Week 6 | Date: 2/22/12 | International Cinema Through World War II | Reading: Short History of Film 5

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Week 6 Date 2/22/12 International Cinema
Through World War II Reading Short History of
Film 5
Film History
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• The Gangster Film
• European Film
• Josef von Sternberg
• Leni Riefenstahl
• The Three Jeans
• Vigo
• Renoir
• Cocteau

Film History
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Special Topics in Film Studies The Gangster Film
Film History
Gangster Film
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Little Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy, 1930 79m)
Film History
Gangster Film
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Film History
Edward G. Robinson
Gangster Film
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Film History
Edward G. Robinson
Gangster Film
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Film History
Mervyn LeRoy (1900-1987)
Gangster Film
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Public Enemy (William Wellman, 1931 83m)
Film History
Gangster Film
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Film History
James Cagney
Gangster Film
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Film History
Gangster Film
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William Wellman (1896-1975)
Film History
Gangster Film
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Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932 83m)
Film History
Gangster Film
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Howard Hughes, Producer
Film History
Gangster Film
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Ben Hecht, Screenwriter
Film History
Gangster Film
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Howard Hawks (1896-1977)
Film History
Gangster Film
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Film History
Gangster Film
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• European Films
• Democratic?
• Pace
• High Culture?
• Sophisticated Themes
• Art or Genre?
• More Ambitious
• The Hollywood Ending

Film History
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• Josef von Sternberg (Austrian, 1894-1969)
• Underworld (1927)
• Blue Angel (1930)
• Morocco (1930)
• Blonde Venus (1931)
• Shanghai Express (1932)
• The Scarlet Empress (1934)

Film History
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• Josef von Sternberg
• Grew up in abject poverty on the streets.
• His Underworld was one of the first gangster
  films.
• Worked often with Emil Jannings and Marlene
  Dietrich (see next slide).
• Most of his films are melodramas.

Film History
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Josef von Sternberg The iconographic figure of
Marlene Dietrich was created by Josef von
Sternberg. . . . She starred as the eternal femme
fatale in different guises in seven of his films,
among the most sensuous, bizarre, exotic, and
unnaturalistic films in cinema (368).
Marlene (Maximillian Schell, 1984)
Watch scenes from The Blue Angel on the course
blog.
Film History
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• Leni Riefenstahl (Germany, 1902-2003)
• The Blue Light (1932)
• Triumph of the Will (1935)
• Olympia (1938)

Watch Triumph of the Will in its entirety on the
course blog.
Film History
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Film History

• Leni Riefenstahl
• Began as an actress (The Blue Light was a
  mountaineering film.
• Hitler was so impressed he offered her unlimited
  resources to be his filmmaker at the 1934
  Nuremberg Rally.
• Filmed the 1936 (Jesse Owens) Olympics.
• Lived a long life, most of which was spent as a
  photographer, most interested in anthropological
  subjects.

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Leni Riefenstahl
Watch Triumph of the Will in its entirety on the
course blog.
Film History
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Film History

• Jean Vigo (France, 1905-1934)
• Zero de Conduite 1933)
• LAtalante (1934)

Watch Zero de Conduit in its entirety on the
course blog.
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• Jean Vigo
• The son of an anarchist who died in prison.
• Vigo was as anti-authoritarian as his father.
• Huge influence on Truffaut, Godard, Lindsey
  Anderson.
• Died of tuberculosis.

Watch Vigo on the course blog.
Film History
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• Jean Renoir (France, 1894-1979)
• Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)
• Grand Illusion (1937)
• The Human Beast (1938)
• Rules of the Game (1939)

Film History
Watch a trailer for Rules of the Game and
Renoirs own intro on the course blog.
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• Jean Renoir
• Got into filmmaking to make his wife (Catherine
  Hessling) a star.
• First films in the Silent Era.
• Adapted quickly and well to talkies.
• Worked often with the great French actor Michel
  Simon.
• Renoirs cinema is egalitarian there are no
  heroes or villains ( 353).
• His films a unique blend of emotions and moods,
  realism, fantasy, tragedy, and farce (353).
• Worked in America during WW II.

Film History
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• Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919).
• Son of the great Impressionist paintertogether
  one of the greatest father/son teams in the
  history of art.

Film History
Renoir Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil
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• Jean Renoir
• Sopranos creator David Chase cites him as a
  major influenceespecially this line from The
  Rules of the Game

Watch a trailer for Rules of the Game and
Renoirs own intro on the course blog.
Well, it would help me not to see anything more,
for whats good, and whats bad. Because, you
see, on this earth there is one thing which is
terrible, and that is that everyone has their own
reasons. Octave in Jean Renoirs The Rules of
the Game
Film History
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• Jean Cocteau (France, 1889-1963)
• The Blood of a Poet (1930)
• Beauty and the Beast (1945)
• Orpheus (1950)
• The Testament of Orpheus (1960)

Watch Cocteau on the course blog.
Film History
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• Jean Cocteau
• First film made at 41.
• Friends with such famous artists as Picasso.
• Testament of Orpheus largely autobiographical.

Film History
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• Jean Cocteau
• Believed film was a form of poetry.
• His great theme the poet caught between the real
  and the imaginary.

The cinema is substantially and naturally poetic.
. . . it is dreamlike, because it is close to
dreams, . . . and not only that but things in
themselves are profoundly poetic a tree
photographed is poetic, a human face photographed
is poetic because physicality is poetic in
itself, because it is an apparition, because it
is full of mystery, because it is full of
ambiguity, because it is full of polyvalent
meaning, because even a tree is a sign of a
linguistic system. But who talks through a tree?
God, or reality itself. Therefore the tree as a
sign puts us in communication with a mysterious
speaker. Therefore, the cinema by directly
reproducing objects physically . . . is
substantially poetic. This is one aspect of the
problem, let's say pre-historic, almost
pre-cinematographic.Pier Paolo
Passolini Poetry is indispensable. I wish I
knew what for.Jean Cocteau
Passolini
Film History
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Jean Cocteau
Film History
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Jean Cocteau
Film History
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Jean Cocteau
Film History
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Film History
Jean Cocteau
Watch Cocteau on the course blog.