Expressionism in the Cinema

Expressionism in the Cinema edited by Olaf Brill adn Gary D. Rhodes, 2016

Expresionist Cinema - style and design in film history by Thomas Elsaesser
Page 22, Pommer quoted sayijng "The German film industry made 'stylized films' to make money"
Bunuel influenced by Lang's "Destiny"

Page 29, Lang, Murnau, Pabst adn others had great technical skills: "This high level of proficiency in film technique and film design, combined with the formation of teams, suggests that filmmakers, camermen and art directors were not concerned about questions of individual talent asmuch as they were engaged in a process of unifying differnt elements, citing or recycling aesthetic styles as set-pieces, according to story, situation and demand. ... Expressionism in film, too, falls under this verdict of a 'borrowed' idiom"

Page 30. German Expressionist film in general, whose identity is stylistic only insofar as story and style are interdependent, because driven by exigencies of technique and the state-of-the-art of film technology, not the other way round.

Page 30, "...expressionism is the moment of cinema expressing itself, performing itself -- which is one of the clues as to why it can periodically return, as it has done in teh 1940s as film noir, in the 1970s as neo-noir, ..."

Page 33. When the cyborgs and avatars of today are second cousins to the somnambulists and hypnotists of Weimar. In other words,: the secret affinities are also with ecstatic bodies and psychic prosthetics, with techno-mutants and the post-human.

Franjo Ledic: a forgotten pioneer of German Expressioonism by Daniel Rafaelic
 Page 65. Franjo Lodic is Croatian director who started off in Germany and diected one lost film "Angelo" in 1920, before Caligari.

Expressionist Film and Gender: Genuine, A Tale of a Vampire (1920) by Mirjam Kappes
Second expressionist film by Robert Wiene.
Page 84. New woman in Germany in 1920s "oscillated between privilege and discrimination, between emancipation and subordination"
Anton Kaes quoted: "Even uncritical entertainment films this often have a compensatory, unintended critical function: they show something that is missing in life outside cinema, something that cannot happen in reality".

"The Secrets of Nature and its Unifying Principles": Nosferatu (1922) and Jokob von Uexkull on Umwelt by Steve Choe
page 95. 1922 arguments that cinema image is a form of life (akin to a vampire), "charactorizes this aspect of expressionist cinema as an uncanny form of non-human life"
Page 107. Jussi Parikka's "insect media cited for alternate perseption of world through insect or camera eye.

Raskolnikow (1923): Russian literature as impetus for German Expressionism by John T. Soister
Page 118-124, summary of novel "Crime and Punishment"

"The Reawakening of French Cinema": Expression and Innovation in Abel Gance's J'Accuse (1919) by Paul Cuff
Page 151. "J'accuse offers uniquely cinematic alternatives to the purely textual form of language. The most obvious example of this occurs early in the film, when Jean reads his poetry (an 'ode to the sun') to his mother. Instead of being shown the text of his speech, we are given a visual representation of his ideas. This series of lyrical images includes beautifully composed shots of sunlit exteriors, as well as painted images of idyllic scenes of nature and man in harmony."
Page 163. "the most common complaint is that the form and content of his films are irreconcilable."

Here Among the Dead: The Phantom Carriage (1921) and the Cinema of the Occulted Taboo by Robert Guffey
Pag 178. "Etheric Web" is "The protection provided by nature to prevent a premature opening up of a connection between teh planes". according to C.W. Leadbeater in 1927 book Chakras: a monograph.

Page 182-183. Romantic description of traditional SFX over "cold" digital effects. (copy page)
Page 187. Bergman cast director Sjostrom in Wild Strawberries. "Cocteau was the Grand Master of a centuries old occult secret society known as the Prieure de Sion".

"True, Nervous": American Expressionist Cinema and the Destabilized Male by Robert Singer
Copied article for P.M.
Page 249. "form from deformation"
Page 251. "fixed ideas" = obsessions, impulsions, phobias .. a lunatic tormented with fixed ideas, whether he accords them full credence or struggles against the encroaching delirium, has always an exact knowledge of the thoughts, which torment him"
Page 261. Eyes Wide Shut as expressionist.
Page 262-3 for Xin

Dos Monjes (1934) and the Tortured Search for Truth by David J. Hogan
Page 266. "expressionist art ... is pointedly self referential. It is conscious of its own form, and invites exaggerated viewer attention to the medium" (intentional artifice)

Maya Deren in Person in Expressionism by Graeme harper
Page 294, Peter Dellolio quoted: "Another important ingredient of Expressionism is its attack upon the primordial issue of identity, often resulting in the alienation of the individual from what was formerly incontrovertible and familiar"
Page 295. Expressionism's anxiety about the importance and possibilities of self-hood.
Page 299. Deren quoted in 1947. "The function of film is to create experience". 

Cinema of Preston Sturges, a critical study

Cinema of Preston Sturges, a critical study by Alessandro Pirolini
Page 7, Wife quote on "change" being natural to Sturges in his life.
Page 8, 1930 failures, offer from Hollywood, acclaimed as an "author".
In less than 15 years wrote 40 screenplays and directed 12 movies.
married 4 times.
Page 13, Sullivan ending discussed.
Pager 22, mistaken identity as a motif
Page 24-25, non-preachy nature of dialogue.
Page 34, Postmodernism "exposing cinema's awareness of its own past"
Page 41-42, sight gags, look for in each film. pratfalls.
Page 53, "history as a malleable story ... one of the points of post modernism" (Steven Scott)
Page 59, exposes cliches of the genre
Page 78, "executive and investors drawn to new forms of media in their early stages of development have always looked with suspicion at the meta-linguistic approach -- as the unveiling of the mediums's language and its rules runs counter to the audience's fundamental need to enjoy the text without critical involvement."
Page 78, "On the Air" a 1992 David Lynch tv show.
Page 105, "Sturges's lack of cinematic virtuosity was so blatant as to appear almost in conflict with his complex narrative style"
Page 106, Sturges's comic style relies entirely on an unpreventable chain of self-triggered events that unfold 'naturally' before our eyes and rely on fast-paced, witty dialogue, fully appreciable only through a high degree of technical transparency."
Page 108, long takes noted, 4 minute shot at beginning of Sullivan.
Purpose: for audience to sit back and learn what the characters have to say.
Page 109, "narratage" is a voice over narration superimposed on silent images, a technique by which the narrator comments on the characters' actions, and sometimes even loans his voice to the actors concerned".
Page 122, the girl/love interest is the only one who understands the passion of the protagonist as well as the pragmatism of the antagonist.
See lecture notes to LLC from February 12
http://www.nmsl.uregina.ca/saul/documents/PrestonSturgesatLifelongLearningCentre.pdf
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Reel Families by Zimmermann

Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film by Patricia R. Zimmermann, 1995.

Chapter 1 is great. Has analysis and summary of evolution of 19th century professionals versus amateurs.
Page 12, "in his America by Design, David Noble has noted that technology can function as a powerful instrument of corporate consolidation and protection from competition"
Page 14, Kodak patents and monopoly.
Page 15-16, origin of Bell and Howell in 1906, eliminating flicker and standardized 24 fps.
Page 21, 1923 Kodak started reversal process.
Page 23, "amateur film became the domain where one mastered and controlled technology, in contradiction to work where technology and technocracy controlled the worker.
Page 23, "A 1910 Scientific American article explained how to build a 35mm motion picture camera.
Page 33, "The cultural and, by this time, common sensical distinctions between the amateur as spontaneous and the professional as disciplined emerged in amateur photography from 1888 to 1923, most pervasively on the level of content".
Page 36, "The relationship between amateur and art photography was grounded in idealist conceptions of the artist as being removed and protected from corrupting external influences like society or money".
Page 43, Susan Sontag book "On Photography" discusses amateurs.
Page 46, "Writers in both popular technical journals and mass-market magazines directed amateurs toward crafting narrative spectacles of idealized family life".
Page 64-65, Compare amateur with Hollywood.
Page 67, "Professional touted tripods to stabilize technique"
Page 82, Cecil B. DeMille using 16mm aesthetic in Ten Commandments and "Zeppelin Square in Madame Satan".
Page 85, "[Bertolt] Brecht argued for a redefinition of 'folk' or 'popular' culture in his sessay "The Popular and the Realistic", published in the 1930s."
Page 91-92, in 1944 Hollywood cinematographer James Howe observes artificial Hollywood vs realistic 16mm newsreel.
Page 109, Hopi Horizons by Mary L. DeGive and Margaret Cussler for Kiath.
Page 117, "consumption compensated for lack of control and creativity at work"
Page 127, "Narrative organization and common sense united to stave off chaotic confusing and incomprehensibility"
Pge 129, Maya Deren writing on amateur film.
Page 134, "parenting as a leisure time hobby"
Page 146, Experimental film using home movies.
Page 152, George Kuchar on video.
Page 154, Gay and Lesbian filmmakers. Sadie Benning with FIsher Price camera.
Page 157, Rodney King beating on tape. 

Amateur Film by Nicholson

Amateur Film: meaning and practice, 1927-77 by Heather Norris Nicholson, 2012

British book, primarily historical on the changes in the use of small gage cameras in England over this fifty years. Book can be a bit repetitive but each chapter ends with philosophical (although not particularly theoretical or critical) summaries and observations.

Chapter 1 is an introduction.
Page 6, "Typically, Britain's early hobby enthusiasts were affluent, white, middle-class and male"
Page 8, for some cine users, being there, witnessing and personal filmmaking was an antidote to the tide of visual factual and fictive narratives now washing through many people's lives and localities. For others, trying their hand at fictional storytelling brought pleasure and companionship"

Chapter 2 - clubs, membership trends discussed. Notable is how class boundaries are broken.
Page 53 "Clubs responded differently to developments in sound and tape-slide production. Some critics saw the latter, which involved projecting slides with accompanying music or spoken commentary, as a hybrid visual distraction from film production, even though it gained its own dedicated competition in 1970.

Page 67, "The Russian director Pudovkin provided an inspiration, 'Amateurs organize yourselves' for the first national conference of amateur cinematograph society of Great Britain in Ireland (1927).
Page 79, [Watson writes] "start imitating the professionals ... and you're the worst kind of amateur because you will have been doing a clog dance where angels fear to tread"

Chapter 4 is worthwhile (family life as fact and fiction)
Page 92, Rachel (aged 2 and a bit) Discovers England (1937) by Charles Chislett: "rehearsed many of the apparently carefree scenes". "accompanied by a carefully scripted commentary".
Page 99, "Family memories on film are about making good times last. ... Remembering is also about forgetting".
Page 103, non-seqitor about shipping film in northern Canada: "In remote regions in Canada, for instance, months might elapse before films returned on one of the supply or hospital ships that linked scattered Inuit settlements in the High Arctic"
Page 108, "The on-screen presence of family members no longer alive connected past to present, and th living to the dead. Home screenings accustomed children to loss and change over time too. Young children possibly grew to recognize relations whom they visited rarely via their screen identities. Watching films sent from relations living elsewhere maintained families spatially fragmented by war, migration or education and occupation.
"Being in charge of the camera changed the social dynamics too as one person was out of the picture framing others. Thus camerawork, for all its selectivity, also discloses subtleties about family narratives, identities and memory-shaping."

Page 154-155, Sam Hanna docs on disappearing traditional craft practices filmed for posterity. Find some?

Page 181-182, in 1939, filming from window of car was common.
Page 189, voyeurism and exoticism in travel films "conferred status upon filmmakers who ventured into alien spaces" ... "wilst also being problematic in terms of appropriation and objectification"
Page 199, woman filmmaker Lucy Fairbank (for Kyath)
Page 211, 1933 films by Harold and Sidney Preston at Stockport Infirmary - "children wearing underwear and goggles receive 'sunlight treatments' from portable x-ray equipment in the violet ray department"
Page 215, "a mouche que veux-tu" abouit alcoholic waging war on flies.
Page 231, Filmmakers who produced films with a message represent a social group that, in many cases, felt that their right to look was unquestionable. Concerns over authority and the politics of representation were not preoccupations for the bulk of these filmmakers.
Page 245 - media archaeology discussed.

Silent Topics: essays on undocumented areas of silent film

Silent Topics: essays on undocumented areas of silent film by Anthony Slide, 2005  

Book is generally historical. Critical analysis takes back seat to lists and dates. 

Page 2. "...film historian Terry Ramsaye, who wrote on December 27, 1929 to E.B.Derr of Pathe, "May I, at this time, observe that I consider all British pictures makers lousy -- and, that the art of photography is practically unknown in Great Britain, so far as the motion picture is concerned"

Page 8-9, "British producers and distributors knew their films were inferior to American product, but rather than improve them, they felt it more important to stress the bond of friendship between the two nations and to emphasize that Americans should want to see British films in order to become better acquainted with their wartime allies".

Page 27, break down of each dollar spent of a film

Page 32, Lord's Prayer as a Hollywood satire: 

Our father who art in Hollywood

hallowed be DeMille

Thy kingdom come but fun is fun on earth as it is in Hollywood

Give us this day our daily break

And forgive us our wise cracks

As we forgive those who wisecrack against us,

Lead us not into von Stroheim

And deliver us from Jim Tully,

For Thine is the income, 

What Price Glory, 

For ever and ever,

yes, yes!

Page 44-45, Muybridge wrestlers gay? Plates 345-346 (according to Francis Bacon)

Page 55-57, Green carnation and red neckties were gay codes. See Betty Boop "Any Rags" from 1932. 

Page 59, Margerie Benner, a minor silent actress and sister of Priscilla who married to alcoholic author Malcolm Lowry (Under the Volcano). 

Chapter 7, interview with early film composer David Mendoza (COPY)

Page 78, Roy Pomeroy, early SFX engineer, did first Ten Commandments; made Red Sea out of gelatin. Also a major sound designer. 

Page 99-100, worst silent actress was Beulah Poynter, especially in the worst silent film ever made: "Lena Rivers". 

Pop Off: the regular 8 faction

Small booklet (program?) from Archer library: Pop Off: The Regular 8 Faction, curated/edited by Milanda Kovacova, YYZ, 1998.

Short essays by Milanda Kovacova, John Porter, and Lisa Steele plus one page film descriptions (writer not indicated but likely Kovacova) for 8 films.

Scan this booklet.

Notes:
Page 13 (Robert Cowan) "It was not until I saw ... most of my films shown together than I realized that there definitely was common ground in all of them. It is nice to see that, but it is also a good idea to ignore it, otherwise you start to work in formula to remain safe. I hope I am still growing."

Page 19 (Linda Feesey), "At the time, I believed the elements of my films were pregnant with meaning. Now, I do not believe in meaning, per say. Meaning is an unnecessary and frivolous imposition upon my filmmaking".

Page 29 (John Kneller), "The hermetically sealed film cartridge is a design that takes into account the sensitive material nature of the film within. ... The simple irony is that while the films celebrate the visual splendor of architecture and landscape, they are equated entirely within a hermetic space. The filmmaker is thus dis-engaged from the experience and the process itself takes precedence."

Alice Guy Blache: Cinema Pioneer

Alice Guy Blache: Cinema Pioneer edited by Joan Simon, Yale University Press, 2009.

The Great Adventure: Alice Guy Blache, CInema Pioneer by Joan Simon
Discusses Blache's biography with focus on her ability as a storyteller.
Page 11, Serpentine dance films
Page 13, "Madame a des envies or The Missus has her Cravings "Where a pregnat woman satisfies her food cravings ... [and] other sexual cravings..."
Page 15, "A Fool and His Money... made with an all black cast"

The Sage Femme of Early Cinema by Alan Williams
Page 41, "The Alcoholic or Drunken Mattress, or The Epileptic Mattress" best of her comedies -- deadpan performance of cross-dressed leading lady. "Guy had discovered a major truth of film comedy: things were much funnier if you don't laugh at your own jokes"
The Making of an American Citizen (1912) about immigrant experience and spousal abuse.

Madame Blache in America: Director, Producer, Studio Owner by Alison McMahan
Page 48, "Alice Guy directed more than 150 phonoscenes (as the sound films for the chronophone were called) between 1902 adn 1907" Audio was pre-recorded onto cylinders and performers would lip sync while filmed.
"As Alan Williams has noted, 'until vitaphone, in fact, the history of sound filmmaking is a history of repeated failure, not of technology, but of marketing'"

Madame Blache's Maternal Melodrama: New Love and the Old (1912) by Jane Gaines
no notes

The Wages of Feminism: Alice Guy Blache and Her Late Feature Films by Charles Musser
page 88-89, copy these pages, very interesting notes idealizing and vilifying the artist.

Wonderment -- Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Alice Guy Blache by Kim Tomadjoglou
Discusses restoration and archiving and the notes and remnants of her colourization.