Cinema Study

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photography for motion pictures and all the elements used to accomplish it, including film stock, lights, lenses, filters, and so on

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Cinematography

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a stylistic movement in the cinema that sought to render interior psychological states in an internal way that brought the use of distorted perspective, exaggerated camera angles, and dramatic lighting effects

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German Expressionism

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a technique in which objects in both the immediate foreground and distant background of the image appear in equally sharp focus

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Deep Focus

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was the United States senator
,and led investigations into the extent that communism existed in the film industry

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Joseph McCarthy

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key influence in film noir, Raw Deal and Ruthless model themselves on Welles’ Citizen Kane and used subsequent stylistic and narrative practice

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Orsen Welles

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an important low-budget film noir, about a man who’s involved in catastrophic chain of events involving murder and blackmail

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Detour

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wrote hard-boiled novels, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, were made into noir films

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James M. Cain

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an authentic representation of reality, such as- use of real locations as settings, low-keylighting that creates a lot of shadows, film noir tends to be about petty crimes and streetwise detectives. Film noir’s realism was created in reaction against the glossy, supposedly unrealistic studio style of the 1930s

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Realism

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Which of the following make this statement false? Film Noir was strongly influenced by?

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1. The changing role of women in the post-war era (TRUE)
2. The atomic bomb of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (TRUE)
3. Lighting techniques originally developed in Japan (FALSE)
4. Communists working as screenwriters in Hollywood (FALSE)

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In the program, the writer Martin Goldsmith says of the novelist James M. Cain, “ He wrote with a meat cleaver.” What does Goldsmith mean, not only in terms of Cain but of film noir writing in general?

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Martin Goldsmith is talking about Cain’s use of strong, colorful language full of American slang. He is also describing the passionate emotions in cain’s novels—found in film noir as well.

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True or False?

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1. The term “film noir” originally referred to French films made after World War II? FALSE
2. “Citizen Kane’s” linear narrative structure was a profound influence on film noir? FALSE
3. The directors Edgar Ulmer, Billy Wilder, and Fritz Lang began their careers in Germany and moved to Hollywood after World War II. FALSE
4. German Expressionism seeks to express internal psychological states in an external way, through set design, lighting, and camera angle. TRUE

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Essay
In the telecourse program, the cinematographer John Bailey says, “there is an element in film noir, in the way light and shadow is used in such extreme contrast, that is almost religious or spiritual or philosophical.” What does Bailey mean by this? How can a Hollywood movie be considered philosophical? Do you agree with Bailey’s vision of film noir as an encounter between good and evil, and that this moral undercurrent accounts for the use of strong black and white cinematography?

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I agree that film noir is a matter of black and white, evil and good

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a special lens used for filming and projecting widespread images also, the lens records a wide panoramic field of view by compressing the image in the horizontal plane

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Anaphoric lens

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is the name of the legal case, decided by the supreme court and broke the monopoly of the Hollywood studios, by forcing them to give up control of their movie theatres

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United States vs. Paramout Pictures

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a video format that enables widescreen films to be seen on television in their original aspect ratio, also, name given to videotape and DVD versions of widescreen films available in the correct aspect ratio

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LetterBox

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are the list of topics that were considered unacceptable for Hoillywood films beginning in the 1930s; the code lost its authority in the 1950

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production Code

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a widescreen process involving a curved screen; it was developed in the 1950s’

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Cinerama

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gives the impression of depth to films by projecting two images on the screen and separating them visually by way of special glasses

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3-D

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the ratio to the images width to its height, and most common used was 1:33:1. and also called the “Academy ratio”

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Aspect ratio

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was a film star in the 1950’s who came to represent rebelliousness, defiance, and disillusionment

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James Dean

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Which of the following makes the statement false? Television in the United States?

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1. Was mostly limited to situation like I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best, leaving gritty dramas to the movies (FALSE)
2. Is almost entirely to blame for the declining box-office returns of Hollywood films(FALSE)
3. Provided a training ground for writers and directors who went on to direct Hollywood feature films (TRUE)
4. Was considered to be a passing cultural fad; nobody took it seriously as a means of communication (FALSE)

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Short aswer
What happens when widescreen films are shown on television in the incorrect aspect ratio?

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Unless they are shown on a particularly enlightened cable station, widescreen films are cropped to the shape of a television screen, resulting in an image loss between 30 and 48 percent. A process of “panning and scanning” creates false “camera movements” to cover important actions. This process often fails, however, with the result being scenes apparently occurring between two characters’ noses, with the rest of their faces cut off by the sides of the screen

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True or False?

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1. Weekly motion picture attendance hit its peak of 95 million in 1929, in 1953, the figure was less than half of that (TRUE)
2. Unlike 3-D, Cinerama was a fairly inexpensive process in terms of production and exhibition; the problem was that audiences disliked the way Cinerama films looked (FALSE)
3. Todd-AO was a gimmicky process that failed artistically and commercially because audiences preferred the film image to be a more normal size (FALSE)
4. Drive-in theaters were popular in the 1950’s not only because they were cheap to build but also because they solved the problem of finding a baby sitter (TRUE)

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Essay
Why might a director choose to film in widescreen?

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The truth of the matter is that the widescreen process actually allows you to see more of the frame - not less. You have a smaller visual portion, but you are seeing the movie the way that you saw it in theatres, which is almost always the way that film makers want the movie to be seen. Not shooting it in widescreen takes away the full view as when you saw it in the theaters, giving you a less desirable movie. Some directors are attracted to the widescreen image because it enables them to catch the horizontality of certain landscapes or to film two people in close up at the same time.

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Digital Video Disc

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DVD

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a movement in art, music, literature, and film that rejects the principles of modernism by both appropriating and dismantling the conventions and styles of earlier eras, and postmodernism represents the reaction to the canonization of modern aesthetics

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Postmodernism

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produced and directed cheaply made horror films like Westerns, motorcycle and gangster pictures for American International Pictures

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Roger Corman

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extended limitations on specific shots like 360-degree, a circular tracking shot, enabled him to adopt the stylistic mask of another and Directed sisters, Carrie, and Obsession. he proves to be most postmodern

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Brian De Palm

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The French word for “Authors”. American critic, Andrew Harris brought together the cashiers groups writing, opinions, and polemics to the united states

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Auteur

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film by Martin Scorsese, A deranged cab driver attempts to assassinate a politician but kills a pimp instead. Struck a nerve in middle America

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Taxi Driver

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A group of French critics who admired certain Hollywood filmmakers, the expolsion of films made by young, first-time French directors. idolized byGodard,Truffant, , Rohmer, Rivette and Chabrol were central figures.

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The French New Wave

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a work of art which is purposely jumbled in its construction. A hodgepodge of styles and references, with no apparent attitude toward the styles in question and conveys no perceptible attitude to the original

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Pastiche

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was the literary and cultural critic, Described postmodernism in terms of nostalgia, “the failure of the new, “and schizophrenia

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Frederick Jameson

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Which of the following makes the ststement false?
Strategies once used to market exploitation films were adopted to sell big-budget films in the 1970’s because?

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1) The films themselves were modeled on genres such as the sci-fi films and the horror film that formed the backbone of the exploitation market in the 1950s (TRUE)
2) Women and minorities were still being exploited in Hollywood films, and audiences had not yet become educated about the damaging consequences of exploitation (FALSE)
3) The cost of producing over 800 prints of each film was offset by the fact that box-office returns could be more than three times higher (TRUE)
4) Film audiences were getting older on average, and these aging baby boomers were attracted to films that reminded them of their youth (FALSE)

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Short Answer
: In terms of its cultural meaning, what does the time-travel motif found in certain recent films suggest?

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Time-travel motifs reflect the contradictory forces that produced them. The elements of film noir used private eye films no longer convey the profound existential anxiety and social alienation experienced by the individual in postwar America. Nevertheless, in time-travel motif, the future come back to fix the present, which poses a threat to future civilizations. For example, the terminator films attempt to provide an escape from the future consequences of past actions by sending agents of the future back into the past to change history.

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True or False?

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1) When critic Robin Wood describes taxi Driver as an “incoherent text,” he means that the film is poorly made and full of meaningless violence. (TRUE)
2) Directors of the film school generation tended to disregard the aesthetics of American directors of the past and preferred instead to emulate Godard, Truffaut, and other French directors (TRUE)
3) The greatest increase in university film school courses occurred in the early 1960s and was sparked by the influence of such commercial hits as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and John Ford’s The Searchers (FALSE)

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Essay
What is postmodernism, and what does it have to do with the movie brats?

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Postmodernism is an artistic movement and cultural phenomenon that rebelled against modernism by rejecting principles of stylistic unity and coherence of expression in favor of pastiche, parody, and allusion for their own stake. Postmodernism is also reflected in certain movie brats’ “incoherent texts”; films such as Taxi Driver, for example, with is fragmented narrative and contradictory central character

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what Spike Lee called his earlier beg-borrow-and-steal approach, Given to independent filmmakers because they are driven to see their films through to completion, used Small public art grants, foundation grants, private contributions by individuals, discounts from film editing facilities, and bartering with other filmmakers

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Guerrila Filmmaking

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an independent film pioneer, edgy and experimental, Made dynamic, character-oriented films about race, Independent filmmakers turned away from him

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John Cassevetes

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describes the gory special effects that characterize not only Romero’s films but also such 1970s and 1980s Hollywood staples. for example "Night of the Living Dead"

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Splatter films

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combined violent exploitation genres and independently made art cinema. Made Blood Simple as an independent feature and Rose to prominence with bigger budgets and higher production values

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Joel Coen

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was John Sayles first film as a director, A genuinely independent production, Shot the movie in four weeks on a budget of $40,000

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The Return of The seacaucus Seven

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Francis Coppola’s production company, Was formed in an attempt to maintain Coppola’s independence from the larger studios

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Zoetrope Studios

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a film director, Directed Nashville, McCabe, and Mrs. Miller, and The Player

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Robert Altman

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a three hundred pound drag queen in films, Starred in many of John Walters film

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Divine

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which of the following makes this statement false:
Independent film production in the United States?

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1) Began in the late 1960s, when film school graduates began making films outside the studio system (FALSE)
2) Began in the late 1970s, when women and African-Americans first appeared on the filmmaking horizon (FALSE)
3) Was given a boost in the early 1910s by two producers, Carl Laemmle and William Fox, who challenged a powerful monopoly’s control on filmmaking (FALSE)
4) Has been practiced by such directors as John Waters, George Romero, and Francis Coppola (TRUE)

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Short answer
According to the directors interviewed in the program, what are some of the major difficulties of independent filmmaking in the United States?

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True or False?

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1) David Lynch directed Blue Velvet, which was produced by a consortium of small, independent producers with radical ideas about filmmaking. (FALSE)
2) Penelope Spheeris directed Wayne’s World and thus helped Paramount Pictures make a lot of money (TRUE)
3) John Cassavetes had two successful careers—one as an actor in such films as Rosemary’s Baby, and the other as an independent director (TRUE)
4) The Coen brothers have made enough money with their early, studio-financed films that they can now afford to maintain their independence by never working with commercial Hollywood producers (FALSE)

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Essay
What makes a director independent? Feel free to critique either the study guide’s or the programs definition of independence?

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Filmmaking independence is worth pursuing if only to gain a familiarity with a group of filmmakers whose works stand somewhat outside the mainstream of Hollywood taste and sensibility. Filmmakers have challenged Hollywood norms both aesthetically and sociologically who made films outside of the Hollywood system. In the past 30 years, the American cinema has produced a number of talented directors who have managed to make films outside of the Hollywood cinema. Robert Altman, Ethen Cohen, John Walters are some of the people in this regard.