Experimental
What was plan-sequence? (hint: French new wave technique)
Shooting scenes in a single, long shot.
What are "trance films"?
Dreamlike films
What was the spaghetti western?
The most internationally successful Italian genre. Westerns made in Italy, think Sergio Leone (Good the Bad and the Ugly)
What was Night and Fog?
A documentary about the holocaust, dwells on impossibility of recapturing past
What is psychodrama?
Emphasis on psychology of characters. Congenial form for expressing personal obsessions or erotic impulses
What is expanded cinema (from textbook)
A cross-media pollination of the art world (ex. multiscreen, or the MOVIEDOME)
What are Lyrical films/poetic films?
Aims at conveying a sensation or mood directly, with little or no narrative structure
Who was John Cassavetes?
Most famous off-Hollywood guy, was New York actor/director who scrapped together enough money for cool stuff, also acted in Hollywood to fund it. (ex. made A Woman Under the Influence, acted in Rosemary's Baby)
Who was Andy Warhol? Why were his films significant?
Most significant underground filmmaker. Made stuff like Sleep, which was 3 hours of a guy sleeping. His films were experimental and challenging deliberately (bonus points for Velvet Underground references, for the hell of it)
What is free cinema? (Hint: UK)
UK documentary stuff, the director's commitment to deep personal views (as opposed to impersonal stuff like Night Mail before)
What was Susan Sontag's essay "Notes on Camp" from 1964 about?
The love of the exaggerated, of artifice and exaggeration. It's good because it's awful
Metrical films
frames assembled into fixed series that are then varied according to self imposed rules (ex. 2/60 48 movie we watched)
Who was Robert Altman, and what was his pioneered tech multi-track recording?
Influential, older director in New Hollywood.
Multi-track was planting radio mics on actors, and recording up to 7 distinct audio channels. Used new time code tech to sync.
Wavelength (Michael Snow, 1967)
45 minute zoom across a room, to a photo of waves. Super fun.
What was American International Pictures (AIP)?
Independent studio, made low budget stuff like motorcycle gang movies, exploitation, etc. Roger Corman stuff.
What progressions in the 60's were prominent in underground cinema? (4 things)
- Shift from youth culture to counterculture
- more extreme forms of avant garde art emerge
- connection to drugs
- explicit treatment of sexuality
Structural/materialist films
a political version of structure filmmaking, about the medium/material of film itself
Who was Pier Paolo Pasolini, and what was "pasticchio"?
Poet + novelist turned filmmaker in Italy.
Pasticchio was the jumbling together of wide influences (random example, maybe someone's listening to Bach while talking modern slang but acting like Chaplin)
Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith, 1963)
Seized for obscenity in NY screening, scandal helped established underground cinema's reputation
What was tropicalism (hint: Brazil's cinema novo)?
A celebration of indigenous pop culture in films, both comic and grotesque.
After WWII, the USA became the leading force in experimental film. Why? (four reasons)
- Emigration from Europe prior to WWII
- Availability of 16mm equipment
- New exhibition venues
- New distribution mechanisms (filmmaker's cooperative in NY)
Give a definition of Direct Cinema and explain what made this "observational cinema" different from what had come before. In your answer sure to describe five features of Direct Cinema. (20 points)
- a mode of documentary, using smaller crews and portable equipment
- aims at directly capturing reality in all unpredictability and immediacy
- avoids voiceover narration or interviews, or non-diegetic music
- avoids preplanned structure
- filmmakers are OBSERVERS of events
- viewer must take active role in determining significance in what's said or done
In 6 full sentences, explain 3 different major changes in the marketing and exhibition of Hollywood films starting in the mid-1970s (for example, with films like Jaws). (9 points)
- TV becomes important market for film
- International distribution becomes more important
- Runaway productions
- Studios continue shift from production to finance + distribution
- Strategy of fewer films but higher budgets
give a definition of cinéma verité and explain how it differed from Robert Drew's version of Direct Cinema. Then explain with two examples how Chronicle of a Summer is an example of this approach. (12 points)
In verite, filmmakers act not as observers but as participants, whereas in direct cinema the filmmaker's goal is to be invisible. Think in Chronicle of a Summer how the film ends (in theater talking about the film, or how we learn about the interview process in the beginning)
What was Left Bank cinema?
French group, older than the cahiers new wave group, consider cinema akin to literature. Had artsy experimentation and a poetic vibe