Ginger and Fred (1986), which reunited
|
||
Fellini and Masina on the screen.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Bonadella, Peter, ed., Federico Fellini: Essays in Criticism
|
||
(1978); Fellini, Federico, Fellini on Fellini, trans. by Isabel Quigley (1976);
|
||
Murray, Edward, Fellini the Artist (1976); Rosenthal, Stuart, The Cinema of
|
||
Federico Fellini (1976).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Antonioni, Michelangelo
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{ahn-toh-nee-oh'-nee, mee-kel-ahn'-jel-oh}^Michelangelo Antonioni, b. Sept.
|
||
29, 1912, is an Italian director best known for a trilogy of films begun in
|
||
1959 that created a sense of despair through the juxtaposition of haunting
|
||
visual imagery, elliptical, mysterious plots, and the portrayal of neurotic,
|
||
empty lives. He began his career in the cinema as a film critic and
|
||
scriptwriter and, after working with Roberto Rossellini and Marcel Carne, made
|
||
his debut as a director in 1943 with the documentary Gente del Po (The People
|
||
of the Po Valley). Cronaca di un Amore (Chronicle of a Love, 1950), his first
|
||
feature, represented a break with the neorealist tradition. Two later films,
|
||
Le Amiche (The Friends, 1955) and Il Grido (The Cry, 1957), were slow-paced and
|
||
deliberately obscure in narrative structure. Antonioni's distinctive style
|
||
reached its highest expression in the trilogy L'Avventura (The Adventure,
|
||
1959), La Notte (Night, 1960), and L'Eclisse (The Eclipse, 1962). In these
|
||
films, and in the machine-dominated Deserto Rosso (Red Desert, 1964), his first
|
||
color film, mystery and eroticism merge in landscapes of compelling beauty.
|
||
Antonioni's subsequent English-language films, Blow-Up (1966), Zabriskie Point
|
||
(1970), and The Passenger (1975), and Identification Of A Woman (1982) had less
|
||
success with the critics despite their stylistic interest.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Cameron, Ian, and Wood, Robin, Antonioni (1969); Sarris, Andrew,
|
||
ed., Interviews with Film Directors (1968).
|
||
|
||
Wertmuller, Lina
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{wairt'-muhl-ur}^A highly original and controversial Italian filmmaker, Lina
|
||
Wertmuller, b. c.1926, specializes in melodramatic tragicomedies characterized
|
||
by an idiosyncratic blend of wit, irony, socialist dialectics, and sheer
|
||
grotesquerie. She has taken on such themes as economic exploitation and the
|
||
inability of the striving worker to rise above it in The Seduction of Mimi
|
||
(1972), an anarchist's abortive attempt to assassinate Mussolini in Love and
|
||
Anarchy (1973), the subordination of natural love to class interests in Swept
|
||
Away (1975), and the insanities to which chauvinism--male or national--can lead
|
||
in Seven Beauties (1976). In 1977 she directed her first English language
|
||
film, The End of the World in Our Usual Bed in A Night Full of Rain. Her other
|
||
films include Blood Feud (1978), A Joke of Destiny (1983), and Sotto Sotto
|
||
(1985). She directed an off-Broadway play entitled Love and Magic in Mama's
|
||
Kitchen (1983) and wrote the novel The Head of Alvise (1982). Wertmuller has
|
||
demonstrated rare ingenuity in mixing the tragic with the farcical but is more
|
||
successful in communicating her love for human nature than any political
|
||
message. ELEANOR M. GATES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Ferlita, Ernest, and May, John R., Parables of Lina Wertmuller
|
||
(1977).
|
||
|
||
Guinness, Sir Alec
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(gin'-es) Alec Guinness, b. Apr. 2, 1914, is an English stage and screen
|
||
actor known particularly for his character roles and comic impersonations. He
|
||
was a respected member of the Old Vic when roles in film adaptations of two
|
||
Dickens novels--Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946) and Fagin in Oliver
|
||
Twist (1948)--brought him a larger public. He became better known through
|
||
bravura performances in such British film comedies as Kind Hearts and Coronets
|
||
(1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), and The
|
||
Ladykillers (1955).
|
||
|
||
Guinness received an Oscar for his performance in The Bridge on the River Kwai
|
||
(1957) and was knighted in 1959. Guinness subsequently gave distinguished
|
||
dramatic performances in Tunes of Glory (1960), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and
|
||
Star Wars (1977).
|
||
|
||
Since 1980, Guinness has made several television appearances that further
|
||
attest to his versatility as a character actor, including his highly acclaimed
|
||
performances as George Smiley in the television miniseries "Tinker, Tailor,
|
||
Soldier, Spy" (1980) and its sequel, "Smiley's People" (1981)--both based on
|
||
John LECARRE novels.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Tynan, Kenneth, Alec Guinness: An Illustrated Study of His Work
|
||
for Stage and Screen, 3d ed. (1961).
|
||
|
||
Kurosawa, Akira
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{koo-roh'-sah-wah, ah-kee'-rah}^The best-known Japanese film director, Akira
|
||
Kurosawa, b. Mar. 23, 1910, first achieved international recognition with
|
||
Rashomon (1950)--a brilliant study of a crime of violence told from four
|
||
different points of view--which won the 1951 Venice grand prize. His
|
||
reputation within Japan, however, was based on a series of chambara
|
||
(sword-fight) epics set in feudal times, such as Sugata Sanshiro (1943), The
|
||
Seven Samurai (1954), and Yojimbo (1961). Kurosawa has also dealt sensitively
|
||
with contemporary themes in Ikiru (1952), about a lonely old man dying of
|
||
cancer; High and Low (1963), a taut crime drama set in modern Yokohama; and Red
|
||
Beard (1965), an indictment of social injustice. Known for his use of multiple
|
||
cameras, extended takes, and tight editing, Kurosawa has made screen
|
||
adaptations of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot (1951), Gorky's The Lower Depths (1957),
|
||
and Shakespeare's Macbeth (Throne of Blood, 1957). Dersu Uzala (1976), which
|
||
won an Academy Award, was made in the USSR. With Kagemusha (1980), he returned
|
||
to Japan and to the medieval drama he has exploited so successfully in the
|
||
past. His samurai adaptation of King Lear, Ran (1985), was both a critical and
|
||
popular success. Kurosawa's reminiscenses (Something Like an Autobiography,
|
||
trans. by Audie E. Bock) were published in 1982.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Mellen, Joan, Voices from the Japanese Cinema (1975); Richie,
|
||
Donald, The Films of Akira Kurosawa (1965). Sato, Tadao, Currents in Japanese
|
||
Cinema (1982).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Pinter, Harold
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{pin'-tur}^Harold Pinter, b. Oct. 10, 1930, one of England's leading
|
||
contemporary playwrights, studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
|
||
and began his theatrical career as an actor. He wrote his first play, The
|
||
Room, in 1957, but first established himself as a highly original talent in
|
||
1960 with The Caretaker, a characteristic Pinteresque drama in its evocation of
|
||
terror amid farcical "business" and sometimes fanciful dialogue. Typically,
|
||
Pinter's solipsistic characters seek security, self-identification, and
|
||
verification of truth but find communication virtually impossible. Instead,
|
||
there are pathetic games, cliches, long silences, and sinister threats, all
|
||
presented in suspenseful yet comic plots. Akin to the theater of the absurd,
|
||
Pinter's plays have more accurately been called "comedies of menace."^In
|
||
Pinter's first full-length play, The Birthday Party (1958), for instance, two
|
||
gangsters interrogate and terrorize a nervous young pianist. The Caretaker
|
||
(1960) centers on an old derelict who intrudes on two mysterious brothers and
|
||
is ultimately thrown out by them. Pinter's reputation as an allusive and
|
||
controversial dramatist grew significantly with The Homecoming (1965), in which
|
||
a married couple visits the lower-class father and brothers of the husband, now
|
||
a philosophy professor in the United States, and the wife finally remains in
|
||
England to serve the family as a prostitute. Two later plays, Old Times (1971)
|
||
and No Man's Land (1975), deal, respectively, with a middle-aged couple, their
|
||
mysterious visitor (who once knew the wife), and the power of memory to wound;
|
||
and the curious relationship between two elderly men of letters, one a success,
|
||
the other a failure.^A less typical, lyrical Pinter double bill consists of the
|
||
solitary reminiscences of a sentimental wife and her bluff but unimaginative
|
||
mate (Landscape, 1968) and of a woman and two men with whom she once kept
|
||
company (Silence, 1969). More characteristic of Pinter are the one-act plays
|
||
The Dumb Waiter (1960), The Lover (1963), Tea Party (1965), and The Basement
|
||
(1967).^Pinter has written screenplays for his own The Caretaker (1962) and The
|
||
Birthday Party (1969) as well as for three films directed by Joseph Losey: The
|
||
Servant (1963), Accident (1967), and The Go-Between (1971). The controversial
|
||
screenplay for the movie The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981; John Fowles's
|
||
novel) was also by Pinter. He also adapted Russell Hoban's novel Turtle Diary
|
||
(1985) for the screen. Since 1967 Pinter has also directed such plays as Simon
|
||
Gray's Butley (1971; film, 1973) and Otherwise Engaged (1975). His most recent
|
||
plays are Betrayal (1979; film, 1983, from Pinter's screenplay), and Family
|
||
Voices (1981). In 1985 he directed Lauren Bacall in a London production of
|
||
Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. MYRON MATLAW
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Dukore, Bernard F., Where Laughter Stops: Pinter's Tragicomedy
|
||
(1976); Esslin, Martin, The Peopled Wound: The Work of Harold Pinter (1970);
|
||
Gale, Steven H., Butter's Going Up: A Critical Analysis of Harold Pinter's Work
|
||
(1977); Hayman, Ronald, Harold Pinter (1973); Hinchliffe, Arnold, Harold Pinter
|
||
(1975).
|
||
|
||
Mizoguchi, Kenji
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(mee'-zoh-goo-chee, ken'-jee)
|
||
The Japanese film director Kenji Mizoguchi, b. May 16, 1898, d. Aug. 24,
|
||
1956, is best known for his jidai-geki, or "period dramas," with their
|
||
portrayal of the horrors of war, the lives of courtesans, and male-female
|
||
relationships. His films (about 80) are wrought with a beauty and clarity
|
||
unparalleled in Japanese cinema. Early productions dealt with the sufferings
|
||
of women; his later efforts, such as Saikaku Ichidai Onna (The Life of Oharu,
|
||
1952), Ugetsu Monogatari (1953), and Chikamatsu Monogatari (1954), reflect his
|
||
meditative style, which is characterized by long takes, a virtually immobile
|
||
camera, few close-ups, and slow dissolves. GAUTAM DASGUPTA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Anderson, Joseph L., and Richie, Donald, The Jap anese Film
|
||
(1959).
|
||
|
||
Ray, Satyajit
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{ry, suht'-yuh-jit}^Satyajit Ray, b. May 2, 1922, is India's foremost film
|
||
director. A versatile craftsman who has worked in several film genres, Ray is
|
||
known best outside India for his moving depictions of Indian family life. His
|
||
acknowledged masterpiece, the neorealist trilogy made up of Pather Panchali
|
||
(1955), Aparajito (1956), and The World of Apu (1959), lyrically chronicles the
|
||
day-to-day activities of a rural Bengali family and the coming of age of the
|
||
boy Apu. Two other outstanding Ray films, Jalsaghar (The Music Room, 1958) and
|
||
Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963), deal with the changing nature of contemporary
|
||
Indian life, whereas Charulata (1964) is a graceful adaptation of Rabindranath
|
||
Tagore's classic portrait of the Indian middle classes in the Victorian era.
|
||
In later films such as Aranyer din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest, 1970),
|
||
Pratidwandi (The Adversary, 1970), and Seemabadha (Company Ltd., 1971), Ray has
|
||
focused on political and social themes without losing his humanistic
|
||
perspective. He composed the music for many of his films, including the Ghare
|
||
baire (Home of the World, 1984), based on Tagore's novel about the Bengal in
|
||
the early 20th century. GAUTAM DASGUPTA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Seton, Marie, Portrait of a Director: Satyajit Ray (1971).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bergman, Ingrid
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Ingrid Bergman, b. Aug. 29, 1915, d. Aug. 29, 1982, was a popular stage and
|
||
film actress in her native Sweden before going to Hollywood, where she made an
|
||
English-language version of her Swedish hit Intermezzo (1939). Bergman was
|
||
probably best known for her roles in Casablanca (1942); For Whom the Bell Tolls
|
||
(1943); Gaslight (1944), for which she received her first Academy Award; The
|
||
Bells of St. Mary's (1945); and two Alfred HITCHCOCK films, Spellbound (1945)
|
||
and Notorious (1946). She returned to Europe after the scandalous publicity
|
||
surrounding her affair with Italian director Roberto ROSSELLINI (whom she later
|
||
married and divorced) during the filming of Stromboli (1950). But she returned
|
||
to Hollywood and triumphed in Anastasia (1956), for which she received another
|
||
Oscar. She received a third for her role in Murder on the Orient Express
|
||
(1974). She also starred in Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata (1978). Her last
|
||
role was in the television film A Woman Called Golda (1981).
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Bergman, Ingrid, and Burgess, Allan, Ingrid Bergman: My Story
|
||
(1980); Quirk, Lawrence J., The Films of Ingrid Bergman (1970; repr. 1975).
|
||
|
||
Bergman, Ingmar
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Ingmar Ernst Bergman, b. July 14, 1918, is a major Swedish filmmaker who for
|
||
over 20 years has sustained a reputation as an artist of international stature.
|
||
The son of a Lutheran pastor, Bergman attended Stockholm University and began
|
||
his directing career in the theater, where he continues to work as extensively
|
||
as he does in films. He wrote the screenplay for the director Alf Sjoberg's
|
||
internationally acclaimed Torment in 1944, and the next year he directed his
|
||
first film, Crisis.^Although Bergman's Illicit Interlude (1950) was moderately
|
||
successful and the lighthearted Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) even more so,
|
||
it was only after The Seventh Seal (1957), which made an extraordinarily
|
||
powerful impression with its despairing philosophy and stark medieval imagery,
|
||
that a widespread interest developed in such earlier Bergman films as The Naked
|
||
Night (1953) and A Lesson in Love (1956). With The Seventh Seal, Bergman
|
||
definitively established the theme that was to characterize virtually all his
|
||
subsequent work--the individual's quasi-religious search for faith in a context
|
||
of anguished doubt. This is central to such varied films as Wild Strawberries
|
||
(1957), The Magician (1958), The Virgin Spring (1960), and his "chamber"
|
||
trilogy: Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), and The Silence
|
||
(1963).^By the mid-1960s Bergman had assembled a group of actors into a now
|
||
familiar stock company, among them Max VON SYDOW, Liv ULLMANN, Harriet
|
||
Andersson, Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, and Ingrid Thulin. In 1966 he
|
||
undertook a greater formal experimentation with Persona, an intriguing
|
||
psychological study of two women that is considered by many one of his most
|
||
important works. This was followed by a less successful Gothic exercise, Hour
|
||
of the Wolf (1968); an antiwar allegory, Shame (1968); and a more realistic
|
||
film, The Passion of Anna (1969). In the searing Cries and Whispers (1972),
|
||
Bergman again used Gothic and dreamlike elements, this time in an intense
|
||
exploration of the relationship among three sisters, but that film was followed
|
||
by the naturalistic simplicity of Scenes from a Marriage (1974), a great
|
||
popular success. Critics were less pleased with some of Bergman's later work,
|
||
finding the subject matter of Face to Face (1975) overly familiar and rating
|
||
his English-language The Serpent's Egg (1977) an overall failure. Autumn
|
||
Sonata (1978) and From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) were critical
|
||
successes, however, although the latter failed at the box office. Fanny and
|
||
Alexander (1983), a rich and fantastic portrait of childhood in a theatrical
|
||
family, was regarded as one of his finest films and won an Academy Award for
|
||
best foreign language film of 1983. Subsequently, Bergman directed After the
|
||
Rehearsal (1984), his meditation on a life in the theater. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Bergman, Ingmar, Bergman on Bergman (1973); Cowie, Peter, Ingmar
|
||
Bergman: A Critical Biography (1982); Marker, Lise-Lone and Frederick J., Ingmar
|
||
Bergman; Four Decades in the Theater (1982); Mosley, Philip, Ingmar Bergman: The
|
||
Cinema as Mistress (1981); Petrie, Vlada, ed., Film and Dreams: An Approach to
|
||
Bergman (1981); Simon, John, Ingmar Bergman Directs (1972); Wood, Robin, Ingmar
|
||
Bergman (1969).
|
||
|
||
|
||
New Wave
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The term New Wave (in French, Nouvelle Vague) is used to identify the movement
|
||
and style of a group of French film directors, including Claude CHABROL, Jean
|
||
Luc GODARD, Alain RESNAIS, and Francois TRUFFAUT, who made their first feature
|
||
films between 1958 and 1961. Most wrote for the film journal CAHIERS DU CINEMA
|
||
and helped develop the auteur (director-oriented) theory of film criticism.
|
||
Rejecting traditional French film directing, they advocated instead the more
|
||
personal and autobiographical approach used in such films as Truffaut's The 400
|
||
Blows (1959). They also emulated American genre films, such as the detective
|
||
movie, and favored low-budget location shooting over studio filming. Visually,
|
||
they quoted from one another and employed mobile camera techniques and rapid
|
||
jump cuts, such as those found in Godard's Breathless (1959).
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Graham, Peter J., comp., The New Wave: Critical Landmarks (1968).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Resnais, Alain 0re-nay'0
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Known for his innovative literary approach to film, Alain Resnais, b. June 3,
|
||
1922, became one of the leading directors of French NEW WAVE cinema when it
|
||
emerged in the late 1950s. Before his feature debut Resnais had spent 11 years
|
||
making brilliant documentary films on subjects ranging from the painter Van
|
||
Gogh (1948) and Picasso's Guernica (1950) to the manufacture of polystyrene
|
||
(1958) and the French National Library (1956). His most celebrated
|
||
documentary, however, remains Night and Fog (1955), an unforgettable look at
|
||
the Nazi extermination camp system.
|
||
|
||
All Resnais's full-length films are marked by a profound social concern and
|
||
precise visual style. Each has been made in collaboration with a writer who is
|
||
also a novelist or playwright of note, and each is characterized both by a
|
||
totally novel structure and by a fascination with the exploration of time and
|
||
memory, illusion and reality. Resnais's impact is shown by the way in which
|
||
all of his early collaborators--Marguerite Duras on Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959),
|
||
Alain Robbe-Grillet on Last Year at Marienbad (1961), Jean Cayrol on Muriel
|
||
(1963), and Jorge Semprun on La Guerre est finie (1966)--have gone on to direct
|
||
their own feature films. After a long break from filmmaking in the early
|
||
1970s, Resnais returned with two cool but exquisitely shot films, Stavisky
|
||
(1974) and Providence (1977). Mon Oncle d'Amerique (1981), made in
|
||
collaboration with screenwriter Jean Gruault, was critically and commercially
|
||
his most successful film since La Guerre est Finie. Resnais again teamed with
|
||
Gruault for La Vie Est un Roman (1983; trans. as Life Is a Bed of Roses). ROY
|
||
ARMES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Armes, Roy, The Cinema of Alain Resnais (1968); Monaco, James,
|
||
Alain Resnais (1978); Ward, John, Alain Resnais or the Theme of Time (1968).
|
||
|
||
Chabrol, Claude
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{shah-brawl'}^Claude Chabrol, b. June 24, 1930, is one of the original film
|
||
directors of French NEW WAVE cinema. He is best known for his thriller films
|
||
made in homage to Alfred Hitchcock, about whom he coauthored Hitchcock (1957).
|
||
Chabrol has also been a critic for the influential film journal Cahiers du
|
||
Cinema, and his first picture, Le Beau Serge (1958), is generally credited with
|
||
establishing the New Wave style. Other works of this skilled and prolific
|
||
filmmaker include Les Cousins (1958), Les Biches (1968), La Femme infidele
|
||
(1968), Le Boucher (1969), Juste avant la nuit (1971), Ophelia (1973), Folies
|
||
Bourgeoise (1977), Blood Relatives (1979), and Le Sang des Autres (1983).
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Wood, Robin, and Walker, Michael, Claude Chabrol (1970).
|
||
|
||
Bertolucci, Bernardo
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(bair-toh-loo'-chee)
|
||
The Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci, b. Mar. 16, 1940, is
|
||
internationally known for such films as The Conformist (1970), a searing
|
||
portrait of fascism, and the controversial Last Tango in Paris (1972). He was
|
||
greatly influenced by his mentor, Pier Paolo PASOLINI. The later influence of
|
||
Jean-Luc GODARD is seen in Partner (1968) and that of Alain RESNAIS in The
|
||
Spider's Strategy (1970). Bertolucci's remarkable use of setting and his
|
||
precise camera movements, radical political viewpoint, and stringent
|
||
emotionalism have culminated in such other films as his 6-hour-long epic 1900
|
||
(1975). In Luna (1979), however, critics saw his camera moves as
|
||
overdeliberate, contrasting with the visually restrained moves of Tragedy of a
|
||
Ridiculous Man (1982). GAUTAM DASGUPTA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Gelmis, Joseph, The Film Director as Superstar (1970).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Godard, Jean Luc
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{goh-dahr', zhawn luek}^One of the most influential film directors of the
|
||
1960s, Jean Luc Godard, b. Paris, Dec. 3, 1930, of Swiss parents, is best
|
||
known for his innovative NEW WAVE films and for his increasingly radical
|
||
approaches to politics and art. His experimental use of the hand-held camera,
|
||
jump cuts, and flash-shots; his disregard for cinematic continuity; and his
|
||
recourse to question-and-answer sessions within films to illustrate
|
||
philosophical dialectics did much to revolutionize cinema.^A lively and
|
||
controversial contributor to the important journal Cahiers du Cinema from 1952
|
||
on, Godard made several shorts before directing his first feature, Breathless
|
||
(1959). In Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier, 1960), on the Algerian War,
|
||
and other films, Godard combined documentary with fictional footage in an
|
||
attempt to arrive at a truth beyond art or reality.^Godard's early films dealt
|
||
with the nature and contradictions of modern society. Of particular interest
|
||
to him was the place of women in society. Une Femme est une femme (A Woman is
|
||
a Woman, 1961), a film on male-female relationships with a happy ending, was
|
||
followed by the more biting and ironic My Life to Live (1962), on prostitution,
|
||
Une Femme mariee (A Married Woman, 1964), Masculin-Feminin (1966), and Two or
|
||
Three Things I Know About Her (1966). Their themes rested on the notion of
|
||
woman as object, but his approach brought into question the entire
|
||
commodity-advertising nexus of today's consumer society--as did his more
|
||
blatant attacks on materialism, Alphaville (1965) and Weekend (1968).^In the
|
||
late 1960s and early 1970s, Godard's work became increasingly experimental and
|
||
noncommercial. In such films as Made in USA (1966), La Chinoise (1967),
|
||
Sympathy for the Devil (1968), starring the Rolling Stones, and the
|
||
autobiographical Tout va bien (Everything's Fine, 1972), Godard subordinated
|
||
considerations of plot and pared down his visual imagery to a few static
|
||
tableaux and became increasingly devoted to Marxist polemics. Later, however,
|
||
Godard returned to commercial filmmaking with his Every Man for Himself (1981),
|
||
Passion (1983), First Name Carmen (1984) and Detective (1985). His treatment
|
||
of religious themes in Hail Mary (1985) generated much controversy. GAUTAM
|
||
DASGUPTA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Barr, Charles, et al., The Films of Jean-Luc Godard (1970); Brown,
|
||
Royal S., ed., Focus on Godard (1972); Collet, Jean, Jean-Luc Godard, trans. by
|
||
Ciba Vaughan, rev. ed. (1970); Kawin, Bruce F., Mindscreen: Bergman, Godard, and
|
||
the Language of First-Person Film (1978); Kriedl, John Francis, Jean-Luc Godard
|
||
(1980).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Malle, Louis
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(mahl)
|
||
Louis Malle, b. Oct. 30, 1932, is a French film director known for his
|
||
eclecticism, unconventional themes, and willingness to experiment. After
|
||
serving as an assistant to Jacques Cousteau and Robert Bresson, Malle in 1957
|
||
directed his first film, Frantic (French title: L'Ascenseur pour l'echafaud),
|
||
which introduced actress Jeanne Moreau and photographer Henri Decae to the
|
||
cinema-going public. With such later films as The Lovers (1958) and Zazie in
|
||
the Metro (1960), Malle came to be recognized as a director with an acute eye
|
||
for detail and characterization. The Fire Within (1963), a penetrating study
|
||
of an alcoholic, was followed by a musical-comedy romp set in revolutionary
|
||
Mexico, Viva Maria (1965), starring the surprising duo of Moreau and Brigitte
|
||
Bardot. Malle's refusal to indulge in psychology and his love of extremes in
|
||
human nature have prompted him to tackle--successfully and with humor--an
|
||
incestuous relationship between mother and son in Murmur of the Heart (1971)
|
||
and--with somewhat mixed results--child prostitution in Pretty Baby (1978).
|
||
Considered his finest film, the controversial Lacombe, Lucien (1974)
|
||
sympathetically portrays the life of a teenaged French collaborator with the
|
||
German army of occupation.
|
||
|
||
Malle has continued to demonstrate his versatility with such films as the
|
||
anti-heroic black comedy Atlantic City (1981; screenplay by John GUARE), about
|
||
has-beens who have lived their lives in a resort town and hopefuls who arrive
|
||
because of the casino boom. My Dinner with Andre (1982) consisted of two men
|
||
philosophizing over dinner about spirituality and the artist's role in society.
|
||
Crackers (1983) depicted a bumbling group of down-and-out thieves in San
|
||
Francisco. In 1982, Malle directed an off-Broadway production of Guare's play
|
||
Lydie Breeze. Malle has also made several highly regarded films on India.
|
||
GAUTAM DASGUPTA
|
||
|
||
|
||
Davis, Bette
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Bette Davis is the stage name of Ruth Elizabeth Davis, b. Apr. 5, 1908, for
|
||
many years one of Hollywood's most popular actresses. Known for her striking,
|
||
determined looks, distinctive voice, and outspoken press comments, Davis won
|
||
the Academy Award as best actress in Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938).
|
||
Particularly acclaimed among Davis's many performances are her roles in Dark
|
||
Victory (1939), Elizabeth and Essex (1939), The Little Foxes (1941), Watch on
|
||
the Rhine (1943), All About Eve (1950), and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
|
||
(1962), in which she played an insane, aging child star. In recent years she
|
||
has primarily appeared in television films such as Little Gloria . . . Happy
|
||
at Last and A Piano for Mrs. Cimino (both 1982), and the pilot of the series
|
||
Hotel (1983). Davis received the Life Achievement Award of the American Film
|
||
Institute in 1976. LESLIE HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Hyman, B. D., My Mother's Keeper (1985); Ringgold, Gene, Films of
|
||
Bette Davis (1970); Stine, Whitney, Mother Goddam (1974); Vermilye, Jerry, Bette
|
||
Davis (1973)
|
||
|
||
Grant, Cary
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Cary Grant is the professional name of English-born Alexander Archibald Leach,
|
||
b. Jan. 18, 1904, who won world fame in dozens of Hollywood movies as the
|
||
quintessentially debonair, self-confident sophisticate. Appearing in films
|
||
from 1932 on, he played roles particularly suited to his talents in The Awful
|
||
Truth (1937) and My Favorite Wife (1940) opposite Irene Dunne, in The
|
||
Philadelphia Story (1940) with Katharine Hepburn, and in such Alfred Hitchcock
|
||
thrillers as Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and
|
||
North by Northwest (1959). Grant retired in 1970.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Deschner, Donald, The Films of Cary Grant (1973); Govoni, Albert,
|
||
Cary Grant (1971).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Cooper, Gary
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Gary Cooper, b. Helena, Mont., May 7, 1901, d. May 13, 1961, was the stage
|
||
name of Frank James Cooper, one of the most famous of Hollywood's film stars.
|
||
Known especially for his portrayals of strong, silent heroes, he won Academy
|
||
awards for two such characterizations: Sergeant York (1941) and High Noon
|
||
(1952). Cooper played variations on this role in films such as The Virginians
|
||
(1929), A Farewell to Arms (1933), The Plainsman (1937), Beau Geste (1939), For
|
||
Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), and The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955).
|
||
His lighter comic and romantic films include Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and
|
||
Love in the Afternoon (1957). LESLIE HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
|
||
Gable, Clark
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Such was the brash charm of American film actor Clark Gable, b. Feb. 1, 1901,
|
||
d. Nov. 16, 1960, that for 30 years he was the undisputed king of Hollywood.
|
||
As a fast-talking he-man, he was noted for the force of his personality more
|
||
than for acting talent. Gable appeared in such classic films as Red Dust
|
||
(1932); It Happened One Night, for which he won the Academy Award (1934);
|
||
Mutiny On The Bounty (1935); San Francisco (1936); and, most notably, as Rhett
|
||
Butler in Gone With The Wind (1939). His postwar films were popular but far
|
||
less memorable. He died during the filming of The Misfits (1961). LESLIE
|
||
HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Tornabene, Lyn, Long Live the King (1977).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Sternberg, Josef von
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The films of Austrian-American director Josef von Sternberg, pseudonym of Jonas
|
||
Stern, b. Vienna, May 29, 1894, d. Dec. 22, 1969, are perhaps the supreme
|
||
example of the narrative film's pursuit of visual beauty at the expense of
|
||
dramatic values. Sternberg had his first popular success with Underworld
|
||
(1927), which was followed by The Docks of New York (1928) and Thunderbolt
|
||
(1929). Sternberg then went to Germany to direct The Blue Angel (1930), a
|
||
sensational success that inaugurated the director's long association with his
|
||
"discovery," Marlene DIETRICH. Their early films together--Morocco (1930),
|
||
Dishonoured (1931), and Shanghai Express (1932)--displayed the visual dynamism
|
||
that distinguished Sternberg's previous work, but this gradually gave way in
|
||
The Scarlet Empress (1934) and The Devil Is a Woman (1935) to increasingly
|
||
static and purely decorative glorifications of Dietrich's mystique. Following
|
||
the increasingly unpopular Dietrich cycle, Sternberg worked rarely, and, of his
|
||
later films, only The Shanghai Gesture (1941) and Anatahan (1953) are notable.
|
||
His autobiography, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, appeared in 1965. WILLIAM S.
|
||
PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Baxter, John, The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg (1971); Sarris,
|
||
Andrew, The Films of Josef von Sternberg (1966); Weinberg, Herman, Josef von
|
||
Sternberg (1967).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Hawks, Howard
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
In a career that stretched back to silent movies, the film director Howard
|
||
Hawks, b. Goshen, Ind., May 30, 1896, d. Dec. 26, 1977, contributed notably
|
||
to virtually every movie genre: the gangster film in Scarface (1932),
|
||
screwball comedy in Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940), the war
|
||
film in The Dawn Patrol (1930) and Air Force (1943), action-adventure in To
|
||
Have and Have Not (1944), the private-eye film in The Big Sleep (1946), the
|
||
Western in Red River (1948), and the musical in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
|
||
(1953). Whether Hawks's films live up to the largest claims of his admirers,
|
||
few other directors have better exemplified the virtues of the Hollywood
|
||
professional. Although his films typically concentrate on a group bound by
|
||
professionalism in some common endeavor, their enduring pleasure results less
|
||
from their subjects or themes than from a resolute unpretentiousness and brisk,
|
||
direct style. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: McBride, Joseph, ed., Focus on Howard Hawks (1972); Willis,
|
||
Donald, The Films of Howard Hawks (1975); Wood, Robin, Howard Hawks (1968).
|
||
|
||
Capra, Frank
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The American film director Frank Capra, b. May 18, 1897, virtually created a
|
||
genre with his popular 1930s film comedies. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) was
|
||
the prototype for Capra's most characteristic films, in which an idealistic
|
||
innocent is pitted against the forces of corruption in an apparently hopeless
|
||
but ultimately victorious battle. Capra won Academy Awards for best direction
|
||
with It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds (1936), and You Can't Take It
|
||
With You (1938). With an ever-increasing stylistic virtuosity, he went on to
|
||
make Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), and It's A
|
||
Wonderful Life (1946). His Lost Horizon (1937) and Arsenic and Old Lace (1942)
|
||
also proved popular. He was in charge of the U.S. government's war
|
||
documentary series Why We Fight (1942-45). His autobiography, The Name Above
|
||
the Title, appeared in 1971. In 1982 he was given the Lifetime Achievement
|
||
Award of the American Film Institute.^ WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Glatzer, Richard, and Raeburn, John, eds., Frank Capra: The Man
|
||
and His Films (1975); Poague, Leland A., The Cinema of Frank Capra (1975);
|
||
Willis, Donald C., The Films of Frank Capra (1974).
|
||
|
||
Ford, John
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(playwright)
|
||
John Ford, b. Apr. 17, 1586, d. c.1630, was an English playwright, generally
|
||
considered the best of the late Stuart dramatists (1625-40). After writing
|
||
several nondramatic pieces, Ford collaborated with Thomas Dekker on The Witch
|
||
of Edmonton (1621). Among the seven intense, pessimistic tragedies he wrote on
|
||
his own are: The Lovers's Melancholy (1628), The Broken Heart (1633), 'Tis
|
||
Pity She's a Whore (1633), and Perkin Warbeck (1634). Influenced by Robert
|
||
Burton and contemporary Neoplatonism, Ford's drama deals with a variety of love
|
||
relationships. Although sometimes prurient, the plays in general are carefully
|
||
balanced in their presentation of questionable moral stances. W. L. GODSHALK
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Anderson, Donald K., Jr., John Ford (1972); Leech, Clifford, John
|
||
Ford and the Drama of His Time (1957); Stavig, Mark, John Ford and the
|
||
Traditional Moral Order (1968).
|
||
|
||
Ford, John
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(film director)
|
||
John Ford was the name adopted by Sean Aloysius O'Feeny, b. Feb. 1, 1895, d.
|
||
Aug. 31, 1973, an American film director whose works are noted for their
|
||
sustained creativity, breadth of vision, and pictorial beauty. Ford began
|
||
directing Westerns in 1917, but his first great success was not until The Iron
|
||
Horse (1924), followed by another, Three Bad Men (1926). Thirteen more years
|
||
passed, however, before Ford, whose name became associated with the Western
|
||
film, would make another, Stagecoach (1939), still regarded as a classic of the
|
||
genre. In the intervening years he directed such varied works as Judge Priest
|
||
(1934), The Informer (1935), Steamboat Round the Bend (1935), and The Hurricane
|
||
(1937).
|
||
|
||
Stagecoach was followed by an outpouring of major works--Young Mr. Lincoln
|
||
(1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Long
|
||
Voyage Home (1940), and How Green Was My Valley (1941). These films celebrated
|
||
community life and were imbued with an elegiacal sense of the past. The war
|
||
years resulted in the first American war documentary, The Battle of Midway
|
||
(1942), and another of Ford's enduring works, They Were Expendable (1945).
|
||
After the war, Ford returned to the Western with the lyrical My Darling
|
||
Clementine (1946); a loose trilogy of cavalry life--Fort Apache (1948), She
|
||
Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950); and an innovative blending
|
||
of song and story in Wagonmaster (1950).
|
||
|
||
During the six years before Ford's next Western, he directed The Quiet Man
|
||
(1952)--a touching and humorous story of an Irish-American's return to his
|
||
homeland--and several other films. Returning to the Western with The Searchers
|
||
(1956), Ford revealed a new ambiguity in his vision of the American past.
|
||
Increasingly, in such later works as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
|
||
and Cheyenne Autumn (1964), the exaltation of the civilizing of the West that
|
||
was seen in his earlier films was darkened by a regret over the loss of freedom
|
||
brought by civilization. During his career, Ford established and repeatedly
|
||
used a stock company of actors, including Henry Fonda, James Stewart, John
|
||
Wayne, and Ward Bond. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Bogdanovich, Peter, John Ford (1968); McBride, Joseph, and
|
||
Wilmington, Michael, John Ford (1975); Place, J. A., The Western Films of John
|
||
Ford (1974) and The Non-Western Films of John Ford (1979); Sarris, Andrew, The
|
||
John Ford Movie Mystery (1975); Sinclair, Andrew, John Ford (1979).
|
||
|
||
Cagney, James
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
A fast-talking Irish-American film actor who danced brilliantly and frequently
|
||
on screen, James Cagney, b. July 17, 1899, d. March 30, 1986, achieved fame
|
||
in Hollywood as a cocky gangster in Public Enemy (1931) and became stereotyped
|
||
for several years thereafter. His best roles, which reflect his punchy,
|
||
cheerful personality, were in Footlight Parade (1933), Lady Killer (1933),
|
||
G-Men (1935), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), Boy Meets Girl (1938), Angels
|
||
With Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), White Heat (1949), Love
|
||
Me or Leave Me (1955), Man of a Thousand Faces (as Lon Chaney, 1957), and One
|
||
Two Three (1961). He won an Academy Award for his performance as George M.
|
||
Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). At the age of 82, Cagney emerged from 20
|
||
years of retirement to make an acclaimed appearance in the film Ragtime (1981),
|
||
and the television film Terrible Joe Moran (1984). LESLIE HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Bergman, Andrew, James Cagney (1973); Cagney, James, Cagney by
|
||
Cagney (1976); McGilligan, Patrick, Cagney (1975).
|
||
|
||
Muni, Paul
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{myoo'-nee}^Paul Muni, b. Muni Weisenfreund in Lemberg, Austria (now Lvov,
|
||
USSR), Sept. 22, 1985, d. Aug. 25, 1967, was a character actor who became a
|
||
top Hollywood star in the 1930s. He went to the United States with his family
|
||
in 1907. As a young man, Muni gained experience touring with the Yiddish Art
|
||
Theatre company; he first brought his conscientious approach and animated
|
||
acting style to the screen in 1928. His powerful performances in films include
|
||
Scarface (1932), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), The Story of Louis
|
||
Pasteur (1936; Academy Award), The Good Earth (1937), The Life of Emile Zola
|
||
(1937), Juarez (1941), and The Last Angry Man (1959).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Robinson, Edward G.
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Edward G. Robinson, stage name of Emanuel Goldenberg, b. Romania, Dec. 12,
|
||
1893, d. Jan. 26, 1973, became one of the major figures of Hollywood films of
|
||
the 1930s. Short and dynamic, with a distinctive voice, he specialized in
|
||
gangster parts but later proved equally adept at comedy or in benevolent
|
||
character roles. His most important films include Little Caesar (1930), A
|
||
Slight Case of Murder (1938), Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940), Double
|
||
Indemnity and The Woman in the Window (both 1944), and Key Largo (1948).
|
||
LESLIE HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Robinson, Edward G., and Spigelgass, Leonard, All My Yesterdays
|
||
(1975).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Chevalier, Maurice
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(shuh-vahl'-ee-ay)
|
||
Maurice Chevalier, b. Sept. 12, 1888, d. Jan. 1, 1972, was a debonair
|
||
French singer, actor, and dancer who for more than 50 years was a popular
|
||
international cabaret artist. He had two Hollywood careers: as a romantic
|
||
lead in such films as The Love Parade (1930), Love Me Tonight (1932), and
|
||
Folies Bergere (1935), and as an elderly character actor in Gigi (1958), Fanny
|
||
(1961), and In Search of the Castaways (1962). LESLIE HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Ringgold, Gene, and Bodeen, DeWitt, Chevalier: The Films and
|
||
Career of Maurice Chevalier (1973; 2d ed., 1975).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Berkeley, Busby
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{burk'-lee} Busby Berkeley was the pseudonym of William Berkeley Enos, b. Los
|
||
Angeles, Nov. 29, 1895, d. Mar. 14, 1976, a choreographer known for the
|
||
grandiose spectacles he created in the Hollywood musical extravaganzas of the
|
||
1930s. From success on the Broadway stage, Berkeley took his dance-directing
|
||
techniques to movies. The Berkeley trademark--kaleidoscopic patterns of massed
|
||
dancers filmed from above--is most strikingly displayed in the Eddie Cantor
|
||
vehicle Whoopee (1930) and in 42nd Street (1933), the Gold Diggers series
|
||
(1933, 1935, 1937, 1938), Roman Scandals (1933), Footlight Parade (1933), and
|
||
Babes in Arms (1939). His lead dancer was Ruby KEELER. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Martin, Dave, and Pike, Bob, The Genius of Busby Berkeley (1973);
|
||
Terry, Jim, and Thomas, Tony, The Busby Berkeley Book (1973).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Astaire, Fred
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Fred Astaire is the stage name of Frederick Austerlitz, b. Omaha, Nebr., May
|
||
10, 1899, who brought new distinction to musical comedy with his elegant and
|
||
witty song and dance routines. First teamed with his sister Adele on the
|
||
stage, Astaire turned to Hollywood on her retirement from show business, making
|
||
his initial screen appearance in Dancing Lady (1933). His greatest success
|
||
came when he was paired with Ginger ROGERS in a series of romantic comedies
|
||
featuring their dance numbers. Flying Down to Rio (1933) was followed by The
|
||
Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta and Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet and Swing
|
||
Time (1936), Shall We Dance? (1937), and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
|
||
(1939). In 1949 they were reunited in The Barkleys of Broadway. With other
|
||
partners, Astaire starred in such musicals as Daddy Longlegs (1955) and Funny
|
||
Face (1957). He also appeared in dramatic roles. A perfectionist who often
|
||
choreographed his own dances, he received a special Academy Award in 1949 for
|
||
"raising the standards of all musicals." LESLIE HALLIWELL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Astaire, Fred, Steps in Time (1959); Croce, Arlene, The Fred
|
||
Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book (1972; repr. 1978); Freedland, Michael, Fred
|
||
Astaire: An Illustrated Biography (1977); Green, Stanley, and Goldblatt, Burt,
|
||
Starring Fred Astaire (1S973).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Rogers, Ginger
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Singer, actress, and dancer Ginger Rogers, b. Virginia McMath, Independence,
|
||
Mo., July 16, 1911, is best known for the movie musicals she made with Fred
|
||
ASTAIRE. After playing vaudeville as a teenager, she made her debut on
|
||
Broadway in 1929 and entered feature films in 1930.
|
||
|
||
The famous Rogers and Astaire dance team first starred in Flying Down to Rio
|
||
(1933) and developed their now classic routines in The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top
|
||
Hat (1935), and Swing Time (1936). Rogers, who also appeared in dramatic
|
||
roles, won an Academy Award for Kitty Foyle (1940). She made numerous films
|
||
during the next two decades and returned to the musical comedy stage in Hello,
|
||
Dolly (1965) and Mame (1969).
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Croce, Arlene, The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book (1978).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Huston, John
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{hue'-stuhn}^The son of actor Walter Huston, film director, writer, and actor
|
||
John Huston, b. Nevada, Mo., Aug. 5, 1906, made his dazzlingly auspicious
|
||
directorial debut with The Maltese Falcon (1941). For years, Huston's
|
||
reputation as one of the most strongly individualistic of American directors
|
||
was sustained through such films as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948),
|
||
The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), and Beat the Devil (1954).
|
||
Thereafter, he succumbed to pretentiousness and slipped into a decline. Signs
|
||
of his old form could occasionally be seen in such films as The Misfits (1961),
|
||
Fat City (1972), and Wise Blood (1979). Huston directed the film version of
|
||
the musical Annie (1982), and Prizzi's Honor (1985). As an actor, Huston was
|
||
notable in The Cardinal (1963), Chinatown (1974), Winter Kills (1979), and
|
||
Under the Volcano (1984). WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Huston, John, An Open Book (1980); Kaminsky, Stuart M., John
|
||
Huston: Maker of Magic (1978).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Wyler, William
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
A three-time winner of the Academy Award for best director during the 1940s and
|
||
'50s, William Wyler, b. Alsace, July 1, 1902, d. July 27, 1981, was generally
|
||
regarded as the foremost craftsman among Hollywood directors. Wyler's long
|
||
association with producer Samuel Goldwyn resulted in a number of films based on
|
||
literary texts, including Dodsworth (1936), Dead End (1937), Wuthering Heights
|
||
(1939), and The Little Foxes (1941). Mrs. Miniver (1942) won Wyler his first
|
||
Academy Award, a success capped by that of the award-winning The Best Years of
|
||
Our Lives (1946), whose depiction of returning war veterans was praised for
|
||
having brought a new maturity to American films. Subsequent Wyler films of
|
||
note include The Heiress (1949), Detective Story (1951), Roman Holiday (1953),
|
||
Ben-Hur (1959), for which he received a third Academy Award, and Funny Girl
|
||
(1968). In recent years, however, Wyler had been criticized for the anonymity
|
||
of his style. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Madsen, Axel, William Wyler (1973).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Sturges, Preston
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(stur'-jis)
|
||
For a time in the 1940s, Preston Sturges, pseudonym of Edmund P. Biden, b.
|
||
Chicago, Aug. 29, 1898, d. Aug. 6, 1959, held a position of creative
|
||
preeminence in Hollywood as a writer-director who was acclaimed by critics and
|
||
public alike. Sturges directed his first film, The Great McGinty, in 1940, and
|
||
followed it with a string of successes that included The Lady Eve (1941),
|
||
Sullivan's Travels (1941), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944), and Hail the
|
||
Conquering Hero (1944), breakneck farces that shrewdly satirized American life.
|
||
But Sturges's touch seemed to falter with the semiserious The Great Moment
|
||
(1944), and the only time he returned to form afterwards, in the black comedy
|
||
Unfaithfully Yours (1948), the public failed to respond. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Ursini, James, The Fabulous Life and Times of Preston Sturges
|
||
(1973).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Wilder, Billy
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{wyl'-dur}^Whether comedies or melodramas, the films of American
|
||
writer-director Billy Wilder, b. Vienna, June 22, 1906, have been
|
||
distinguished by their cynicism and sophistication. Wilder established his
|
||
talent for farce with the first Hollywood film he directed, The Major and the
|
||
Minor (1942), and his mastery of film noir with the corrosive thriller Double
|
||
Indemnity (1944). Subsequent films in the acidulous Wilder mode include the
|
||
Academy Award-winning The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Ace
|
||
in the Hole (1951). Wilder's later work includes such popular comedies as Some
|
||
Like It Hot (1959) The Apartment (1960), Irma La Douce (1963), The Fortune
|
||
Cookie (1966), The Front Page (1974), and Buddy Buddy (1981). In 1986 he
|
||
received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award. WILLIAM S.
|
||
PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Madsen, Axel, Billy Wilder (1969).
|
||
|
||
Welles, Orson
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Although the American actor-director Orson Welles, b. Kenosha, Wis., May 6,
|
||
1915, d. Oct. 10, 1985, worked on the stage and i n films for nearly 50
|
||
years, his fame rests principally on two projects he completed before he was 30
|
||
years of age. The first, his 1938 radio adaptation for the Mercury Theatre of
|
||
H.G. Wells's T he War of the Worlds, created a panic among listeners who
|
||
believed it was a report of an actual Martian invasion. The second was his
|
||
first and greatest film, the extraordinary Citizen Kane (1941). A character
|
||
study loosely modeled on the life of publisher William Randolph HEARST, it
|
||
embroiled Welles in legal battles, won Acade my Awards for him and cowriter
|
||
Herman Mankiewicz, and established h is reputation as Hollywood's boy wonder.
|
||
|
||
Beginning as an actor with Dublin's Gate Theatre (1931), Welles soon turned to
|
||
writing and directing, producing a notable all-black version of Macbeth in 1936
|
||
before founding the Mercury Theatre w ith John Houseman in 1937. After the
|
||
double triumph of War of the Worlds and Citizen Kane, he directed The
|
||
Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), and a new Macbeth
|
||
(1948) before moving to Europe, where many of his subsequent films, beginning
|
||
with Mr. Arkadin (1955), were made. Touch of Evil (1 958) is a shadowy
|
||
American FILM NOIR. The Trial (1962) is a bleak adaptation of Kafka. Chimes
|
||
at Midnight (1966), a study of Falstaff, and the unfinished Don Quixote
|
||
(1957-66) reflect Welle s's fascination with extravagant, outsize characters,
|
||
many of whom he himself played to perfection.
|
||
|
||
Welles starred in many of his own films, but his screen credits also include
|
||
distinguished performances in Jane Eyre (1944), The Thir d Man (1949), Moby
|
||
Dick (1956), A Man for All Seasons (1966), and Catch-22 (1970). His career,
|
||
marked by grandiose projects and inimitable posturing, was honored in 1975 by
|
||
the American Film Institute, which presented him its Life Achievement Award.
|
||
THAD DEUS TULEJA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Bazin, Andre, Orson Welles: A Critical View, tra ns. by
|
||
Jonathan Rosenbaum (1978); Brady, Frank, Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson
|
||
Welles (1987); Cowie, Peter, The Cinema of O rson Welles (1978); Gottesman,
|
||
Ronald, ed., Focus on Orson Welles (1976); Higham, Charles, The Films of Orson
|
||
Welles (1970); Leaming, Barbara, Welles: A Biography (1985).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Hollywood Ten, The
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The Hollywood Ten were a group of producers, writers, and directors called
|
||
before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (see UN-AMERICAN
|
||
ACTIVITIES, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON) in October 1947 as "unfriendly" witnesses
|
||
during the investigation of Communist influence in Hollywood. Alvah Bessie,
|
||
Lester Cole, John Howard Lawson, Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner, Jr., Herbert
|
||
Biberman, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz, Albert Maltz, and Edward Dmytryk refused
|
||
to state whether or not they were Communists. All served prison sentences and
|
||
were blacklisted in the film industry.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Goodman, Walter, The Committee: Extraordinary Career of the House
|
||
Committee on Un-American Activities (1968); Hellman, Lillian, Scoundrel Time
|
||
(1976); Kahn, Gordon, Hollywood on Trial: The Story of the Ten Who Were Indicted
|
||
(1948; repr. 1972).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Polanski, Roman
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{poh-lan'-skee}^The Polish film director and actor Roman Polanski, b. Paris,
|
||
Aug. 18, 1933, was brought up in Krakow by foster parents after the internment
|
||
of his parents in a Nazi concentration camp. After World War II he became a
|
||
student (1954-59) at the Polish State Film School at Lodz. His first feature
|
||
film, Knife in the Water (1962), a subtle treatment of sexual tension, presaged
|
||
more explicit treatments of sexuality in Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-Sac
|
||
(1966). With Rosemary's Baby (1968), Polanski established himself as a master
|
||
of macabre horror. After the 1969 murder of his wife, the actress Sharon Tate,
|
||
by the Charles Manson gang, he moved to France to become a French citizen, but
|
||
returned to the United States to make Chinatown (1974). In 1977 he was
|
||
indicted in Los Angeles for a sexual offense but has since lived in France,
|
||
where he made Tess (1979). In 1981 he directed and played the title role in
|
||
his own Warsaw production of Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus. His autobiography
|
||
Roman was published in 1984.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Butler, Ivan, The Cinema of Roman Polanski (1970).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Wajda, Andrzej
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{vy'-dah, an'-jay}
|
||
The distinguished Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, b. Mar. 6, 1927, rose to
|
||
fame with a trilogy--A Generation (1954), Kanal (1956), and Ashes and Diamonds
|
||
(1958)--that vividly reflected the experience of an entire generation in
|
||
postwar Poland. Although Wajda evinced versatility in later films, his most
|
||
powerful work is historical-political. Man of Marble (1977) and Man of Iron
|
||
(1981) use historical contexts to inveigh against such contemporary oppressions
|
||
as the secret police, the Communist party, and factory bosses. Danton (1983)
|
||
views the French Revolution through the personalities of its leaders. A Love
|
||
in Germany (1984) explores the madness of sexual passion within the context of
|
||
the political madness of Nazi Germany.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Michatek, B., The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda (1973); Paul, D. ed.,
|
||
Politics, Art, and Commitment in East European Cinema (1984).
|
||
|
||
Forman, Milos
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The Czech-born film director Milos Forman, b. Feb. 18, 1932, is noted for his
|
||
powers of observation and his subtle, ironic humor. He won the 1975 Academy
|
||
Award as best director for One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, adapted from the
|
||
1962 novel by Ken Kesey. He won the 1984 Academy Award for Amadeus. Even
|
||
though both of Forman's parents died in German concentration camps, his work
|
||
shows a remarkable optimism. Forman's other films include the Czech-made Peter
|
||
and Pavla (1964) and Loves of a Blonde (1965) and the American-made Taking Off
|
||
(1971), Hair (1979), and Ragtime (1981). ROY ARMES
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Whittemore, Don, et. al., Passport to Hollywood (1976).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Herzog, Werner
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(hair'-tsohk)
|
||
Werner Herzog is the professional name of Werner H. Stipetic, b. 1942, a
|
||
German filmmaker known for his eye for remote, exotic scenery and his
|
||
attraction for extremes of character: the mad Amazon explorer Aguirre
|
||
(Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 1973); the mute isolate Kasper Hauser (The Mystery
|
||
of Kasper Hauser, 1975); dwarfs and midgets (Even Dwarfs Started Small, 1970);
|
||
or men in the grip of obsession (Fitzcarraldo, 1982). Herzog writes the
|
||
screenplays for all of his films. His large output includes a number of
|
||
documentaries, the most admired of which have been Land of Silence and Darkness
|
||
(1971), about the life of a blind, deaf woman; and La Soufriere (1977), a
|
||
portrait of an abandoned region near a smoldering volcano in Guadaloupe.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Eder, Richard, "New Visionary in German Films," New York Times
|
||
Magazine, July 10, 1977.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Fassbinder, Rainer Werner
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{fahs'-bin-dur, ry'-nur vair'-nur}^Rainer Werner Fassbinder, b. May 31, 1946,
|
||
d. June 10, 1982, was one of Germany's greatest and most prolific film
|
||
directors as well as a stage and screen actor and scriptwriter. He joined the
|
||
Munich Action Theater in 1967 and began making films two years later, using a
|
||
permanent ensemble of experienced actors. Fassbinder's work reflects the
|
||
influence of Bertolt Brecht and Karl Marx, and of Freudian psychology; his
|
||
choice of material was influenced by the American filmmaker Douglas Sirk. His
|
||
subject matter ranges from the failure of friends to communicate, as portrayed
|
||
in Katzelmacher (1969), to the dullness of daily existence, depicted in Warum
|
||
lauft Herr R. Amok? (Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?, 1969) and Die bittren
|
||
Tranen der Petra von Kant (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, 1972).
|
||
Particularly admired are the bittersweet Der Handler der vier Jahreszeiten
|
||
(Merchant of the Four Seasons, 1971), the stylish Effi Breist, and Ali: Angst
|
||
essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, 1974), a study in adversity.
|
||
Fassbinder's Faustrecht der Freiheit (1975), released in English as Fox and his
|
||
Friends, created a new wave of interest in his films in both the United States
|
||
and Europe. In 1978, Fassbinder released his first English language film,
|
||
Despair, starring Dirk Bogarde. His most commercially successful films were
|
||
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Veronika Voss (1982), Querelle (released
|
||
1983), and the 15 hour Berlin Alexanderplatz (released 1983) which portrays
|
||
life in Berlin between the World Wars. GAUTAM DASGUPTA
|
||
|
||
|
||
Weir, Peter
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
the work of the Australian film director Peter Lindsay Weir, b. June 21, 1944,
|
||
is part of a new wave of Australian filmmaking. Couched in a style that is
|
||
easily associated with American filmmaking--well-crafted plots, convincing
|
||
characters, and naturalistic dialogue--Weir's films have gained international
|
||
recognition. Weir, who was the director of Film Australia from 1969 to 1973,
|
||
sees himself primarily as a storyteller. He has directed such imaginative and
|
||
highly provocative films as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Last Wave
|
||
(1977), and The Plumber (1978). With the successes of these earlier films,
|
||
Weir has directed larger budgeted productions, including Gallipoli (1980) and
|
||
The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), which was filmed mostly outside of
|
||
Australia. Witness (1985), set among the Pennsylvania Amish, was filmed on
|
||
location.
|
||
|
||
Kubrick, Stanley
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{koob'-rik}^Stanley Kubrick, b. New York City, July 26, 1928, is an American
|
||
film writer, director, and producer with a virtually legendary status as an
|
||
idiosyncratic master. While working as a photojournalist for Life magazine,
|
||
Kubrick made an inconspicuous entrance into filmmaking with Fear and Desire
|
||
(1953) and Killer's Kiss (1955). After his crime thriller The Killing (1956),
|
||
critics began to take notice of his taut, brilliant style and bleakly cynical
|
||
outlook. Paths of Glory (1957) solidified his reputation as a filmmaker
|
||
interested in depicting the individual at the mercy of a hostile world. In
|
||
Spartacus (1960), Kubrick met the challenge of bringing a costume spectacle to
|
||
the screen. Lolita (1962), based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, received
|
||
mixed reviews. But Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
|
||
Love the Bomb (1963), was enthusiastically hailed for its black-comedy vision
|
||
of atomic-age apocalypse. His 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork
|
||
Orange (1971), both made in England where Kubrick has worked since 1961,
|
||
engendered intense critical controversy, but the former has now become widely
|
||
accepted as a landmark in modern cinema. Although Barry Lyndon (1975) failed
|
||
to attract as large an audience as the previous two films, the Kubrick legend
|
||
of obsessive perfectionism and reclusive genius remains undiminished. In 1980
|
||
he directed the film version of Stephen King's The Shining. WILLIAM S.
|
||
PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Kagan, Norman, The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick (1972); Nelson,
|
||
Thomas Allan, Kubrick: Inside A Film Artists Maze (1982); Phillips, Gene,
|
||
Stanley Kubrick: A Film Odyssey (1975); Walker, Alexander, Stanley Kubrick
|
||
Directs, rev. ed. (1972).
|
||
|
||
Altman, Robert B.
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Robert B. Altman, b. Kansas City, Mo., Feb. 20, 1925, won widespread
|
||
recognition as the trend-setting directorial stylist in American films of the
|
||
1970s. He did extensive work in television and directed four little-known
|
||
features before making M*A*S*H (1970), the film that first brought him critical
|
||
and popular acclaim. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), The Long Goodbye (1973),
|
||
and California Split (1974) drew increasing attention for their textural
|
||
richness, multilayered soundtracks, and improvisatory flow. Prominent too was
|
||
Altman's debunking of the myths of various film genres, from the Western to the
|
||
private eye. With Nashville (1975) Altman had his second commercial success.
|
||
Critics saw less quality in such films as Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976),
|
||
3 Women (1977), and Quintet (1979) but praised Thieves Like Us (1974) and
|
||
Health (1980). Altman's recent films have been adaptations of plays: Come
|
||
Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), which he had directed on
|
||
Broadway; and Streamers (1983), David Rabe's drama. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Kass, Judith, Robert Altman: American Innovator (1978).
|
||
|
||
Coppola, Francis Ford
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{koh'-puh-luh}^Francis Ford Coppola, b. Detroit, Apr. 7, 1939, directed the
|
||
highly successful film The Godfather (1972). He had previously directed
|
||
Dementia 13 (1962), You're a Big Boy Now (1966), Finian's Rainbow (1968), and
|
||
The Rain People (1969), a sensitive study of a runaway wife, which some
|
||
consider his best film. Coppola departed from the florid style of The
|
||
Godfather, for the spareness of The Conversation (1974), then enlarged on his
|
||
earlier hit with a sequel, The Godfather, Part II (1974). For five years
|
||
Coppola worked amid controversy and speculation on Apocalypse Now (1979), a
|
||
realistically violent depiction of the Vietnam War. Another Coppola film
|
||
generating controversy was the romantic comedy One From the Heart (1982). The
|
||
$26-million film was a financial and artistic failure. In 1983, Coppola
|
||
received mixed critical reactions to the Outsiders and Rumble Fish, both based
|
||
on stories by S. E. Hinton. The Cotton Club (1984), was a lavish production
|
||
set in New York City in the 1920s. WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
|
||
Allen, Woody
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Woody Allen is the stage name of Allen Stewart Konigsberg, b. Brooklyn, N.Y.,
|
||
Dec. 1, 1935. He is considered America's best living film comedian and one of
|
||
its finest film directors. Alle n's highly personal work focuses on the fears
|
||
and insecurities experienced in contemporary society. His persona is that of a
|
||
bespectacled neurotic analyzing the recurrent themes of life, de ath, love,
|
||
religion and psychology. While a teenager, Allen worked a s a gag writer for a
|
||
public relations agency. He dropped out of col lege in 1953 and became a
|
||
principal writer for celebrities such as Si d Caesar and Garry Moore. His
|
||
switch to stand-up comedy in the ea rly 1960s led to celebrity status from
|
||
television appearances and th ree popular record releases. Allen made his
|
||
screen debut as an actor-screenwriter in What's N ew, Pussycat? (1965). His
|
||
first film project as director-writer-st ar was Take the Money and Run (1969).
|
||
His other movies include Ban anas (1971), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death
|
||
(1975), Annie Hall (1977) , which received four Academy Awards in 1978,
|
||
Interiors (1978), Manhattan (1979), Stardust Memories (1980), A Midsummer
|
||
Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Pur
|
||
ple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Radio Da ys (1987).
|
||
Allen's comic and satirical writings have been collecte d in three anthologies,
|
||
Getting Even (1971), Without Feathers (1975), and Side Effects (1980). He has
|
||
also written several Broadway plays , the successful Don't Drink the Water
|
||
(1966; film, 1969) and Pla y It Again, Sam (1969; film, 1972), and the
|
||
unsuccessful The Floatin g Lightbulb (1981). FRANK MANCHEL
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Allen, Woody, Four Films of Woody Allen (1982); Hirsh, Foster,
|
||
Love, Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life: Woody
|
||
Allen's Comedy (1981); Jacobs, Diane, But We Need the Eggs: Th e Magic of
|
||
Woody Allen (1982).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Lucas, George
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The American film director, screenwriter, and producer George Lucas, b.
|
||
Modesto, Calif., May 14, 1944, is best known for his trilogy of space fantasy
|
||
films Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1981), and Return of the Jedi
|
||
(1983). Following the adventures of such characters as Luke Skywalker,
|
||
Princess Leia, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Darth Vader, as well as the
|
||
anthropomorphic robots R2-D2 and C-3PO, the trilogy spawned a multibillion
|
||
dollar industry of Star Wars-related products, including video games, dolls,
|
||
toys, books, and clothing.^After attending Modesto Junior College, Lucas
|
||
studied film at the University of Southern California, where a film he made won
|
||
first prize in the Third National Student Film Festival (1965). Lucas reworked
|
||
that film, a science-fiction fantasy that portrayed a grim, dehumanized world,
|
||
as his first feature, THX-1138 (1971). Lucas enjoyed his first major success
|
||
with American Graffiti (1973), a nostalgic look at American adolescence in the
|
||
early 1960s, which he both directed and coauthored. As executive producer and
|
||
coauthor of the original story, Lucas teamed with director Steven SPIELBERG to
|
||
make Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and its sequel, Indiana Jones and the
|
||
Temple of Doom (1984).
|
||
|
||
Spielberg, Steven
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Steven Spielberg, b. Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 18, 1947, the director of E.T.:
|
||
The Extra-Terrestrial (see E.T.)--the most successful box-office attraction in
|
||
Hollywood history--has had a streak of movie blockbusters, establishing him as
|
||
one of the most popular American film directors. As a student at Long Beach
|
||
State College, Spielberg made a 16-mm short, Amblin' (1969), that won awards at
|
||
the Venice and Atlanta film festivals. After working in television for several
|
||
years, he made his first feature film, The Sugarland Express (1974). The movie
|
||
was a limited success, but the following year Spielberg made Jaws (1975), which
|
||
set box-office records. It was followed by Close Encounters of the Third Kind
|
||
(1977), a science-fiction fantasy, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), an
|
||
outlandish adventure tale, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), a
|
||
sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. In 1985 he directed the film version of
|
||
Alice Walker's The Color Purple, and produced (as well as directed) episodes of
|
||
the television series "Amazing Stories".
|
||
|
||
|
||
Newman, Paul
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Paul Newman, b. Shaker Heights, Ohio, Jan. 26, 1925, is an actor whose charm
|
||
and wit made him one of the most popular film personalities of the 1960s and
|
||
'70s. After training at the Yale School of Drama, he achieved success on the
|
||
stage in Picnic (1953) and screen stardom in The Long Hot Summer (1958). His
|
||
most notable screen roles have been in The Hustler (1961), Sweet Bird of Youth
|
||
(1962), Hud (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
|
||
(1969), The Sting (1973), Absence of Malice (1981), and The Verdict (1982).
|
||
Newman has directed several films including The Effect of Gamma Rays on
|
||
Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), The Shadow Box, and Harry and Son (1984)
|
||
which he also wrote and produced. He is married to actress Joanne Woodward.
|
||
After his son Scott died (1978) from a drug overdose, he established (1980) the
|
||
Scott Newman Foundation, which produces such educational films as Doin' What
|
||
the Crowd Does (1982). He is also active in the antinuclear movement and child
|
||
welfare.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Godfrey, Lionel, Paul Newman, Superstar (1979).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Redford, Robert
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
One of Hollywood's most popular leading men, Charles Robert Redford, Jr., b.
|
||
Santa Monica, Calif., Aug. 18, 1937, had his first success on Broadway in Neil
|
||
Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963; film, 1967).^Redford's reputation soared
|
||
with such movies as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting
|
||
(1973), in which he portrayed roguish but lovable crooks. His other films
|
||
include Jeremiah Johnson and The Candidate (both 1972), The Way We Were (1973),
|
||
The Great Gatsby (1974), All the President's Men (1976), The Electric Horseman
|
||
(1979), The Natural (1984), and Out of Africa (1985). He made his debut as a
|
||
director in 1980 with the film Ordinary People, which won three Academy Awards,
|
||
one of which went to Redford as best director. Redford is also active in
|
||
environmentalist causes.
|
||
|
||
|
||
De Niro, Robert
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Robert De Niro, b. New York City, Aug. 17, 1943, is an American film actor
|
||
known especially for his roles in the films of director Martin SCORSESE. These
|
||
include Mean Streets (1973); Taxi Driver (1976); the musical New York, New York
|
||
(1977); Raging Bull (1980), for which De Niro won an Academy Award; and the
|
||
King of Comedy (1982). He played the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather,
|
||
Part II (1974) and won an Academy Award for his performance. Among his other
|
||
important films are Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), The Deer Hunter (1978), True
|
||
Confessions (1981), Falling In Love and Once Upon A Time In America (both
|
||
1984), and Brazil (1985).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Scorcese, Martin
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{skawr-say'-zee}^The director Martin Scorcese, b. Queens, N.Y., Nov. 17,
|
||
1942, has won wide critical acclaim both for his controversial films portraying
|
||
violent themes and for his films focusing on lighter, entertaining subjects.
|
||
Scorcese, who grew up in Manhattan's Lower East Side, studied and later taught
|
||
filmmaking at New York University. He wrote and directed his first feature
|
||
film, Who's That Knocking at My Door?, in 1968. He worked on Street Scenes,
|
||
Woodstock, and other counterculture films before turning out a second feature,
|
||
a low-budget thriller called Boxcar Bertha (1972). His next film, however,
|
||
Mean Streets (1973), a grim story of mob involvement in Little Italy, won
|
||
critical acclaim. It also brought him studio support for Alice Doesn't Live
|
||
Here Anymore (1975) and Taxi Driver (1976). Scorcese next directed a frothy
|
||
musical, New York, New York (1977), and a rock documentary, The Last Waltz
|
||
(1978), in which he appeared. After Raging Bull (1980), in which Robert
|
||
DENIRO--with whom Scorsese has worked closely--portrayed prizefighter Jake
|
||
LaMotta, Scorcese turned to satire with The King of Comedy (1983) starring
|
||
DeNiro and Jerry Lewis. In 1985 he directed After Hours, a black comedy that
|
||
takes place in New York City.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Hoffman, Dustin
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The American actor Dustin Hoffman, b. Los Angeles, Aug. 8, 1937, one of the
|
||
most versatile film stars of his generation, was a modestly successful Broadway
|
||
and television actor until his appearance in Mike Nichols's film The Graduate
|
||
(1967). Since then he has created an extraordinary range of characterizations,
|
||
including a derelict in Midnight Cowboy (1969), a convict in Papillon (1973),
|
||
the comedian Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974), and the journalist Carl Bernstein in
|
||
All the President's Men (1976). He won a 1980 Academy Award for best actor for
|
||
his performance in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and an Academy Award nomination
|
||
for his spirited and sensitive rendition of an unemployed actor who assumes the
|
||
identity of a woman in order to land a role (Tootsie, 1982). In 1984 he
|
||
returned to the stage as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman
|
||
(television play, 1985).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Nicholson, Jack
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Jack Nicholson, b. Neptune, N.J., Apr. 22, 1937, is an actor, director, and
|
||
producer whose raffish, cynical wit made him a popular offbeat hero in numerous
|
||
films. After gaining recognition for his performance as an alcoholic civil
|
||
liberties lawyer in Easy Rider (1969), he starred in such films as Five Easy
|
||
Pieces (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Last Detail (1974), Chinatown
|
||
(1974), The Passenger (1975), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1976), which won
|
||
him an Academy Award for best actor, The Shining (1980), and The Postman Always
|
||
Rings Twice (1981). His portrayal of Eugene O'Neill in Reds (1981) was highly
|
||
acclaimed, and for his rendition of an aging, alcoholic astronaut in the 1983
|
||
film Terms of Endearment he won an Academy Award for best supporting actor.
|
||
His performance as a Mafia "hit man" in Prizzi's Honor (1985) also won praise.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Braithwaite, Bruce, The Films of Jack Nicholson, ed. by David
|
||
Castell (1978).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Pacino, Al
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
{puh-chee'-noh}^Alfred Pacino, b. New York City, Apr. 25, 1940, in a
|
||
relatively short time established himself solidly as an actor on both stage and
|
||
screen. His role in The Indian Wants the Bronx earned him a 1968 Obie Award,
|
||
and his Broadway debut in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? (1969) brought him a
|
||
Tony Award. Highly regarded for his 1972 film portrayal of the young Michael
|
||
Corleone in The Godfather, Pacino followed with successful film performances in
|
||
Serpico (1973), The Godfather, Part II (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Bobby
|
||
Deerfield (1977), And Justice for All (1979), Cruising (1980), Author! Author!
|
||
(1982), Scarface (1983), and Revolution (1986). In 1981, and again in 1983,
|
||
Pacino won high acclaim for his performance in the off-Broadway revival of
|
||
American Buffalo.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Streep, Meryl
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
The American actress Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep, b. Summit, N.J., June 22,
|
||
1949, is a versatile performer who has won acclaim in stage, film, and
|
||
television productions. Streep earned a master of fine arts at Yale
|
||
University, where she appeared at the Yale Repertory Theatre, and since 1975
|
||
has appeared in New York Shakespeare Festival productions. Other stage roles
|
||
include a highly acclaimed performance on Broadway in the Tennessee Williams
|
||
play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1976). Among her television credits is the
|
||
miniseries "Holocaust" (1978), for which she won an Emmy Award. Streep made
|
||
her film debut in Julia (1977) and appeared next in the award-winning movie The
|
||
Deer Hunter (1978), Manhattan (1979), The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), The
|
||
French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), and Still of the Night (1982). She has won
|
||
two Academy Awards, one as best supporting actress for her performance in
|
||
Kramer vs. Kramer (1980) and another as best actress for her portrayal of the
|
||
tragic heroine in Sophie's Choice (1982), based on the William Styron novel.
|
||
Streep played the title role in Silkwood (1983), which was based on the true
|
||
story of Karen Silkwood whose attempted expose' of the dangers of a plutonium
|
||
plant was ended by her mysterious death. In 1984 she co-starred with Robert De
|
||
Niro in Falling In Love, followed by two films in 1985; Plenty and Out of
|
||
Africa, a film based on the memoirs of Danish writer Karen Blixen, who assumed
|
||
the pen name Isak Dinesen.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Wiseman, Fred
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
A former lawyer and professor, Frederick Wiseman, b. Boston, Jan. 1, 1930,
|
||
makes controversial documentary films about public, tax-supported institutions,
|
||
through which he reveals the more general attitudes of U.S. society.
|
||
Wiseman's free-form, nonnarrative method involves filming hours of footage in
|
||
which no one is told how to act and subsequently creating a structure through
|
||
extensive editing. Wiseman made his first film, Titicut Follies (1967), at a
|
||
Massachusetts institution for the criminally insane; his later films include
|
||
High School (1968), Law and Order (1969)--which portrays the police--Hospital
|
||
(1970), and Welfare (1975).
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Atkins, Thomas R., ed., Frederick Wiseman (1976); Levin, G. Roy,
|
||
Documentary Explorations (1971).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Ophuls, Marcel
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(oh'-fuls)
|
||
Marcel Ophuls, b. Frankfurt, Germany, Nov. 1, 1927, is a French film director
|
||
known for his lengthy, probing documentaries. The son of director Max Ophuls,
|
||
he grew up in Germany, France, and Hollywood, where in the 1950s he learned
|
||
filmmaking from his father and John Huston. After making a comic feature,
|
||
Banana Peel, in 1963, he turned his attention to documentary, achieving
|
||
critical success with The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), a moving 4 1/2-hour-long
|
||
examination of French attitudes during the Nazi occupation; the movie was
|
||
originally banned by the de Gaulle government from French television because of
|
||
its controversial content. In the United States it received a special award
|
||
from the National Society of Film Critics. A Sense of Loss focused on the war
|
||
in Northern Ireland, and in 1976, Ophuls presented The Memory of Justice, an
|
||
investigation of ideals of justice in the context of the Nuremberg war crimes
|
||
trials and the war in Vietnam.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Wood, M., "Decent Man, Indecent Subject," New York Times Magazine,
|
||
October 17, 1976.
|
||
|
||
Brakhage, Stan
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(brak'-ij)
|
||
Stan Brakhage, b. Jan. 14, 1933, is an American experimental filmmaker whose
|
||
lyric films have contributed radically to the nonnarrative form. In such
|
||
essays as "Metaphors on Vision" published in Film Culture (1963), he explained
|
||
his concern with the drama of subconscious seeing. Brakhage's usually silent
|
||
films use multiple superimpositions, rapid montage, and fragmentary editing.
|
||
Other works include Anticipation of the Night (1958), Mothlight (1963), and his
|
||
major work, Dog Star Man (1961-65). LESLIE CLARK
|
||
|
||
SE LUMIER
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
Lumiere, Louis and Auguste
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(loo-mee-air')
|
||
Louis Jean Lumiere, b. Oct. 5, 1864, d. June 6, 1948, and Auguste Marie Lumiere,
|
||
b. Oct. 19, 1862, d. Apr. 10, 1954, were French inventors of an early
|
||
motion-picture projector and pioneer filmmakers. The two brothers took over
|
||
management of their father's photographic supply factory in Lyons in 1893. There
|
||
Louis developed (1895) the Cinematographe, a single machine that functioned both
|
||
as camera and projector. Its unique feature was a system of claws that moved the
|
||
film mechanically but held each frame long enough for viewers to perceive the
|
||
image.
|
||
The Cinematographe was first demonstrated before a paying audience in Paris on
|
||
Dec. 28, 1895, with the showing of 10 of the brothers' films, including Workers
|
||
Leaving a Factory and a comic sequence, The Sprinkler Sprinkled. The public
|
||
exhibition marked the beginning of cinema history. In the next few years the
|
||
Lumieres continued to produce short, 2-minute films that were records of
|
||
everyday life; they also made documentaries, newsreels, and a historical film,
|
||
The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1897).
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Press <CR> for more !
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Quigley, Martin, Jr., Magic Shadows: The Story of the Origin of
|
||
Motion Pictures (1969).
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE ROSSELLINI
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
Rossellini, Roberto
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(rohs-sel-lee'-nee)
|
||
One of the principal founders of Italian neorealism, film director Roberto
|
||
Rossellini, b. May 8, 1906, d. June 3, 1977, first achieved prominence with Open
|
||
City (1945), filmed during and after the German evacuation of Rome and
|
||
portraying Italian resistance groups and Gestapo reprisals. The film had an
|
||
unprecedented immediacy, owing in large part to Rossellini's use of authentic
|
||
settings and of the physical presences of such fine performers as Anna Magnani
|
||
and Aldo Fabrizzi. Rossellini's success continued with the anecdotal Paisan
|
||
(1946), the stark Germany Year Zero (1947), and the controversial The Miracle
|
||
(1948). After Stromboli (1949), which carried his reliance on realistic settings
|
||
to excess, Rossellini made only one film of note during the next decade--Saint
|
||
Francis (1950). He returned to his former brilliance with General della Rovere
|
||
(1959). Since 1962, Rossellini worked exclusively in theater and television.
|
||
GAUTAM DASGUPTA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Guarner, Jose L., Roberto Rossellini, trans. by Elisabeth Cameron
|
||
(1970).
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE PRORNOGRAPHY
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
pornography
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Pornography, or obscenity (which is the legal term), is any material, pictures,
|
||
films, printed matter, or devices dealing with sexual poses or acts considered
|
||
indecent by the public. Traditionally, the distribution and sale of pornography
|
||
has been illegal in most countries. Only in Denmark have all restrictions on
|
||
pornography been withdrawn (since 1969).
|
||
Although Massachusetts had antiobscenity laws in colonial times, federal
|
||
antipornography legislation in the United States was not passed until 1842.
|
||
Sending such matter through the mails became illegal in 1865. Late in the
|
||
century enforcement of the laws was vigorous, due largely to the efforts of
|
||
Anthony COMSTOCK and the Committee for the Suppression of Vice. In Great
|
||
Britain the first antipornography legislation, the Obscene Publications Act, was
|
||
passed in 1857.
|
||
Defining pornography has from the beginning proved to be a complex legal problem
|
||
because public attitudes change; materials considered pornographic in Victorian
|
||
society may not be considered remarkable today. Thus the enforcement of the
|
||
antipornography laws has involved suppression of several works of literature
|
||
currently regarded as masterpieces, including the novels Ulysses, by James
|
||
|
||
|
||
Press <CR> for more !
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
Joyce, and Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D. H. Lawrence. Several obscenity
|
||
cases have been brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. In ROTH V. UNITED
|
||
STATES (1957), the Court affirmed for the first time the traditional position
|
||
that pornography was "not within the area of constitutionally protected speech."
|
||
The Court attempted, however, to establish legal guidelines for defining
|
||
obscenity. A three-part definition of obscenity evolved with reference to Roth:
|
||
matter that appeals to prurient interests, offends current standards, and has no
|
||
redeeming social value. In 1973 (in MILLER V. CALIFORNIA and four companion
|
||
cases) the Court reversed earlier decisions; it ruled that the matter could be
|
||
left to the discretion of individual states where "contemporary community
|
||
standards" were to be applied in judging whether or not material is
|
||
pornographic.
|
||
In 1982 the Supreme Court upheld a New York statute prohibiting the production
|
||
and sale of materials depicting children in sexually explicit situations. Child
|
||
pornography was thus added to the category of "speech" that is not protected by
|
||
the First Amendment.
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Clor, Harry M., Obscenity and Public Morality (1969);
|
||
Donnerstein, Edward, Linz, Daniel, and Penrod, Steven, The Question of
|
||
|
||
|
||
Press <CR> for more !
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
Pornography (1987); Eysenck, Hans J., and Nias, D. K. B., Sex, Violence and
|
||
the Media (1978); Griffin, Susan, Pornography and Silence (1981); Lewis,
|
||
Felix, F., Literature, Obscenity and the Law (1976); Rembar, Charles, The End
|
||
of Obscenity (1968); Sobel, Lester A., ed., Pornography, Obscenity, and the Law
|
||
(1978).
|
||
|
||
See also: CENSORSHIP.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE COMSTOCK
|
||
|
||
Grolier ZZX
|
||
|
||
COMSTOCK
|
||
Articles selected: 2
|
||
1 Comstock, Anthony
|
||
2 Comstock Lode
|
||
|
||
|
||
Enter choice !1]
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
Comstock, Anthony
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
Anthony Comstock, b. Mar. 7, 1844, d. Sept. 21, 1915, was an American morals
|
||
crusader against obscene literature. In 1873 he founded the New York Society for
|
||
the Suppression of Vice and also secured stricter U.S. postal laws against
|
||
obscene materials. The playwright George Bernard Shaw coined the word
|
||
comstockery to describe opposition to realism in art and literature.
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE PAINTBOX`
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
No Articles Selected.
|
||
|
||
Key H for Help.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE PA
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
No Articles Selected.
|
||
|
||
Key H for Help.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE FILM NOIR
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
film noir
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(film nwar)
|
||
Film noir, a term meaning "dark cinema," was first used by French critics to
|
||
describe a genre of American suspense film of the 1940s and '50s whose urban,
|
||
often nighttime settings and fatalistic themes suggested an unstable world full
|
||
of danger and moral corruption. The oblique lighting and off-balance
|
||
compositions typical of the visual style of such films reflected the ambience of
|
||
disillusionment and bitter realism. Famous examples of film noir include The
|
||
Maltese Falcon (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), and The Big Heat (1953).
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Silver, Alain, and Wald, Elizabeth, eds., Film Noir: An
|
||
Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (1978).
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE PUDOVKIN
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
Pudovkin, Vsevolod I.
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(poo-dawf'-kin, fsev'-uh-luht)
|
||
Excited by D. W. Griffith's Intolerance when it was shown in Moscow in 1919,
|
||
Soviet filmmaker Vsevolod Pudovkin, b. Feb. 28 (N.S.), 1893, d. June 30, 1953,
|
||
abandoned a career in chemistry for the cinema. In 1922 he joined the
|
||
experimental film workshop of Lev Kuleshov (1899-1970). The first films Pudovkin
|
||
directed were Chess Fever (1925), a short, witty comedy; Mechanics of the Brain
|
||
(1925-26), an instructional film on Pavlov's experiments; and Mother (1926), a
|
||
worldwide success that dealt with the 1905 revolution. His best-known works were
|
||
the admirably photographed and edited The End of St. Petersburg (1927) and Storm
|
||
over Asia (1928).
|
||
Pudovkin's transition to sound was not a happy one, Soviet sound equipment in
|
||
the early 1930s not being sophisticated enough for the experiments he had
|
||
planned. Although his later films on historical subjects were popular,
|
||
Pudovkin's fame abroad rests largely on his silent films and on his manual, Film
|
||
Technique and Film Acting (1929; Eng. trans., 1933). JAY LEYDA
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Leyda, Jay, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film (1973).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE MELAREN
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
No Articles Selected.
|
||
|
||
Key H for Help.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE MEL
|
||
|
||
Grolier ZZX
|
||
|
||
MEL
|
||
Articles selected: 26
|
||
1 Melaka
|
||
2 Melanchthon, Philipp
|
||
3 Melanesia
|
||
4 Melanesians
|
||
5 Melba, Dame Nellie
|
||
6 Melbourne
|
||
7 Melbourne, William Lamb, 2d Vi
|
||
8 Melchers, Gari
|
||
9 Melchior, Lauritz
|
||
10 Melchites:
|
||
11 Melchizedek
|
||
12 Meleager
|
||
13 Meletius of Antioch, Saint
|
||
14 Melilla
|
||
15 Mellon, Andrew W.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Enter choice or <CR> for more !SE DOVZ
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
Dovzhenko, Alexander
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(dohv-zhen'-koh)
|
||
Alexander Dovzhenko, b. Sept. 11 (N.S.), 1894, d. Nov. 25, 1956, was an
|
||
important early Soviet filmmaker. The son of peasants, he worked as a school
|
||
teacher, diplomat, and political cartoonist before turning to filmmaking in
|
||
1926. The first notable film he directed was the political allegory Zvenigora
|
||
(1928). Thereafter, his work was strictly censored. His principal films include
|
||
Arsenal (1929), dealing with the Civil War in the Ukraine; Earth (1930), on the
|
||
national struggle over collectivization; and the lyrical Shchors (1939). During
|
||
World War II, Dovzhenko produced such distinguished documentaries as Liberation
|
||
(1940) and Ukraine in Flames (1945).
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Carynnyk, Marco, ed. and trans., Alexander Dovzhenko: The Poet as
|
||
Filmmaker (1973).
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE ZINNE
|
||
|
||
Grolier
|
||
|
||
Zinnemann, Fred
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
(zin'-uh-muhn)
|
||
Best known for his Western High Noon (1952) and the Academy Award-winning From
|
||
Here to Eternity (1953), film director Fred Zinnemann, b. Vienna, Apr. 29, 1907,
|
||
built his post-World War II reputation on careful craftsmanship and the humanist
|
||
concerns exhibited in such "social-problem" films as The Search (1948), The Men
|
||
(1950), and Teresa (1951). He also proved himself a sensitive adapter of
|
||
literary texts in The Member of the Wedding (1952), and The Nun's Story (1959).
|
||
A Man for All Seasons (1966) earned him a second Oscar, and Julia (1977),
|
||
another Oscar nomination. The talent for thrillers Zinnemann displayed in Act of
|
||
Violence (1948) was, however, largely absent in The Day of the Jackal (1973).
|
||
WILLIAM S. PECHTER
|
||
|
||
Bibliography: Kozarski, R., Hollywood Directors, 1941-1976 (1977).
|
||
|
||
Last page !SE SURRELALIDSM |