The New Hollywood and Independent Film making

The new hollywood directors were revamping American Films but then a young generation of film directors from Hong Kong came and revised the traditional genres and other creative methods in the film industry. Though it is not really unified movement but still it influenced the cinematic style and storytelling of the world of filmmaking in the 20th century. During the silent era, Shaw Brothers is the most powerful studio and owned theaters throughout East Asia. 

Most of the protagonists in this time are lack of goal oriented. And they have the common setting like drinking in the cafe, it's like you already kknow what you expect in the story. This is called the New Wave film, but it end easily. Some of the New Wave director's shot are cheap and quick than what the reigning directors did. They also lack in their financial needs but still the young directors helped each other to reduced the financial risks on some companies but the French industry helped the New Wave through ditribution, exhibition and eventually production. 

The problems arosed. Expensive studio projects failed miserably, some television stopped bidding for pictures which pay high prices. But the producers fought back. They produced counter culture films aimed at young people. The most popular and influential were Dennis Hopper's low budget Easy Rider (1969) and Robert Altman's MASH (1970)

Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola and other directors were known as movie brats. Most of them had gone to film schools. All of them have the knowledge on doing  very good movie. Even those who did not attend the film schools are admirers of the Hollywood Clasical tradition.

French Impressionism and Surrealism

During the silent era, most of the films are silent, it means without dialogue. But the French created two things for changing the Classic Hollywood Style. These are Impressionism and Surrealism. For better understanding, Impressionism is a practice in the film industry where it express or develop one's subjective response to an actual experience which give a very good style within the film industry but Surrealism give largely impact outside the film industry. 

An Impressionist's Film









Because of the World War I, the French Film industry started to fall, many film studios were used for wartime and the production films were abrupt but the French film industry never gave up by that time, they regained their audiences and viewers by acting like the Hollywood style and production. Some directors that are mentioned in the article believe that a cinema is an art that can be compared to music, paintings and even poetry. But a cinema should should stand up for itself. 

A film can be considered as Impressionist if the presence of these characteristics are there, the psychological narrative, subjective camera work, and the editing. It is also called as Impressionist because of its interest in narration that concerns to character's psychological depth and consciousness. It does not fall on physical behavior but more of internal or inner actions. It focus on depicting the character's dreams, flashbacks, memories and other mental states.

According to David Bordwell, Impressionist films used irises, masks and superimpositions that function as traces of characters’ thoughts and feelings. The subjectivity of camera work was present to characters’ perceptual experience. With coordination of its editing the film became more impressionist style and show more a psychological narrative as the film edited with rhythm. This was also the time when technological innovation was developed of new means of frame mobility.

On my own understanding of what Surrealism is, I think it focus on how they will confused and give a shocking effects to their audiences. They are anti- narrative and it attacked casuality itself. In my observation, I think it is a non continuity story, it's hard for me to understand the sequence of the film. 

The Impressionism and Surrealism may be a little bit confusing but still they marked on the film industry which helps the industry to be more productive and these movements will still remain in the life of every people who knew and watched an Impressionist and Surrealist Films.

A Surrealist's Film

Adarna by Dulaang UP

          Adarna is a well known Filipino tale that gives a high impact to the Filipinos. And it can also be considered as one of the most loved  tales in the Philippines. The Dulaang UP, as they are now at their 38^th season, they perform Adarna. They show the life of Don Juan, the youngest of the three princes in the story. They take  their journey to find the mystical bird called Ibong Adarna to cure their father who is sick who  is the king of Berbanya. Don Juan faced so many challenges like he encounters with sage men and beautiful princesses and stuggles that would test his courage and mettle.

     UP Diliman’s Adarna is somehow pragmatic and unique in a sense that they used shadow play or puppetry. They perform with a story telling device like the figures that is being projected in the crafts paper. The set design is simple but it is amazing in a way that they used craft papers and bamboos to show the magical creatures in the play.

         I also like the interpretation of the Ibong Adarna, they used 7 beautiful actresses as well as those who can sing with their different colors to represent the 7 colors of the Ibong Adarna. They also used multiple actors, Don Juan is represented by 3 actors maybe it’s for the purpose of more fluid performance. Even they used different actors in one character, the play still move forward smoothly. Their costumes are almost the same, they wear black shirt and black pants but the others like the Ibong Adarna, they also wear some colorful clothes for the representation of the mystical bird. The script of the play is also good because they came up with the words that the audiences can understand easily and can relate too. And there is also some comedy that the audiences can involve their emotions and can understand what the play needs to portray.

            The actors performed well and even there are some flaws, they can still continue the show and go back to what’s happening in the story. The deliverance of the message didn’t fail and they achieved the goal they want, to engage the people in the play and to feel what they feel which is very important for the theater plays.

But I believe that even their play is a very successful one, there are still things to work on. They only lack on the more colorful costumes but all in all it’s good. It’s worth to watch and very entertaining. 

German Expressionism (1919- 1926)

As I read the German Expressionism from the book of Film Art and Film History, I think German Expressionism is a film of the world of light and shadow. At the start of the World War 1, German's film industry is not that good. Most of their theaters are full of American, French, Italian and Danish Films. German films are quite have a little showing. German film industry focused on three genres. The internationally popular adventure serial, featuring spy rings, clever detectives, or exotic settings. They also concentrated on sex exploitation cycle which topics are about homosexuality and even prostitution. By this time, the last type of film is financially successful. And I think because of the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari(1920), the German film rise up again and created a sensation in Berlin and then in United States, France and other countries. German Expressionist films are more of a storyline matched the visuals in terms of darkness and disillusionment. It usually shows a mood and featuring a charactersfrom a corrupt underworld crime. It can also be describe like the Film Noir like the used of words and the genre. Knowing that Expressionism is the movement in the fine arts that emphasized the expression of one’s inner self and their angst rather than solely being realistic and fanboyish about the world and life. At this point the Caligari film shows the Expressionist stylization functions to convey the distorted viewpoint of madman.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

But when the Expressionism became an accepted style, still the filmmakers didn't motivate Expressionist style as the narrative point of view of mad characters. Instead, Expressionism functioned to create stylized situations for fantasy and horror stories. 

Understanding the Classic Hollywood Style

Classic Hollywood Style is the term used in the film history. According to Wikipedia, Classical style is fundamentally built on the principle of continuity editing or "invisible" style. That is, the camera and the sound recording should never call attention to themselves (as they might in films from earlier periods, other countries or in a modernist or postmodernist work).

I think, it is a style in a cinema . It follows a set of rules on how films are supposed to be put together. These rules are unspoken; they are just basic common knowledge to the film creators and expected from the film viewers. In the video that I have watched, there are different films that was shown. There are films that no sound, but if you watch it on a movie house or something, there is someone who is playing an instrumental music and the other one is comedy which is even there is no verbal interaction, you will understand easily

The style of classical Hollywood style, as elaborated by David Bordwell, has been heavily influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance and its resurgence of mankind as the focal point.

Thus, classical narration progresses always through psychological motivation, by the will of a human character and its struggle with obstacles towards a defined goal. The aspects of space and time are subordinated to the narrative element which is usually composed of two lines of action: A romance intertwined with a more generic one such as business or, in the case of Alfred Hitchcock films, solving a crime.

Time in classical Hollywood is continuous, since non-linearity calls attention to the illusory workings of the medium. The only permissible manipulation of time in this format is the flashback. It is mostly used to introduce a memory sequence of a character.

The Classic Hollywood  Style is formulatic. It doesn't matter who the star is, who the director is, or who the writer is. Most mainstream films you see will have this lay out. Even though this may be the first time you have heard it called by name, you expect to see it in the theaters. It has been around since the birth of cinema, and it will most likely exist far into the future. 

Mood of Pessimism, Fatalism and Menace

FILM NOIR

Film noir refers to a to a series of downbeat, gritty crime and action movies made in the 1940s and 1950s. This film uses a shadowy, moody visual style that was inspired by European movies of the 1920s. According to Corin, a filmmaker and film critic, film noir are tales of survival. The film noir style also have the "femme fatale." Voluptuous, scheming, and usually smarter than the male characters of film noir,these bad girls became an icon of the genre. Many a film noir plot hinges on the actions of a double-dealing, razor-sharp female character.

            The term "film noir" was invented by a French film critic. In their time, these distinctive movies were just considered thrillers, suspense pictures, or crime melodramas. By the end of the 1940s, this eerie style was the standard for Hollywood's depictions of the world of criminals, cops, and private eyes.

            The setting of film noir is somewhat large and oppressive city , it is filmed in dark and dusky conditions to create a moody atmosphere. The common subjects of noir films include murder investigations, heists, con games, and mostly innocent men or women wrongly accused of crime.

The film noir style also enabled Hollywood filmmakers to tackle tough subjects, such as corruption, addiction, and moral decay. Hollywood movies were required, by the Production Code, to punish wrong-doers and praise lawmen. The film noir style hid, in its shadows, a world that wasn't about good and evil. Its heroes are often fallen from grace, and its villains often have a seductive appeal. Good guys can go bad, and bad guys can develop a conscience in the world of film noir. You might say film noir is in the eye of the beholder, but some things, at least from my perspective, are essential. Foremost, a noir is black and white. This goes to the heart of the genre.  That may seem obvious but there have been a number of films made in color, which have tried to emulate noir style.

The Directors who made the Blockbuster