Chapter 9: Cinema in an International Frame

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Chapter 9 Cinema in an International Frame
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The International Auteur Cinema

• Auteurism
• Film is an art
• The director as artist
• 1950s-1960s
• Emergence of art cinema centered on key
  international auteurs
• Michelangelo Antonioni
• Ingmar Bergman
• Luis Bunuel
• Federico Fellini
• Akira Kurosawa

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Michelangelo Antonioni

• Theme of lovelessness and alienation among the
  middle and upper classes
• Images that offer precise visual statements of
  this theme
• The Trilogy
• Lavventura
• La Notte
• Leclisse

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Ingmar Bergman

• Intense psychological focus on spiritual and
  emotional distress
• Close collaboration with cinematographers and
  stock company of actors
• The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries become
  classics of the art cinema
• The Trilogy
• Through a Glass Darkly
• Winter Light
• The Silence

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Luis Bunuel

• Film productions in Mexico, Spain, France, the
  U.S.
• Surealism
• Opposition to bourgeois morality
• Celebrating anarchy and impulse
• Un Chien Andalou a classic of surrealist film
• Film style assaults cinemas conventions of
• Time and space continuity
• Narrative logic

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Federico Fellini

• Turns away from the Italian cinemas tradition of
  realism
• Emphasizes spectacle, pageantry, and dreams
• Radically anti-realistic and theatrical style
• La Dolce Vita, 8 ½, Juliet of the Spirits,
  Amarcord

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Akira Kurosawa

• Best known for samurai films
• A major influence on American films
• 1948-1965 period of peak artistry
• Filmmaking tied to Japans post-war recovery
• Style based on rare combination of elements
• Montage editing, camera movement
• The long take, static and motionless compositions

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New Wave Filmmaking

• Film history is marked by periodic new waves
• Alternative film styles centered on new
  generations of filmmakers
• Italian neo-realism (1940s)
• French New Wave (1950s-1960s)
• New German Cinema (1970s)
• Hong Kong Cinema (1980s)

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Italian Neo-Realism

• Emerges in opposition to glossy studio filmmaking
• Aims to portray contemporary social conditions
  with focus on the lower classes
• Film technique would be simple, direct,
  unembellished
• Ossessione (1943) and Open City (1945)
• Tremendous influence and legacy
• Defines a fundamental approach to realism in
  cinema

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The French New Wave

• Andre Bazin and Cahiers du Cinema
• Film criticism and film directing
• Francois Truffaut, A Certain Tendency
• Auteurism
• Debut year 1959
• The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
• Breathless (Godard)
• Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais)
• Location shooting, fluid editing, and cinematic
  self-consciousness

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New German Cinema

• 1962 Oberhausen manifesto
• Call to redefine German cinema and break with
  existing traditions
• State funding of film production stimulates
  emergence of new auteurs
• Fassbinder and Hollywood melodrama
• Herzog and the mystical tradition
• Wenders and anti-narrative

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Hong Kong Cinema

• Tied to national anxieties about reunification
  with China
• Robust national cinema resists Hollywood
  influences
• John Woo
• Hyperviolence and cultural apocalypse
• Tsui Hark
• Synthesis of martial arts, costume and ghost
  genres