World Film History II

Cinema in totalitarian countriesWar Time Cinema

United States After the War

Institutions established during the Fascist era in Italy

• After 1933 dubbing of Italian films into foreign languages forbidden by law; all foreign films distributed in Italy had to be dubbed

• Films become a part of the Venice Arts Festival in 1934

• Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia started in 1934

• Bianco e nero magazine• Cinecittà studios opened 21.4.1937

Italian cinema during the Fascist era • ALESSANDRO BLASETTI: 1860 (1934), Vecchia Guardia

(1935), Quattro passi fra le nuvole (1942) • MARIO CAMERINI: Gli uomini, che mascalzoni! (1932), Il

signor Max (1937), Grandi Magazini (1939)• CARMINE GALLONE: Scipio l'Africano (1937)• GOFFREDO ALESSANDRINI: Luciano Serra pilota (1938) • FRANCESCO DE ROBERTIS: Uomini sul fondo(1941)• ROBERTO ROSSELLINI: La nave bianca (1941), Un pilota

ritorna (1942), L'uomo della croce (1943)

German cinema in the 1930s• Tobis-Klangfilm held important patents related to

sound technology → Film industry could negotiate with the American on almost equal terms

• After the 1933 elections Goebbels assumesd full control of the film industry, including vertical organization

• Independent film clubs were integrated or closed• Wave of emigration of talent • Film industry fully nationalized and integrated with

Austrian and Czecz film industries by 1942 • Entertainment more important than propaganda!

German films in the 1930s• JOSEF VON STERNBERG: Der blaue Engel (1930) • FRITZ LANG: M (1930)• G.W. PABST: Westfront 1918 (1930), Kameradschaft (1931)• LEONTINE SAGAN: Mädchen in Uniform (1931)• VEIT HARLAN: Jud Süss (1940), Der grosse König (1942), Kolberg

(1945)• FRITZ HIPPLER: Feldzug in Poland (1940), Der ewige Jude (1940)• LENI RIEFENSTAHL: Das blaue Licht (1932) Triumph des Willens

(1935), Olympia I-II (1938) • Deutsche Wochenscau newsreel compilations

Cinema in Stalin’s Soviet Union• In 1930 Sovkinosta became Sojuzkino and it assumed control

over the entire film production in the USSR• USSR developed its own sound system later than most film

priducing countries – silent and sound films co-existed for almost six years

• Ideologican purity supervised at every stage of pruduction → process became very slow

• Social realism became the official line in 1935• Films were supposed to be ’formalistic’, as this was thoguht

to confuse the spectators• Integration propaganda: positive models of identification

Soviet cinema in the 1930s• SERGEI and GRIGORI VASILEV: Šapajev (1934)• GRIGORI KOZINTSEV & LEONID TRAUBERG Maksim-

trilogy (1935-39) • MARK DONSKOI: Gorki-trilogy (1938-40)• VLADIMIR PETROV: Peter the Great I-II (1937-39) • IVAN PYRIEV: Tractor drivers (1939)• GRIGORI ALEXANDROV:Volga - Volga (1938)• SERGEI EISENSTEIN: Que viva México!, Aleksanteri Nevski

(1938), Ivan the Terrible I-II (1945, 1945)

Institutions created during the occupation of France

• Comité d'Organisation de l'industrie Cinématographique (C.O.I.C.) founded in 1940 under former UFA producer Rouil Ploquin

• Grand Prix de Film D'Art Francais• Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques

(I.D.H.E.C.) under Marcel L'Herbier• Cinémathèque Francaise, founded by Henri Langlois

together with Georges Franju strenghtens its position

Films and directors during the occupation

• CHRISTIAN-JACQUES: La symphonie fantastique (1942) • MARCEL PAGNOL: La fille du puisatier (1940)• MARCEL CARNÉ: Les visiteurs du soir (1942), Les enfants

du paradis (1945) • HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT: Le corbeau (1943)• JEAN GRÉMILLON: Le ciel est a vous (1944)

Other artists working in the industry: Jacques Prévert,Pierre Laroche, Alexander Trauner, Joseph Kosma,Pierre Fresnay, Arletty

USA government recommendations for war time themes in films

• Why we fight, the American way • The nature of the enemy, its ideology, goals

and methods • The United Nations, i.e. USA's allies • Production front: producing for the victory • Home front: the responsibilities of the civilians • The armed forces, USA and allies

War time films in the USADepictions of Nazis• HERMAN SHUMLIN: Watch on the Rhine (1943)• FRITZ LANG: Hangmen also Die! (1943), Ministry of Fear (1944)• ALFRED HITCHCOCK: Lifeboat (1944)Films in support of the Soviet Union • MICHAEL CURTIZ: Mission to Moscow (1943)• LEWIS MILESTONE: North Star/Armored Attack (1943) Realistic depictions of the war• MILESTONE: The Purple Heart (1944), A Walk in the Sun (1945)• RAOUL WALSH: Objective, Burma! • JOHN FORD: They Were Expendable (1945) Home front• WILLIAM WYLER: Mrs Minniver (1942)

American film industry after the war

• USA survived the war without any interruption in film production

• As the world markets reopened, there appeared to be no limit for growth

• European countries began to protect their domestic film industries by quotas

• Film industries began to emerge in Latin America• The case against film trusts was concluded in 1948 leading to

the dismantling of vertical organization and block booking practice

• Production in the US was curtailed so that cinemas had to compete for films and pay higher rental fees → ticket prices increased

• In addition to stars also other staff gained a better bargaining position

• Increasingly, studios supplied funding, studio facilities and services as well as distribution networks for increasingly independent producers

• ”Packaging” practice: an agent puts together a script, director, a couple of stars and sells this as a package to the studio, that functions mainly as a bank and rents studio facilities.

Aesthetic development• Blockbusters went out of fashion for some time → more

emphasis on the script, more on location shooting, more psychological and social realism

• Recovering from the anxieties of the war tended to lead to cynicism – people lacked faith in democratic America

• Socially relevant melodramas. • Semi-documentary crime melodramas as social

commentaries

United states after the war• WILLIAM WYLER: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) • EDWARD DMYTRYK: Crossfire (1947) • MARK ROBSON: Home of the Brave (1949)• BILLY WILDER: The Lost Weekend (1945)• NICHOLAS RAY: Knock on any Door (1949)• ROBERT ROSSEN: Body and Soul (1947)• ROBERT WISE: Set Up (1949)• HENRY HATHAWAY: The House on 92nd Street (1945)• ELIA KATZAN: Boomerang! (1947), On the Waterfront

(1954)• JULES DASSIN: The Naked City (1948)

Film noir stylistic features• Main characters typically embittered, cynical men –

women irresistibly desirable but trecherous• Frame flaschback structures• Night-for-night shooting• Strong illumination contrasts• Wide angles with a lot of depth of field, distortion

included,• Diagonal and vertical lines dominate at the expense of

horizontality• Reflecting surfaces: mirrors, windows and water,

Film noir according to Robert Sklar

The hallmark of the film noir is its sense of people trapped - trapped in webs of paranoia and fear, unable to tell guilt from innocence, true identity from false. Its villains are attractive and sympathetic, masking greed, misanthropy, malevolence. Its heroes and heroines are weak, confused, susceptible to false impressions. The environment is murky and close, the setting vaguely oppressive. In the end, evil is exposed, through often just barely, and the survival of good remains troubled and ambiguous.

Film noir masterpieces• JOHN HUSTON: The Maltese Falcon (1940), Asphalt

Jungle (1950)• ROBERT SIODMAK: Phantom Lady (1944), The Suspect

(1944), The Killers (1946)• OTTO PREMINGER: Laura (1944)• BILLY WILDER: Double Indemnity (1944)• JACQUES TOURNEUR: Out of the Past (1947)• EDWARD DMYTRYK: Murder My Sweet (1945)• ROBERT ALDRICH: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Joseph R. McCarthy’s black list (I)• In the spring of 1947 House Committee on Un-American Activites (HUAC)

begins investigations on ”communism in cinema” • Of the 41 interrogated 19 appeal to the 1st amendment of US constitution

and refuse to testify • Producers such as Jack L. Warner, Louis B. Mayer and Walt Disney name

persons they believe to have leftist sympathies• Liberals such as John Huston, William Wyler, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye,

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall establish the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA)

• 11 of those who refused to testify are summoned to a new hearing accused of belonging to the Communist Party. 10 receive 6 months sentences for contempt of the Congress – the 11th, Bertol Brecht escapes from the country

Joseph R. McCarthy’s black list (II)• HUAC decisions are ratified almost unanimously in the House of

Representatives • Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Association of

Motion Picture Producers denounce “The Ten” and pledge that the film industry will not employ them or other communists → the black list

• CFA is dispersed, Bogart and Bacall among others publicly apologize for their ”stupidity”. Formerly liberal Screen Actors Guild under its new leader Ronald Reagan requires that all its members must give an oath of loyalty and endorses the black list.

• In March 1951 HUAC begins new hearings. Of the 110 interrogated 58 confess having had connections with communists and/or name 212 others as communists. Those who refuse to do so are put under extreme pressure both in the hearings and in public by organizations such as the American Legion.

New technical dimensions• Wide screen

– How the West Was Won (1952, Cinerama)– The Robe (1953, CinemaScope)– Oklahoma! (1955, 70 mm:n Todd-AO– Spartacus (1960, Ultra-Panavision 70)

• 3-D– Bwana Devil (1952)– House of Wax (1953)– Dial M for Murder (1954)

• Olfactory dimensions– Behind the Great Wall (1959, Aroma-Rama)– Scent of Mystery (1960, Smell-o-vision)