Transcript Cine03 - Notes05 - June27

“An original artist is unable to copy. So, he has to copy in order to be
original.” – Jean Cocteau- Director
 Sound motion pictures now dominated Europe and
much of the world
 World War II forced filmmakers to make painful
choices
Fritz Lang
Thea Von Harbou
 Many of the French Filmmakers during the 1930’s –
1940s were considered to be very adventurous
 Jean Renoir – Grand Illusion – anti-war film
 Jean Cocteau – Orphic Trilogy
 Blood of A Poet
 Beauty and The Beast
 Orpheus
Jean Cocteau
 National cinema was hampered by
trying to produce too many films to fill
the quota because of the Protectionist
Cinematographic Film Act of 1927
 The other primary film business force
during this time for England was J.
Arthur Rank
 Bought production facilities, production
labs, theater chains, and distribution
exchanges – Rank Organisation – Odd
Man Out
 Documentary films boomed for England
– Night Mail
Rank
 After WW I, Germany was in economic ruin
and experienced “National” stress
 Adolf Hitler was chancellor of Germany in
1933, then elected leader (the Fürher) in 1934
 The movement to sound was used by the Nazis
(Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party)
in a negative way
Triumph of the Will (1934)
Adolf Hitler
Citizen Kane (1941)
 Propaganda films – films which try to promote OR
disregard certain points of view, attitudes, beliefs
toward a specific cause, politics, or position.
 Joseph Goebbels created Reichsfilmkammer (Reich
Film Chamber) in 1933; made himself the sole
authority on what could and could NOT be shown on
the screen.
 Reich Cinema Law – No Jewish person could work in
Joseph Goebbels
the film industry
 Goebbels imported Hollywood “B” movies, but
wanted to re-invigorate German cinema
 Fritz Hippler’s The Eternal Jew –
 Kurt Gerron’s Theresienstadt
Fritz Hippler
 The foremost filmmaker for the
Third Reich
 The Triumph of The Will
 1:33:00 mark
 Olympia (released (1938))–
Documentary about the 1936
Olympics
00:38:30 mark
00:40:40 mark
 Many filmmakers, commissioned by
their governments, made anti-Nazi
propaganda films including Walt
Disney
 The Lambeth Walk – Charles A.
Ridley (UK)
 Disney’s - Hitler’s Children
 Frank Capra’s Why We Fight
 Charlie Chaplin – The Great Dictator
final speech (1940)
Walt Disney
 Benito Mussolini created The Ente Nazionale
Industrie Cinematografice (ENIC) in 1934
 Melodramatic films were very popular (soap
operas)
 Telefoni Bianchi films – Positive looks at family
and Italian society – Guido Brignone example
 Roberto Rossellini’s Roma, Citta Aperta (Open
City) – ushered in the Golden age of Italian
Neorealism
Roberto Rosselini
Benito Mussolini
 Rome, Open City tells the story of German occupied
Rome and the Italian Resistance fighters trying to hide
from the government
 Rod E. Geiger, a U.S. Army private stationed in Rome,
met Rossellini
 Geiger had worked for an American distributor which
helped to facilitate distribution and exhibition for
foreign films
 Federico Fellini recounts a different story – claims
Geiger was a fraud
 Developed mostly war films
 Yasujiro Ozu –
 There was a Father
 Japan invaded China –
 The Chinese film industry became a tool of the
Japanese propaganda films
 WW II ends on May 8, 1945 (Germany surrenders) –
September 2, 1945 (Japan surrenders)
 Movies had changed because the country had changed
 People questioned the “Dream Factory” of Hollywood
 Hollywood developed the “Problem film” – tackling
social issues like alcoholism, racism, and mental
illness
 Audiences saw the world AND the film industry in a
new light