Month: May 2020

The 1990s: The First Days of Digital – Reality Losing Its Realness in America and Australia.

• Gladiator (2000) dir. Ridley Scott
  • almost everything in the crane shot was drawn
• Intolerance (1916) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. D. W. Griffith
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) dir. James Cameron
  • liquid metal turns into a photographed actor
• Anchors Aweigh (1945) dir. George Sidney
• Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Winsor McCay
• Jurassic Park (1993) (introduced in Episode 11) dir. Steven Spielberg
  • hyper realistic drawings
• Titanic (1997) (introduced in Episode 5) dir. James Cameron
  • shots filmed in deep space to show the height of the boat and the length of the jump
• Toy Story (1995) dir. John Lasseter
  • first feature length film to be made entirely with a computer
• The Blair Witch Project (1999) dir. Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez
  • shot on low tech
  • marketed on the internet
• House of Flying Daggers (2004) (introduced in Episode 12) dir. Zhang Yimou
  • computer generated bean
  • Motion blur was computer generated
  • CG sword and plate
• Goodfellas (1990) dir. Martin Scorsese
  • character looks into the camera
  • another character shoots at the lens
• The Great Train Robbery (1903) dir. Edwin S. Porter
• The Killers (1946) dir. Robert Siodmak
  • dark lighting
  • little dialogue
• Pulp Fiction (1994) dir. Quentin Tarantino
  • brighter light
  • killers talk a lot
• Reservoir Dogs (1992) dir. Quentin Tarantino
  • long lens, black glasses 2 guns
• City on Fire (1987) dir. Ringo Lam
  • black glasses 2 guns
• Bande à Part (1964) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • fast cut close ups of the main characters
• Natural Born Killers (1994) dir. Oliver Stone
  • colored green, filmed on a glide cam
  • pov shot in full color
• Miller’s Crossing (1990) dir. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
  • a hat falls into the foreground
• The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) dir. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
  • shot in blue and navy
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) dir. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
  • George colony was wide eyed and clueless
• The Big Lebowski (1998) dir. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
• My Own Private Idaho (1991) dir. Gus Van Sant
  • empty landscape shots, golden imagery
• The Shining (1980) dir. Stanley Kubrick
• Elephant (2003) dir. Gus Van Sant
  • shot in 4×3
  • steadycam
  • forward walking without cutting
• Elephant (1989) dir. Alan Clarke
  • steadycam
• Gerry (2002) dir. Gus Van Sant
• Sátántangó (1994) (introduced in Episode 5) dir. Béla Tarr
• Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles(1975) dir. Chantal Akerman
• Last Days (2005) dir. Gus Van Sant
  • static camera, filmed head on
• Psycho (1960) (introduced in Episode 8) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
• Psycho (1998) dir. Gus Van Sant
  • inserts clouds into shots of a woman being stabbed
• Cremaster 3 (2002) dir. Matthew Barney
• Safety Last! (1923) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
• RoboCop (1987) dir. Paul Verhoeven
  • steel blue color
  • violent scene followed by a joke
• Starship Troopers (1997) dir. Paul Verhoeven
  • bright, golden colors
• An Angel at My Table (1990) dir. Jane Campion
  • woman is afraid of the world
• The Piano (1993) dir. Jane Campion
• Romeo + Juliet (1996) dir. Baz Luhrmann
  • flashy edits
• Moulin Rouge! (2001) dir. Baz Luhrmann

• The Apple (1998) dir. Samira Makhmalbaf
  • handheld camera
  • there weren’t actors, but it was like a self roleplay
• A Moment of Innocence (1996) dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
  • Panning shot from far away
  • he stops the filming in the film
• Where Is the Friend’s Home? (1987) dir. Abbas Kiarostami
  • filmed “like a football coach”
  • camera on the sidelines
• And Life Goes On (1991) dir. Abbas Kiarostami
  • static camera and naturalistic dialogue
• Through the Olive Trees (1994) dir. Abbas Kiarostami
  • same actors, still camera but further back
  • objective frontal shot
• Days of Being Wild (1990) dir. Wong Kar-wai
• In the Mood for Love (2000) dir. Wong Kar-wai
• Irma Vep (1996) dir. Olivier Assayas
• A City of Sadness (1989) dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien
  • long static shots
  • in the hospital, the camera angle is the same in every shot
• Tokyo Story (1953) (introduced in Episode 3) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
  • frames withing frames, few camera moves
• Vive L’Amour (1994) dir. Tsai Ming-liang
• Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) dir. Shinya Tsukamoto
  • handheld black and white camera captures the man’s terror
• Videodrome (1983) (introduced in Episode 12) dir. David Cronenberg
• Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) dir. Shinya Tsukamoto
  • 43 seconds of one frame images of biology, women and space
  • it represents decay in the man’s flickering life
• La Roue (1923) (introduced in Episode 3) dir. Abel Gance
• Ringu (1998) dir. Hideo Nakata
  • imagery colored navy blue
  • industrial noise and screeching
• The Exorcist (1973) (introduced in Episode 11) dir. William Friedkin
  • domestic setting
  • sudden violence
• Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
  • eerie calm of the ghost
• Audition (1999) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Takashi Miike
  • blankness and minimalism before the terror
• Breaking the Waves (1996) dir. Lars von Trier
  • mostly handheld shots
  • actors were free to move anywhere
  • edited the best moment of each take
  • static shot from heaven with heavenly bells
• Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999) dir. Tom Fontana
• Dogville (2003) dir. Lars von Trier (introduced in Episode 2)
  • no sets, buildings or props
  • broken editing rules
• La Haine (1995) dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
  • shot in contrasting black and white
  • sometimes static camera
  • tracks into actors head than cranes over his hair
  • Vince filmed in deep space
• Do the Right Thing (1989) (introduced in Episode 12) dir. Spike Lee
  • precise framing and heightened color
• Humanité (1999) dir. Bruno Dumont
  • static camera
  • blank face as if the film has a cold stare
  • at the end man is filmed in medium close up, facing away from us, with handcuffs on his hands
• Rosetta (1999) dir. Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
  • girl runs throughout the film and we follow he with a handheld camera,
  • rare shot reverse shot
• Touki Bouki (1973) dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty
• Beau travail (1999) dir. Claire Denis
  • beautiful colors
  • more interested in choreography than aggression
  • fight filmed minimally
• Late Spring (1949) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
• Crows (1994) dir. Dorota Kędzierzawska
  • filmmaking kept as simple as possible to get the best natural performances from the young girls
• Wednesday (1997) dir. Victor Kossakovsky
• 24 Realities a Second (2004) dir. Nina Kusturica and Eva Testor
• Code Unknown (2000) (a.k.a. Code inconnu) (introduced in Episode 5) dir. Michael Haneke
  • one of the first shots lasts over 11 minutes
  • camera moves complexly
  • long shots cut to black between scenes
• Funny Games (1997) dir. Michael Haneke
  • two boys calmly terrorize a family
  • one boy presses rewind on a remote and it rewinds the film
• Persona (1966) (introduced in Episode 7) dir. Ingmar Bergman
  • the film melts at the end

The 1980s: Moviemaking and Protest – Around the World.

• The Horse Thief (1988) dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang
  • Monks filmed in subtle slow motion
• Yellow Earth (1985) dir. Chen Kaige
  • static shots to show the scale of the landscape
  • muted yellows and greens
  • imagery framed like Chinese paintings
• Raise the Red Lantern (1991) dir. Zhang Yimou
• House of Flying Daggers (2004) dir. Zhang Yimou
• Repentance (1984) dir. Tengiz Abuladze
  • creates a sensation
• Arsenal (1929) (introduced in Episode 3) dir. Alexander Dovzhenko
  • static shot of a smiling dead soldier
• Come and See (1985) dir. Elem Klimov
  • wide angle lens makes the boy appear to shrink
• Long Goodbyes (1971) dir. Kira Muratova
  • mother and son don’t look at each other
  • long lenses and hidden camera angles
  • filmed in long lense to show how people can suffocate each other
• A Short Film About Killing (1988) dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
  • yellow-green imagery
  • hooded shots
  • killing scene is 3 minutes and 35 shots
  • when the man is sentenced to death, its filmed in the same yellow-green color
  • after his death, the light turns white
• Psycho (1960) (introduced in Episode 8) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
• Wend Kuuni (1983) dir. Gaston Kaboré
  • flashback inside a flashback
• Yeelen (1987) dir. Souleymane Cissé
  • camera tracks around the protagonist
  • tilt from foot to head
• Video Killed the Radio Star (1979) (music video) dir. Russell Mulcahy
  • screens within screens
  • pink light
  • fast editing
  • stepped cuts
• Flashdance (1983) dir. Adrian Lyne
• Top Gun (1986) dir. Tony Scott
• Blue Velvet (1986) (introduced in Episode 3) dir. David Lynch
  • float into the world
  • slow motion
• The Elephant Man (1980) dir. David Lynch
  • shot tracks into a close up of a distraught doctor
• Do the Right Thing (1989) dir. Spike Lee
  • heightened colors to match the boiling tension
  • filmed with tilted camera angles to render things off kilter
• The Third Man (1949) dir. Carol Reed (introduced in Episode 5)
  • tilted camera shows the imbalance of the world of the story
• Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980) dir. John Sayles
  • not edited in a flashy way
  • camera observes intelligent conversation
• Subway (1985) dir. Luc Besson
  • roller skate chase filmed like a car chase
  • wide angle shots to make the space deeper
• Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) dir. Leos Carax
• An American in Paris (1951) dir. Vincente Minnelli (introduced in Episode 5)
  • color splashed across the screen
• Labyrinth of Passion (1982) dir. Pedro Almodóvar
• A Hard Day’s Night (1964) (introduced in Episode 8) dir. Richard Lester
• The Quince Tree Sun (1992) dir. Víctor Erice
  • no camera moves, natural light and a gentle pace to capture the passing of time and the delicacy of the moment
• My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) dir. Stephen Frears
  • high level shot
• My Childhood (1972) dir. Bill Douglas
• Gregory’s Girl (1981) dir. Bill Forsyth
  • horizontal camera tilts
• Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) dir. Terence Davies
  • flashback without a cut
  • camera tracks to the door, then a slow dissolve
• Intolerance (1916) dir. D. W. Griffith (introduced in Episode 1)
• Young at Heart (1954) dir. Gordon Douglas
  • camera glides into a perfect world despite a main character killing themself
• A Zed & Two Noughts (1986) dir. Peter Greenaway
  • symmetry taken to a new level
• The Last of England (1988) dir. Derek Jarman
• Videodrome (1983) dir. David Cronenberg
  • TV becomes human-like
• Crash (1996) dir. David Cronenberg
• Neighbours (1952) dir. Norman McLaren
  • stop frame animation
• Jesus of Montreal (1989) dir. Denys Arcand

1970s and Onwards: Innovation in Popular Culture – Around the World.

• The Kingdom and the Beauty (1959) dir. Li Han-hsiang
  • feminine, light, colorful, set, musical
• A Touch of Zen (1971) dir. King Hu
  • wider screen, more aggressive, faster
  • graceful
  • as if every move was designed
  • starts as action then turns into a ghost story
• Enter the Dragon (1973) dir. Robert Clouse
  • Little cuts during fight scenes
  • steady imagery
• A Better Tomorrow (1986) dir. John Woo
  • shootouts filmed with multiple cameras, some tracking, and in slow motion
• Iron Monkey (1993) dir. Yuen Woo-ping
  • fight scene had fast cuts and multiple angles
  • well choreographed fight scenes
  • characters were spun in the air
• The Matrix (1999) dir. Lilly Wachowski & Lana Wachowski
  • fast punches, low gravity,
• Once Upon a Time in China (1991) dir. Tsui Hark
  • simple scene staged and filmed like a gunfight
• New Dragon Gate Inn (1992) dir. Raymond Lee
• Mughal-e-Azam (1960) dir. K. Asif
  • sparkling scene with mirrored sets
• Devi (1960) (introduced in Episode 6) dir. Satyajit Ray
  • emotion shown through small head movements
• Mausam (1975) dir. Gulzar
• Zanjeer (1973) dir. Prakash Mehra
  • zooms and close ups
• Sholay (1975) dir. Ramesh Sippy
  • at the dramatic core of the film, a family is gunned down shot with freeze frames and slow motion
  • large shifts in tone
• The Message: The Story of Islam (1976) (a.k.a. Mohammad, Messenger of God) dir. Moustapha Akkad
  • no reverse shot, instead the camera walks to the man
• The Making of an Epic: Mohammad, Messenger of God (1976) dir. Geoffrey Helman & Christopher Penfold
• The Sparrow (1972) dir. Youssef Chahine
  • films actors watching the tv, dollies in to capture the emotion
• The Exorcist (1973) dir. William Friedkin
  • handheld wide angle shot captures the fear
  • traditional techniques
• A Guy Named Joe (1943) dir. Victor Fleming
  • soft black and white
• Jaws (1975) dir. Steven Spielberg
  • three different characters filmed together
  • dollies in while zooming out
  • people walk in front of the camera to create wipes
• The Making of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1995) dir. Laurent Bouzereau
• Vertigo (1958) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) dir. Steven Spielberg
  • “awe shot”: wide angle lens, dollies in on people looking at something in awe.
  • doesn’t cut to what they’re seeing but instead follows them
• Jurassic Park (1993) dir. Steven Spielberg
  • awe shot
  • the camera rises as the music does
• Star Wars (1977) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. George Lucas
  • ships filmed in wide angle to look enormus
  • camera plunges forward
  • fast cuts
• The Hidden Fortress (1958) dir. Akira Kurosawa
  • soft edge screen wipes
• Triumph of the Will (1935) (a.k.a. Triumph des Willens) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Leni Riefenstahl

1969-1979: Radical Directors in the 70s – Make State of the Nation Movies.

• Fox and His Friends (1975) (a.k.a. Faustrecht der Freiheit) dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
• All That Heaven Allows (1955) (introduced in Episode 6) dir. Douglas Sirk
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) (a.k.a. Angst essen Seele auf) dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
  • Same film as All That Heaven Allows with less gloss and beauty
  • Tracking shot to show the prejudice of the family
• The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) (a.k.a. Die Bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant) dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
  • About the darkness of human
  • actors move like they’re haunted or tired
  • Body language
  • same as All About Eve but darker
• All About Eve (1950) dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• Alice in the Cities (1974) (a.k.a. Alice in den Städten) dir. Wim Wenders
  • Camera cranes under a boardwalk
  • natural light, melancholic music
• An Affair to Remember (1957) dir. Leo McCarey
• Gods of the Plague (1970) (a.k.a. Götter der Pest) dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
• The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978) (a.k.a. Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages) dir. Margarethe von Trotta
  • Robbery scene with little tension
  • close ups and direct eyeline
• Burden of Dreams (1982) dir. Les Blank
  • documentary style camera
• Arabian Nights (1974) (a.k.a. Il fiore delle mille e una notte) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
• The Spider’s Stratagem (1970) (a.k.a. Strategia del ragno) dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
  • camera tracks right to reveal a man standing in a plaza, then a statue of the mans father
  • woman stands still then walks when the camera reveals her
  • Focus on visuals
• The Conformist (1970) (a.k.a. Il conformista) dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
  • a shot where the camera sweeps with the leaves
• Taxi Driver (1976) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Martin Scorsese
  • ending scene turned violence into “gorgeous form”
• Women in Love (1969) dir. Ken Russell
  • sex scene shot in slow motion like a dance
  • camera put on its side
• Performance (1970) dir. Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg
  • camera moves through actors head and dissolves through it
  • the two men’s faces dissolve into each other
  • bullet pov shot
• Mean Streets (1973) (introduced in Episode 9) dir. Martin Scorsese
• Persona (1966) (introduced in Episode 7) dir. Ingmar Bergman
  • split screen of two women’s faces
• Walkabout (1971) dir. Nicolas Roeg
  • wide angle lens to stretch the space before the actors
  • about the contrast between city and nature in australia
• Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) dir. Peter Weir
  • girls filmed in slight slow motion
• My Brilliant Career (1979) dir. Gillian Armstrong
• Minamata: The Victims and Their World (1971) dir. Noriaki Tsuchimoto
  • 16mm camera to be able to film at the center of things
  • rare use of sync sound
• The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987) dir. Kazuo Hara
  • handheld camera
  • slow motion when Okuzaki attacks the commander
• Black Girl (1966) (a.k.a. La noire de…) (introduced in Episode 8) dir. Ousmane Sembène
• Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941) dir. Richard Thorpe
• La nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua (1971) dir. Assia Djebar
  • Dreamlike
  • realistically african
• Xala (1975) dir. Ousmane Sembène
• Sinemaabi: A Dialogue with Djibril Diop Mambéty (1997) dir. Beti Ellerson Poulenc
• Badou Boy (1970) dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty
  • abstract rhythm and jaggedness
• Hyènes (1992) (a.k.a. Hyenas/Ramatou) dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty
  • message about consumerism
• Kaddu Beykat (1975) (a.k.a. Lettre paysanne) dir. Safi Faye
  • mid sized framing
  • A “show and tell” to the outside world
• Harvest: 3,000 Years (1976) (a.k.a. Mirt sost shi amit) dir. Haile Gerima
  • long lenses
  • during the chase, voices flood the soundtrack
• Umut (1970) (a.k.a. Hope) dir. Yilmaz Güney & Serif Gören
• Yol (1982) dir. Yilmaz Güney & Serif Gören
  • man smiles at camera, then the smile fades as he realizes whats going on in the village
• The Battle of Chile (1975/1977/1979) (a.k.a. La batalla de Chile) dir. Patricio Guzmán
  • filmed from rooftops on handheld cameras
  • used direct sound
• The Holy Mountain (1973) (a.k.a. La montaña sagrada) dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky
  • scene shot like a man entering the maze of his own mind