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.