The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema (1880s-1904)
Teacher's Notes for Film Discussion
For your Initial Discussion Post due by Sunday 2/7 at 11:59pm, please respond to the following prompt below in a post of at least 300 words. You do not have to address every detail of the prompt, but your post should contribute to the discussion and not merely repeat what has already been posted by your classmates. While I encourage you to offer your personal views of the films in this Module, please refrain from unproductive summaries of story or plot and/or why a film is "good" or "bad." Assume that everyone in the discussion group has completed the viewing assignment. I suggest that you draft your post in Word first and assume that something may go wrong in Canvas when you hit 'Post Reply.'
Your analyses should refer to course materials and reflect on how film style and history function. A post that earns full points will not merely agree with course materials, but will visually illustrate ideas in the reading. Do not forget to include embedded media (YouTube clip or images) that visualizes the example(s) in your post. Please make sure that you read all of the posts in your discussion group before posting. I cannot give full points to posts that duplicate examples or YouTube clips. Please limit your posts to no more than 400 words and 1-2 examples to give others a chance to write about key scenes/shots. I suggest that you resize your screenshots and images to 'Large' in the 'Image Options.' The 'Image Options' tag appears above or below an image when you click on it while editing in the Rich Content Editor.
Thompson and Bordwell describe the difference between early Actualities and Fiction (Narrative) Films in "Scenics, Topicals, and Fiction Films" (p. 11):
"The new medium of film moved smoothly into this spectrum of popular entertainment. Like the early films that we have already mentioned, most subjects were nonfiction, or actualities. These included scenics, or short travelogues, offering views of distant lands. News events might be depicted in brief topicals.
In many cases, cinematographers covered news events in the locations where they occurred. Often, however, filmmakers recreated current events in the studio—both to save money and to make up for the fact that cameramen had not been on the scene. In 1898, for example, both American and European producers used model ships in miniature landscapes to recreate the sinking of the battleship Maine and other key occurrences relating to the Spanish-American War. Audiences probably did not believe that these faked scenes were actual records of real incidents. Instead, they accepted them as representations of those incidents, comparable to engravings in newsmagazines.
From the beginning, fiction films were also important. Typically these were brief staged scenes. The Lumières’ Arroseur arrosé, presented in their first program in 1895, showed a boy tricking a gardener by stepping on his hose. Such simple jokes formed a major genre of early filmmaking. Some of these fiction films were shot outdoors, but simple painted backdrops were quickly adopted and remained common for decades.
For your post, please select and embed one YouTube clip of any actuality or early fiction film from 1891-1904 that I have not covered in the Module. There are hundreds of these films on YouTube. I suggest that you reread Chapter 1 of the textbook and search for films produced by the Lumières, the Edison Motion Picture Company (W. K. L. Dickson), Georges Méliès, R. W. Paul etc.
1)First, please provide a brief history of the film for the class: production company, production history, actors/subjects in the film, year of release etc.
2) Next, let us know if your film is an actuality or early narrative film.
3)How does it represent its content and for what purpose? Does the film use an interesting formal
technique such as moving camera, early special effects, unusual editing or shot design (for the time
period)?
4)Finally, offer your thoughts on how your example relates to the development of documentary or
narrative (genre) cinema.
You will need to do a bit of outside research to provide an informative summary for the class. The goal of the assignment is to look at additional examples that you find interesting in the context of early cinema. Please contact me via Canvas Inbox if you have any questions about the assignment.
For your Response Post to one classmate due by Sunday 2/7 at 11:59pm, expand the discussion by replying in 75 words or more to at least one classmate’s post. Responses may include describing your own insight related to the post, providing additional information from assigned or outside content, disagreeing respectfully by describing your own interpretation, proposing a new idea, or asking a question. I cannot give full points to posts that merely "like" another post; there has to be substantial thought illustrated by the response post.
My Essay:
Cinema 20A - Film History: Evol of Film
The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema (1880s-1904)
The Pillar of Fire 1899 - click link for film.
The film The Pillar of Fire (Georges Méliès, 1899) is created by George Méliès and produced by his company Star Film and numbered 188. There are two actors in the film. Georges Méliès plays the lead .The other actress is unknown.
The background of the film is that it was loosely based on H. Rider Haggard's 1887 novel She: A History of Adventure. Méliès is credited as making the first film based on this book source: (Pitts, Michael, 2015). He just took a short piece of the novel where the character White Queen Ayesha stands amid the flames: source (Haggard, Henry R, and Norman Etherington, 1991)
This fantasy film is shot with the camera stationary in one spot although in the beginning the camera jiggles a little bit. After the devil fans the flames and creates a dancing woman he disappears. This is done by using a substitution splice. This is an effect that Méliès used a lot to have items appear and disappear.
The color is elaborate with first frames showing the actors with the brightest colors and the background colored but muted. There is dimension in the scene background of an elaborate fireplace and even window. The film takes a unique creative turn with color in the wild end part of the Ayesha's dance the entire film evolves into all red colors.
Méliès may have done some early hand-colored print of the film but this film is one of his early collaborations that would continue with Elisabeth Thuillier's coloring lab: source (Yumibe, Joshua, 2012)
This film is an example of the early development of fantasy narrative that was one of Méliès specialities. His theater and magician work and being an artist all gave his films a unique spectacular quality. He used the few tools of this time of substitution splice and hand-coloring of the film to help with his entertaining storytelling.
No comments:
Post a Comment