Film History: French Impressionism and Surrealism (1918-1930)

       World Ward I was a serious blow to the French film industry many of their film studios stopped for wartime uses. But two major firms, Pathe Freres and Leonn Gaumont still controlled their theaters. But they needed films to be shown i theaters so that's when American films became famous in France. The Hollywood cinema dominated the audience by the end of 1917.

After the war, French film making never fully recovered. In the 1920s, American movies still dominated the French market. The film industry did several things just to recapture their audience such as imitating Hollywood's production methods and genres. But what helped them was the encouragement of younger French Directors.
The young directors bought new techniques to the market. The previous generation thinks of film making as a commercial craft but they didn't.

     Between 1918-1928, The younger directors experimented with cinema in ways that posed an alternative to the dominant Hollywood formal prnciples. In Hollywood cinenma psychological cause is usual but the school gained the Impressionist because of its giving not just a casual psychological cause but with psychological depth. They manipulate time and subjectivity. Even more striking os the films insistence on registering chracters dreams, fantasies , and mental state.
During the 1920s, the Impressionist operated independently. Some of their films id became popular with the French audience. But by 1929, most foreign audience stop patronizing their films, its experimentation was attuned to elite tastes. Their films production cost were rising. As result filmmakers' companies were either bankrupt or were dominated by the major firms.
While the Impressionist filmmakers worked within the commercial market, the Surrealist filmmakers relied on private patronage and screened their work in small artist gathering. They produced films that are perplexed and confused manu audience. Because as I am to describe a surrealist film it'll be like a clips put together without any connection it is like you are watching a dream. Why a dream? because for example in a dream you'll be in your room and once you get out of the door you'll be in beach. That is how a surrealist film is. One good example is Un Chien Andalou (Short Film)

The search for extraordinary  imagery something unexplicable these became features of surrealism as it developed in the period 1924-1929.Surrealist cinema is anti-narrative, attacking causality itself. If rationality is to be fought, causal connection  must be dissolved.
An impressionist film would motivate some events as a character's dreams or hallucination, but in these films character psychology is nonexistent. French Surrealism was no longer viable after 1930.

THE CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD STYLE CINEMA

         The classic Hollywood style cinema is basically doing something so well but at the same time doesn’t make it so noticeable it’s the invisible style of storytelling. It makes the audience commit to the story by letting the audience be a part of the story by using their imagination by presenting a kind of dazzling journey that somehow resembles their own life.

            It is a way of the audience of escaping to the world that they want to be. The classic Hollywood style just like today also has different genres the audience has their own taste or preference that they want to stick with.
           It is a kind of cinema which always works with interpretation. People are so drawn that they want to stick with it.

          The classic Hollywood style is a narrative tradition it is a broad style that never overtook the story it is telling a story in a simple way with a strong story line. Like for example one famous director said that a typical love story has a problem that someone can overcome but a great love story has a problem that is non-resolvable.

         During the classic Hollywood style there is what they call the point of view shots it is showing the audience what the actual character is seeing the emotional point of view of the character that lets the audience feel what the character is supposed to feel. They were very meticulous as to how the artist looks to deliver the emotion, the drama that is being conveyed.

         One director said during the documentary was film making is like experimenting it is revitalized each generation it is a never ending experiment it never ends because if it does it means it’s finished. In our generation the tools in film making may have changed but not the style.



     

LE MEPRIS

            The film started with a scene where a camera man is filming an actor then the camera men eventually turning into the audience. Clearly it is not a usual way of starting a film. And basically you'll know that the film is actually a film within the film. It's a good way of introducing the plot of the film.

             

Then the film started with a couple complementing each other and obviously so in love with one another. The story revolved around a writer named Paul (Michel Piccoli) and his wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot). Paul was offered to do a job for an American producer Prokosch (Jack Palance) whom obviously has a thing for his wife. This was the turning point of the first scene where the couple was happy with their relationship.

Even if Paul obviously know that Prokosch has a thing for Camille. He still didn't do anything to keep Prokosh from coming to Camille and that insulted Camille and started to question his love for Paul  doesn't stand in the way of the producer’s efforts to come on to her.

          The story was honestly boring the story line is not that exciting but the way that the camera moved or the editing is really interesting especially the scene where the couple was having a conversation in their flat it's amazing how the camera moved the whole time of their argument and how the camera conveyed the message of their relationship falling part. The abrupt cutting in of clips takes the current emotion and it eve let's you think what that clips means.

                              Clearly the film is an entry of a French "New Wave" director Jean-Luc Godard. The film is worth the watch the story may bore you.It did to me but if you  look artistically the way the film was made the way the camera moved it will amaze you every scene.

Body Heat (1981) (Directed by Lawrence Kasdan)

                The movie Body heat basically revolved on how the leading lady in the film played with the leading man he used the man to get what she wanted that is why that made her a femme-fatale. And that lead this film to be categorized as film noir.

Basically in film noir, it is the narrative and existential angst that drives a mostly male protagonist, who more often than not is the victim of a manipulative femme-fatale and that is what exactly happened in Body heat

Film noir films usually doesn’t give you a romantic happy ending and/or the satisfying restoration of law and order each and all of them together a system of techniques, conventions and not at least, audience expectations noirs first defined themselves by violating.
                   

Matty Walker as Kathleen Turner

     In this movie scenes were usually shot during night time it must be because of the mystery that comes with darkness. Night time somehow projects a feeling to the audience that he or she would not absorb in the daytime, just like how in horror movies play themselves upon the night. The film acts upon the conventions of mystery and suspense: it is easier for the filmmaker to play with the viewer's emotions if he or she is placed in a setting of uneasiness .This use of nighttime and darker images lends the movie to take advantage of the stylistic low-key lighting.

The editing of the film is continuous, and the story is told in linear time, without the flashbacks or voice-over narration. The movie does end with a self-consciously ironic twist when the Leading lady turns out to be a femme-fatale.


All in all it was a great film a film that would make you think and would hook you up because of the mystery and suspense that you’ll feel. It is worth the watch for people who want to know what Film noir because as my cinema professor said this film has all film noir cliches.

Trainspotting by Danny Boyle

                                                                           TRAINSPOTTING

                 Trainspotting is a movie which tackled about drugs where a group of dissatisfied Scottish youths turned heroin as a way to escape the dullness and of modern day existence. Then they begin to discover that there are no easy solutions to inherent loneliness and pain of life.  and friendship and how people, from being addicted to drugs, changed

                    Movies about drug addiction are nothing new, but this film makes everything look different, It feels like  it is the first film to deal with the subject. It didn’t play safe as to portraying someone addicted but it slap in our face the realities of life.  Trainspotting is brave sometimes hilarious; it's dark, smart and stubborn. It's more than one of the best 'drug movies' ever made

                  The actors’ acting was so natural that it mad the movie more realistic. The camera angle was mostly, point of view  shots of the character which helped in making the film more realistic. The mis-on-ce of the film was great especially, the scene where the lead took drugs and his point of view shot was him being buried in the mantel that scene somehow made the audience feel what the character is feeling.

                   I really like the opening scene of the movie where the lead characters are being tracked by the camera  while running, and is being introduced as well. It kinda conveyed a message that the film was actually about running away and as you finished the movie you'll think that them usinig drugs is their way of running away from life. It was really cool which matched the whole plot of the story and very original that some of the documentaries here in the Philippines actually copied that technique.

                 As a whole the music used in the film is full of irony. For example when Renton is hallucinating that he is disappearing down the 'dirtiest toilet in Scotland', we hear a mellow music playing. The film takes a surreal twist here and we enter a world of soft sounds and images as Renton swims in a blue ocean. This all contrasts harshly with the reality of Renton digging into a filthy toilet to find his heroin suppositories, while he vomits uncontrollably

                   All in all it was a great film the story was good, the actors’ performance was superb the directing of the scene seems so natural that it was more convincing for the audience to accept and the editing was smoothly done.