Transcript History of Cinema in america

History of Cinema
in america
Origins
• 1873 - Muybridge creates a series of clips of horse running to settle bet with
Leland Stanford. First multi-shot series of frames.
• 1888 - Eastman invents Kodak portable camera with film on paper. Also
Edison (yes the inventor) attempts to put series of photos into a moving pict.
but fails
• 1891 - Edison steals idea from French inventor Marey to make a Kinetograph
camera and Kinetoscope viewing box and Dickson and Edison create Black
Maria Motion picture studio in 1893
• 1894 - The Lumiere brothers in France. Louis and Auguste design a camera
which serves as both a recording device and a projecting device. They call it
the Cinématographe
• The Cinématographe uses flexible film cut into 35mm wide strips and
used an intermittent mechanism modeled on the sewing machine.
• The camera shot films at sixteen frames per second (rather than the
forty six which Edison used), this became the standard film rate for
nearly 25 years.
American Origins
• 1899 The American Mutoscope Company changes its name to the American
Mutoscope and Biograph Company to include its projection and peepshow
devices. In 1908 they hire the most important American Silent film director
D.W. Griffith
• 1903 - Edison’s company creates “The Great Train Robbery.” One of first
westerns and very powerful and popular.
• 1903- Hollywood officially became a city
• 1906
The world’s first feature-length film at 70 minutes in length, The
Story of the Kelly Gang premiered in Melbourne, Australia. (not American but
Important)
• 1908 - “Adverntures of Dollie” Griffith’s first of over 450 short films that
established DW Griffith as the premiere director of serious film
•
The first real horror film, William Selig's 16-minute Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde,
was premiered in Chicago.
D.W. Griffith
Silent Film Giants
• Star System invented by Carl Laemmle touted performers as
stars
• Ben Turpin becomes first “star” mentioned in NY times and first
actor to be called that followed by “Vitagraph Girl” Florence
Lawrence.
• 1907-14 -Tom Mix and Bronco Billy became the most popular
format in westerns and the most recognizable “star”.
• 1912 -Canadian Mack Sennett formed Keystone Film studios to
make comedies with the Keystone cops and introduced; Fattie
Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, and later Laurel and Hardy
• 1914 - Chaplin starred in his first feature for Sennett called
Tillie’s Punctured Romance, establishing his “Little Tramp”
character as the most popular star in the world for the next 20
• 1915-1916 - Griffiths’ Intollerance and Birth of a Nation set standards for
film-making which are still emulated today.
• 1918 -Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, DW Griffith form
United Artists to try to control their own works.
• Big stars of the silent era were: Fairbanks, Pickford, Theada Bera,
Paulette Goddard, Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson, Clara Bow. Lon
Chaney, William S Hart, Tom Mix, John Gilbert, Lillian Gish, Jean Harlow,
WC Fields, Fattie Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, Harry Landon, Harold Lloyd,
Mabel Norman, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, John, Ethel, and Lionel
Barrymore, just to name a few.
• 1919 - Walt Disney and UB Iworks begin their animation studios.
• 1922 - MPAA set up to counter government censoring by trying to censor
themselves in the industry in response to Hays Act.
• 1922 - Nosferatu - German expressionistic vampire film is first Dracula
telling. A very influential cinematic breakthrough.
• 1923 -Cecil B Demille makes the first of his two “Ten Commandment”
movies ( the other in 56) both were the most expensive of their eras.
Buster Keaton
Chaplin in Gold Rush
Doglas Fairbanks and Mary
Pickford
• 1924 - First MGM feature
• 1925 - Universal begins with what it became most famous for Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney, the first of many horror films
like the Frankenstein Dracula and Wolfman films that follow.
• 1927 - End of silent era with the production of The Jazz Singer
with vaudeville star Al Jolson
• 1926-27- three foreign influencial film makers and their silent films
• Abel Ganz - Napoleon
• Fritz Lang - Metropolis
• Eisenstein’s - Potemkin
Lon Chaney “Phantom Of the opera”
Al Jolson in Jazz Singer
Steamboat Willie
The Golden Age 19291956
• First Academy Awards in 1929 and honored films from 1927 and
28
• The major studios ran Hollywood under the star contract system.
Actors belonged to their studios
• Major studios were RKO, MGM, Paramount, Universal, Warner
Bros., Fox, United Artists.
• 1929 - MGM- First musical A Broadway Melody
• 1929 - Cocoanuts - First Marx Brother’s Film with music
• 1929 - Hitchcock’s first sound film Blackmail
• 1930’s - Warner Bros. moved into gangster genre with Edward G.
Robinson, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart
Landmark Films of the 30’s
1932Universal - Frankenstein, Dracula etc.
1933 -45- Shirley Temple was huge child star during depression
1933- Warners' producer Leon Schlesinger assembled the 'gods
of animation', including Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng,
and Bob Clampett to create Looney Tunes.
1932- Tarzan the Ape Man series MGM
1933 - King Kong, Gold Diggers of 1933, Howard Hughes’ Public
Enemy, Red Dust, and Hell’s Angels, Mae West and WC Field’s
She Done Him Wrong
1934 - Capra’s It Happened One Night, John Ford’s The World
Moves On.
It Happened One Night- Capra
Shirley Temple- Biggest star of the
Depression
Johnny Weismuller and Maureen
O’Sullivan in Tarzan Films
1930’s cont.
Hitchcock establishes fame with The 39 Steps and The Lady
Vanishes
Modern Times (Chaplin), Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,
Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney films, Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers films, Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy won
two academy awards and began long relationship on film with
Katherine Hepburn,
1939 is often called the greatest year in film history!!!
Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Hunchback of Notre Dame,
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Stagecoach,
Wuthering Heights, You Can’t Take it With You, French classic
by Renoir; Rules of the Game, Dark Victory, Beau Geste, Angels
Have Wings, Gunga Din, Of Mice and Men, The Women, Young
Abe Lincoln just to name the most important films of that
year...all of them classics
1939- film’s greatest year
1940’s
41- Pinochio and Fantasia from Disney, Bing Crosbie and Bob Hope Road
films, Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Foreign Corresponodent, John Ford’s
Grapes of Wrath, Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, Howard Hawk’s,; His Girl
Friday, Citizen Kane, Betty Davis and Barbara Stanwyk were leading
ladies in women oriented features,
42 - Casa Blanca, Black Actor Paul Robeson fights for better roles for
Blacks, The Magnificent Ambersons, Errol Flynn hero films like Robin
Hood and The Sea Hawk
43- 47 - House UnAmerican Activites Commission formed and aimed at
Hollywood left wingers, Disney’s Song of the South Never released on
DVD because of stereotyping of Blacks, The Best Years of Our Lives, The
Actor’s Studio in New York was founded by Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg.
Lawrence Olivier of England was first non-American to win Oscar for
directing himself in Hamlet, On the Town
WWII has big effect on film industry. John Wayne Gary Cooper, Clark
Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy raise $$ for war bonds
The Great Dictator
1950’s
The sales of Televisions has effect on film industry.
Hollywood ten convicted by HUAC. Many in Hollywood opposed to
McCarthy.
Kurosawa begins his incredible career as premiere Japanese film maker.
Much copied by later film makers.
Jimmy Stewart obtains personal contract to make Winchester 73 and
Harvey which breaks studio monopoly on actors.
Films like Sunset Blvd. and All About Eve exposed curruption of the
studio system.
The Day the Earth Stood Still addressed the new fear of nuclear
disaster.
A Streetcar Named Desire wins 3 Academy Awards and introduces a
new acting style to film with Marlon Brando’s performance who lost the
Oscar to Bogart in John Huston’s African Queen.
Streetcar Named Desire By
Tennessee Williams
Directed by Elia Kazan
with Marlon Brando and
Vivien Lee
Bogart and Hepburn In African Queen
Directed by John Huston
•
Still
More
50’s
Singin’ in the Rain and An American in Paris in 1952,
Other important films; Shane, Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, From Here to Eternity, White Christmas, On
the Waterfront, (Brando gets his Oscar) Roger Corman
begins his B movie factory which will create many
directors and actors of the 50’s and 60’s., Herbert Ross
films with Doris Day, Rock Hudson, James Garner.
Marty, Vertigo, Touch of Evil, Ben Hur, Gigi, The Ten
Commandments, Abbot and Costello and Dean Martin
and Jerry Lewis comedies, Disney’s Old Yeller,
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Cleopatra
• James Dean makes East of Eden, Rebel Without a
Cause, and Giant then dies in a car crash.
• Ingmar Bergman, great Swedish film maker begins his career with The
Seventh Seal.
James Dean
• 1960- 65 Hitchcock Psycho, Stanley Kubric, Dalton Trumbo: Spartacus,
Billy Wilder’s The Apartment was last B/W film to win oscar until
Schindler’s List in 93, (61) West Side Story, Breakfast at Tiffany’s,
Marilyn Monroe emerges in a number of films like “Some like it Hot” as
an iconic sex goddess as does Sophia Loren and Bridgit Bardot, James
Bond Films begin, Cinerama was developed for films like How the West
was Won and The Brother’s Grimm. Beach movies of Annette Funicello
and Frankie Avalon, The Beatle’s A Hard Days Night in 64, Elvis Movies,
John Wayne movies, The Sound of Music, The Pawnbroker (first bared
breast) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe,
The 60’s
• 1965 - Woody Allen begins his film making career with What’s up Tiger
Lily
• Sidney Poitier wins Oscar for Lillies of the Field (First African American
best actor)
• Stanley Kubrik begins his Career as independant auteur of film with Dr
Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,
2001 A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange
• Hays code is challenged as more and more films seek an adult audience
with adult written material.
60’s continued
• Anti - establishment films emerge in late 60’s: Bonnie and Clyde, The
Graduate, The Trip, Pink Flamingo’s, In the Heat of the Night, In Cold Blood,
2001 a Space Odyssey, Night of the Living Dead ( George Romero), Planet
of the Apes (series), Midnight Cowboy,
• Motion picture rating codes developed.
• John Cassavetes makes films on his own to become father of independant
film makers.
• Sam Peckinpah defines the concept of death and gore as an art form in The
Wild Bunch and other films of the 70’s (influenced Tarantino, Scorcese and
John Woo)
• Blaxploitation films like Shaft went after the African American audience.
• Woodstock the festival and the film changed documentary making.
Bonnie and Clyde
•
The
1970’s
new
Blood
Patton, Disaster Films, Love Story, ,Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider, The Last
Picture Show, Dirty Harry Films, A Clockwork Orange, Jaws, Star Wars,
American Graffitti, Last Tango in Paris, The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw
Massacre, Network, Saturday Night Fever, Annie Hall, Grease, Deer Hunter,
Halloween series begins, Animal House, The China Syndrome, Alien, Butch
Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke
• Francis Ford Coppola’s - The Godfather and The Godfather Pt. II,
Apocolypse Now
• Robert Altman - Begins a long and independant film career with McCabe
and Mrs. Miller, Nashville,
• Stephen Spielberg - Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET,
Shindeler’s List etc.
• Stanley Kubric - 2001, Clockwork Orange, The Shining,
• Roman Polanski’s - Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby
Francis Ford Coppola
Modern Cinema Trends
• Independent films are the most adventurous from Tarantino,
Kaufman, the Coen Brothers and others but old timers still
rule like Eastwood, Scorcese, and Barry Levinson,
• Titanic is biggest box office of all time till Avatar
• Sequels are box office necessities for action films and
blockbusters, comic book hero movies sell big
• Teen exploitation films are popular fare for young audiences
from Will Farrell,Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson etc......
• Film keeps looking for more and more action and gimmicks
like Imax and 3D to draw audiences into the theaters.
• Technology makes fantasy films like Harry Potter and
AFI 100 greatest quotes pt.1
100 famous movie quotes pt.2