Transcript Film Studies yr 13 Christmas Quiz

German & Soviet
Cinema Revision
What social/historical factors
influence the style and content of
German cinema in the 1920s?
What social/historical factors
influence the style and content of
Soviet cinema in the 1920s?
What do these words mean?
• Bourgeois
• Proletariat
• Tsarist
• Typage
What was the Schufftan process?
The Schufftan process
What is the Kuleshov effect?
Film critic Lotte Eisner wrote:
“_______’s moving camera “is never used
decoratively or symbolically…every
movement…has a precise, clearly-defined
aim.”
Who experimented with this ‘unchained
camera’?
What film?
• Playful use of film as a medium, frequent self
reference, documentary focus on form as well as
subject matter
• Examples?
What film?
• Grotesque make-up, eerie lighting,
haunting shadows, decaying and desolate
mise-en-scene.
• Examples?
What film?
Stylised performance, e.g. the authority figures:
dramatic still images, limited movement; a wild
mixture of the futuristic and ancient;
experimentation with cinematography and
special effects
• Examples?
What film?
Elaborate crosscutting of images, symbolic
use of characters placing the female as
central within family and state
• Examples?
What film/s?
Montage theory consisting of: metric,
rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, intellectual;
typage; inflammatory images
• Examples?
Critical Approaches
•
Which critic has suggested that the
expressionist films are symptomatic
of a growing fascistic mindset of the
German people during this time?
Do you agree? Was the context of the
time of the critic’s writing important?
Critical Approaches
•
Anton Kaes, in Shell-Shock Cinema (2009),
states that Nosferatu links to post-war trauma
•
•
•
Spiritualism/Supernatural
Proximity of death
Metaphorical approach to war trauma – male
based anxiety
Give examples
• What was the ‘street film’?
• What made the genre different
to/consistent with expressionist film?
• What contemporary art form was a strong
influence on Soviet cinema of the 1920s?
• Give examples.
• One particular artist was strongly influential.
Who was it?
• What characterised his work and how can it be
identified in any of the Soviet films?
• What were some of the themes and styles
of the expressionist art movement that
strongly influenced Weimar cinema?
What strikes you as being
characteristically expressionistic
about the image?
What strikes you as being
characteristically expressionistic
about the image?
What strikes you as being
characteristically expressionistic
about the image?
What strikes you as being
characteristically expressionistic
about the image?
Strike! Uses the juxtaposition of
characters with animals in two
ways. Explain how and the effect
• Both Nosferatu & Strike! each have an
individual quality that makes them stand
out from their contemporaries.
• For Strike! it’s the use of humour. What
about Nosferatu?
• Man With A Movie Camera is the only film
we’ve studied that has a positive
atmosphere. Why is this?
Power, authority & Victims
• For each of the following stills, identify the film (and if appropriate,
the character).
• Describe how they are shown as representative of authority or
victims (or both!) and how this representation is typical of the
context.
German or Soviet Cinema?
•The crowd as heroic
•Reductionist portrayal of women
•Grotesque depictions contrasted with
‘typage’
•Non-diegetic visuals (Images that compare
or contrast with events in the narrative but
are not part of the story)
•Artificial locations
•The film calls attention to itself as a
medium
•Insanity
German or Soviet Cinema?
•Subjective point of view
•Repetition
•Shadows take on an ominous presence of their
own
•State funding
•Political themes
•Stripes, angles and geometric forms sliced from
the stark contrasts between light and shadow.
•Mockery of religion
German or Soviet Cinema?
•Negative portrayal of industry
•Anti-heroic (if not downright evil) characters
at the centre of the story
•Communist ideology
•Downplaying of individual characters in the
centre of attention
•Fast cutting
•Superstition
•Dynamic angles showing industry as
powerful
German or Soviet Cinema?
•The criminal underworld
•The primacy of the camera
•Themes of madness, paranoia and obsession
•Commercially funded
•Reflect a gloomy view of contemporary society
•The crowd turns into a mob
•Concern with ‘real events’
German or Soviet Cinema?
•Montage
•Juxtaposition
•Overlapping or elliptical temporal relations
•Positive portrayals of Soviet life
•Primarily urban setting
•Positive portrayal of industry
•Real locations
German & Soviet Cinema
Past Questions
•To what extent are the story-telling devices used in these films a result of being
made during the silent period?
•How far has your understanding of conflict within German & soviet films been
influenced by your study of the films’ contexts?
•Compare some of the ways in which German & Soviet cinemas create drama
& suspense through visual means.
•Would you agree with the generalisation that German & Soviet cinema in the
1920s was a cinema of victims?
•Is it sufficient to say that German cinema is defined by its use of mise-enscene & Soviet Cinema by montage editing?
•How important is it to understand the context within which German & Soviet
films of the 1920s were produced?