Japanese cinema during the early history of film and through the silent era was similar yet quite different as the history of cinema in the United States and the rest of the western world. Although Japan didn’t have an entrepreneur or inventor trying to invent filmmaking like in England, France, and the United States, it did already have a taste for moving pictures and visual storytelling, leading a transition into film quite natural. Similar to the west, Japanese cinema took its earliest form from other theatrical visual mediums to portray the story being told. Also like anywhere else in cinema history (or history itself), Japanese cinema started out with some exclusionary practices for women. Unlike the west, the silent era of Japan lasted much longer than that of Hollywood, which was already mainly talkies by the 1930s. During this time, Japan was able to …show more content…
Soon after, businessmen such as Inabata Katsutaro showed off the Vitascope and Cinematograph in early 1897. It wasn’t until Gabriel Veyre, who worked for the Lumiere Brothers, recorded kendo practices in 1897 that the process of filmmaking was introduced to the Japanese. Like the early films around the world, film in Japan showed the spectacle of movement. Instead of a kiss or a strongman, the first Japanese films had sword practice as its subject. Unlike their Western counterparts, the Japanese weren’t as surprised by film as Westerners because of their fondness of utishi-e (aka: magic lanterns). By the 1910s, Japan was a part of the world market in cinema consumption. In 1904, under the employment of Thomas Edison, Edwin S. Porter made two films specifically for Japanese audiences called Battle of Chemulpo Bay (1904) and Battle of Yalu (1904). Both of these films were shot at Thomas Edison’s New Jersey studio and made use of authentic uniforms to show the stories of two battles of the Russo-Japanese
Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles, was an exemplary and ground-breaking work. In narrative structure and film style, Welles challenged classical Hollywood conventions and opened a path for experimentation in the later 1940s. Gregg Toland’s deep-focus cinematography and Welles’ use of low-key lighting are often discussed aspects of the movie. True, these were areas of innovation, but when watching the movie in class I was particularly struck by the use of camera movement, or “mobile framing” as described in Film Art. In this historical analysis, I will take a detailed look at how Welles and Toland use camera movement to develop and challenge the Hollywood style. By referring to other movies viewed in Professor Keating’s class, including The Cheat, Wings, Applause, Double Indemnity, The Last Laugh and Bicycle Thief, this paper traces one aspect of innovation and diffusion in the movie many call the greatest film ever, Citizen Kane.
As mentioned above, during the US’s involvement in World War II, the Hollywood film industry became extremely involved with the government in order to support its war-aims information campaign through film and other forms of media. Following the declaration of war on Japan, the government created the Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs in order to better coordinate the production of entertainment features (film) with more patriotic, morale-boosting themes and messages emphasizing the “American way of life”, the nature of the enemy and the allies, civilian responsibility on the home front and of course, the fighting forces themselves.
Prince, Stephen. "Viewing Kurosawa." The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1999. 24. Print.
Jacobs, Lewis. “Refinements in Technique.” The Rise of the American Film. New York: Teachers College Press, 1974. 433-452. Print.
The American film industry’s early attempts at the narrative Western were limited and in the early years were produced mainly in the east. During this early time in the film industry the...
The many debates about art cinema versus classical cinema have been going around for a while. The mainstream Hollywood classical film and the art cinema are frequently presented as opposites. In one, the style of the film is bland, while the other seeks to center its focus on the visual becoming central as narrative unity. Throughout the movie directed by Stanley Kubrick called 2001: A Space Odyssey, we see that this film can be classified as an art film. On the other hand, it can also be seen as classical film. Even though these two are the complete opposite and they contradict themselves, they are both apparent in the film.
It is true that movies have a certain connection to the time period in which they were created. For example, during the Depression, movies like The Wizard of Oz (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) were a way for people to escape worry from everyday life surrounding the economy. In this way, silent films in
On December 28, 1895 Georges was an audience member of the first seen movie or “moving picture” made in the world. This was a very short single reel, one shot film documenting a train pulling into the station. When the image of the train started approaching the audience, the audience screamed thinking they would actually get run over by the train. This revolutionary new type of “magic” was discovered by the Lumiere Brothers, who used their invention, the Cinematographe, to capture the first movie ever made. Melies soon after asked to purchase a camera from the Lumiere Brothers, but they refused. In desperate attempt to utilize this new entertainment tool, he set out to build his own camera.
In the 1930s, aspects of pre-feminism in Hollywood movies were rampant (Hugel 1). This helps to explain why women were given limited roles in the movies. The women were portrayed as symbols of love. The women never participated in other active roles. Because they were weak creatures that could not perform other challenging roles in the society (Horowitz 41). The women were also presented as victims of the environment in which they lived.
Japan, that strange and exotic land in the east, has a complex and interesting history that has shaped and molded its culture into a very unique society today. Of course their customs have influenced their entertainment, especially television and movies. In a day and age where information is free to all through the internet and reliable postal systems these television shows, movies, toys, and comics have made their way all over the world. The reception of Japanese media has had mixed reactions, both good and bad.
This essay will seek to outline my findings on movie and theatre by looking at still image and moving image. I will discuss the relationship between cinema and film, and also compare some works of artists in order to answer the question which how might photography be contextualized as image on the threshold of still and moving – as an object incorporating the temporal and the narrative, the writing of history, or the presentation of documentation as record.
McDonald, Keiko I. Cinema East: A Critical Study of Major Japanese Films. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 1983.
The Golden Age of Japanese cinema was the product of postwar Allied occupation, a classical vertically integrated studio system, technical innovations in cinematography, and ingenious directors, set against a backdrop of 1950s political and cultural realignment.
During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that, examining post classical at which time the relationship between them will become evident. It is my intention to reference films from both movements and also published texts relative to the subject matter. In order to illustrate the structures involved I will be writing about the subjects of genre and genre transformation, the representation of gender, postmodernism and the relationship between style, form and content.
‘Then came the films’; writes the German cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, evoking the arrival of a powerful new art form at the end of 19th century. By this statement, he tried to explain that films were not just another visual medium, but it has a clear differentiation from all previous mediums of visual culture.