FILM MOVEMENTS/IDEOLOGIES

A film movement consists of two elements:

Films that are produced within a particular period and/or nation and that share
significant traits of style and form.
Filmmakers who were operate within a common production structure and who
share certain assumptions about filmmaking. Since a film movement consists of not
only films but also the activities of specific filmmakers.

 For each period and nation    relevant factors that affect the cinema. These factors
include the state of the film industry, artistic theories held by the film- elements. These
factors necessarily help explain how a particular movement began, what shaped its
development, and what affected its decline.

Early Experimental Cinema   U.S., France, England

(1893-1903)

For centuries, humans had experimented with what would become the two key
elements of cinema: the projection of images using light  and the illusion of motion
created by exploiting the optical phenomenon called "persistence of vision" .

The "birth" of the movies was actually a gradual process of evolution. It involved a
number of individuals in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States.W.K.
Laurie Dickson, a researcher at the Edison Laboratories, is credited with the invention
of a practicable form of celluloid strip containing a sequence of images, the basis of a
method of photographing and projecting moving images. In 1894, Thomas Edison
introduced to the public the Kinetograph, the first practical moving picture camera,
and the Kinetoscope.

A film could be under a minute long and would usually present a single scene,
authentic or staged, of everyday life, a public event, a sporting event or slapstick.
There was little to no cinematic technique: no editing and usually no camera
movement, and flat, stagey compositions. But the novelty of realistically moving
photographs was enough for a motion picture industry to mushroom before the end of
the century, in countries around the world.
 Classical Hollywood Silent Cinema       U.S.
(1908-1927)
Classic Hollywood Silent Cinema (1908-1927) a term used in film history, designates
both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production
that arose in the American film industry of the 1910s and 1920s.
The mode of production came to be known as the Hollywood studio system and
the star system, which standardized the way movies were produced. All film workers
(actors, directors, etc.) were employees of a particular film studio. This resulted in a
certain uniformity to film style: directors were encouraged to think of themselves as
employees rather than artists, and hence auteurs (
1. a film director who influences their films so much that they rank as their author.)
did not flourish (although some directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles,
fought against these restrictions).
The end of Hollywood classicism came with the collapse of the studio system, the
growing popularity of auteurism among directors, and the increasing influence of
foreign films and independent filmmaking.

French Impressionism France       (1918-1930)

French Impressionism was dominated by intimated deep psychological narratives,
French Impressionism was made up of a young group of directors in Post World War
I France. Impressionist films manipulate plot time and subjectivity and the registering
of characters mental states, dreams, fantasies, etc.

A vaguely defined set of films made in Western Europe during the 1910s and 1920s
that possess a number of stylistic similarities. It is named after the major movement in
painting that flourished in and around France during the 19th century. Although
France is considered the epicentre of this group of films, its ideas were being used by
contemporary filmmakers in other parts of the world.

Who were its pioneers...

Like German Expressionism, French Impressionism has its roots, albeit tenuous, in its
national painting. In fact, Jean Renoir, one of the filmmakers associated with the
movement, was the son of renowned Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir. Other key
figures affiliated with Impressionism are Abel Gance, Marcel L'Herbier, Germaine
Dulac and Jean Epstein.

German Expressionism  Germany          (1919-1926)

German Expressionism (1919-1926) also referred to as Expressionism in filmmaking,
developed in Germany (especially Berlin) during the 1920s. During the period of
recovery following World War I, the German film industry was booming, but because
of the hard economic times filmmakers found it difficult to create movies . The
filmmakers of the German UFA studio developed their own style, by using symbolism
and mise en scène to insert mood and deeper meaning into a movie.

The first Expressionist films, notably The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem
(1915), and Nosferatu (1922) were highly symbolic and deliberately surrealistic
portrayals of filmed stories. The first Expressionist films made up for a lack of lavish
budgets by using set designs with wildly non-realistic, geometrically absurd sets,
along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and
objects. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness,
insanity, betrayal, and other "intellectual" topics

Surrealism      France, Spain/Europe     (1924-1930)

The truest aspects of Surrealism in film are often found in passing frames of a larger
film; the sudden emergence of the uncanny into the "normal" which may or may not
be further explored in the rest of the film. The original group spent hours going from
film to film, often not finishing one before seeking another, partly in hopes of
catching just such ephemeral moments, and partly with the idea of "stitching together"
a film in their own minds out of the disparate parts.
Surrealism gives us the ability to share our ideas in as raw and uninhibited of a way as
possible. 

Surrealism is an art movement that was founded by Andre Breton in 1924, and
outlined in his book The Surrealist Manifesto. Over the years, ‘surrealism’ has come
to be regarded as a technique in addition to being an art movement. Surrealism as a
technique relies on the juxtaposition of symbols, images, or actions to create a world
outside of reality, a super-reality.
Surrealism has given artists free reign over their collective subconscious. The end
result has been some of the most daring and provocative works the world has ever
seen.

Now that we have defined Surrealism in film, let’s remind ourselves of the term’s
origins. 

Surrealism was “officially” founded in Paris in 1924, but the seeds of the movement
were planted long before then. The early age of the movement was largely influenced
by the works of Karl Marx (1818-1893), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), and Carl Jung
(1875-1961), among others.

Surrealism has deep roots in the theory of epistemology — or how we come to

understand the world. Within the theory of epistemology, there are two dominant
perspectives: rationalism and empiricism.

Rationalism says that the world is what it is, it exists within a reality and that reality is
real. Empiricists say that it’s impossible to know whether the world is real so we have
to rely on our senses to construct a reality.

But what happens when that “reality” is twisted, contorted, and flat-out ridiculed?
Then one could say that the reality has become surreal.

Artists like Andre Breton, Man Ray, and Salvador Dalí used surrealistic techniques to
become titans of their fields. Let’s take a look at a quick video to see how they did it.

Soviet Montage/Constructivism Russia                      
(1924-1930)

The Soviet Montage movement began in 1924/25 and ended at 1930. During the
Montage movement's existence, perhaps fewer than thirty films were made in the
style.  The central aspect of Soviet Montage style was the area of editing. Cuts should
stimulate the spectator

Poetic Realism       France             (1930-1939)

Poetic Reallism (1930-1939) A film movement in France leading up to World War II.
The films center on marginalized characters who get a last chance at love, but are
ultimately disappointed. They have a tone of nostalgia and bitterness. They are
"poetic" because of a heightened aestheticism that sometimes draws attention to the
representational aspects of the films.

Italian Neo Realism Italy        1942-1951)

Italian Neo-realism (1942-1951) is a film movement which started in 1943.The
movement is characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed
in long takes on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors for secondary and
sometimes primary roles. Italian neorealist films mostly contend with the difficult
economical and moral conditions of postwar Italy, reflecting the changes in the Italian
psyche and the conditions of everyday life: defeat, poverty, and desperation.
The movement was developed by a circle of film critics that revolved around the
magazine Cinema. The neorealists were heavily influenced by French poetic realism.
Elements of neorealism are also found in the films of Alessandro Blasetti and the
documentary-style films of Francesco De Robertis. Two of the most significant
precursors of neorealism are Toni (Renoir, 1935) and 1860 (Blasetti, 1934).

French New Wave France (1959-1964)

The New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical
cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm. Many also engaged in their
work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical
experiments with editing, visual style, and narrative part of a general break with the
conservative paradigm.

It holds that the director is the "author" of his movies, with a personal signature
visible from film to film.

                                                       
American New Wave/Indy Cinema        US 
(1969-1980)
American Independent Cinema/American New Wave or The New Hollywood' and
'post-classical cinema' are terms used to describe the period following the decline of
the studio system in the '50s and '60s and the end of the production code. It is defined
by a greater tendency to dramatize such things as sexuality and violence, and by the
rising importance of blockbuster movies.

'Post-classical cinema' is a term used to describe the changing methods of storytelling

in the New Hollywood. It has been argued that new approaches to drama and
characterization played upon audience expectations acquired in the classical/Golden
Age period: Although the 1970s opened with Hollywood experiencing a financial and
artistic depression, the decade became a creative high point in the US film industry.
Restrictions on language, adult content and sexuality, and violence had loosened up,
and these elements became more widespread. And Hollywood was renewed and
reborn with the earlier collapse of the studio system, and the works of many new and
experimental film-makers