Film Genres and Movements

Anime: Anime is a form of animation which became popular in Japan during the 1940s,although the earliest film dates from around 1917. It borrows its characteristics heavily fromJapanese comic books and graphic novels known as ‘manga’. Notable film techniques includecharacters drawn with large eyes and exaggerated facial features; anime are often highlycoloured, and include heavy use of chiaroscuro and other lighting techniques. Anime narrativesare varied; martial arts, cyberpunk, fantasy, and science fiction are common, as are surrealdepictions of dystopic or utopian societies. Many films are embedded with philosophical ideas,both Japanese and Western. Often, Anime is serialised in TV-length episodes. Notable auteursinclude Kenzo Masaoka from the Shochiku production house (1930s-1940s), Osamu Tezuka andhis production house Mushi Productions (creator of Astro Boy, 1960s), and the contemporaryfilms of Hayao Miyazaki and his production house Studio Ghibli. Notable films include Akira(1988), Ghost in the Shell (1995), Princess Mononoke (1997), Cowboy Bebop (2001), SpiritedAway (2001), Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), and Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie (2005).

Cinema Novo: otherwise known as ‘New Cinema’, Cinema Novo is a film movement whichbegan in Brazil in the 1960s. Anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism are the central ideas whichconstitute its social and political core. The filmmakers wanted to portray the realism of everydayBrazilian life, from the poverty in rural areas, to the slum-dwelling urban poor. They combineddisparate techniques from Italian Neo-realism (utilising handheld cameras and non-professionalactors to portray the aforementioned realism) and French Nouvelle Vague (employing an abrupt,discontinuous editing, jump cuts, muffled dialogue and symbolism to alienate the viewer) inorder to encourage social and political awareness, whilst maintaining a strong avant-gardeaesthetic for a unique national cinema in opposition to mainstream Western cinematic traditions.Notable auteurs include Carlos Diegues, Glauber Rocha, Ruy Guerra and Nelson Pereira dosSantos. Notable films include Rio Zona Norte (‘Rio Northern District’, 1957), Deus e o Diabo naTerra do Sol (‘Black God, White Devil’, 1964), Terra em Transe (‘Entranced Earth’, 1967) andJoanna Francesca (1973).

Dogme 95: ‘Dogme 95’ (Dogma 95) is a film movement that was initiated in 1995 by theDanish directors Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. It involved both directors signing a‘Vow Of Chastity’ which set out a manifesto relating to filmmaking techniques and production.These guidelines include: using only a handheld camera; using only natural lighting and colour;music should only be included if it’s diegetic; there must be no special effects, either in terms ofcamera lens tricks or animation or in terms of exaggerated actions such as car crashes orshootings; no props are allowed unless they are natural to the location of the film; the directormust not be credited; and the temporal and spatial world of the film must only be filmable, i.e.the here and now, not the past, the future, outer space, etc. This highly naturalised way ofcreating films (whilst never followed exactly to the letter) was created primarily to enable anantidote to the high-budget, high-action productions which were more common fare. It aimed fora re-engagement with how people viewed film art, and desired to focus more on the performanceand the story rather than the camera tricks and the special effects; simplifying the form, and

improving the content. Notable directors include Lars Von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Jean-MarcBarr, Kristian Levring and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen. Notable films include Festen (TheCelebration, 1998, Dogme #1), Idioterne (The Idiots, 1998, Dogme #2), Julien Donkey-Boy(1999, Dogme #6) and Elsker Dig For Evigt (Open Hearts, 2002, Dogme #28).

European Avant-garde: Avant-garde film began across the continent of Europe in the 1920s.Cinema in this period began to be seen as a potential location for art, whereas before it wasmerely considered to be popular entertainment. Artists who were involved particularly in theDadaist and Surrealist movements in the visual arts, were attracted to cinema and its potentialsfor exploring art through moving images. Avant-garde, a French term meaning ‘the advanceguard’ relates to a small group of artists who move away from traditional conventions in favourof exploring new avenues, or subverting the old ones. Symbolism and montage are key, as is anembracement of the absurd. Very little consideration is given to chronological flow. Lighting andmise-en-scene are essential, and the use of superimposition, rhythmic editing, close ups andnarrative experimentation are all part of the Avant-garde and surrealist films. Notable figuresinclude Jean Epstein, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dali and AbelGance. Notable films include La Roue (The Wheel, 1923), Coeur Fidèle (Faithful Heart, 1923),Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1929), and Le Sang D’un Poet (The Blood of a Poet,1930).

Film Noir: Noir films became popular in America in the 1940s and 1950s. A lot of the materialfor the films came from Pulp Fiction novels, cheap crime thrillers with ambiguous morality,cynical but ultimately good-hearted detectives and femme fatales, women who were beautiful,sexual, cold-blooded and dangerous. Film Noir (or ‘black films’) as the name suggest, arecentred around sharp lighting and shadow, chiaroscuro being the most used technique. Sets andlocation are important, and usually consist of urban locations, from the sinister suburbia whichhides seedy gambling dens and pornography rings, to the coldness of the crime-ridden city.Symbolism also plays a significant role, perhaps more because of the film censorship prevalentat the time. Narratives often lack closure, which reflect the disillusionment and decaying moralsof a society coming out of the Depression and into World War 2. Film Noir were also notoriousfor being star vehicles. Notable directors include John Huston, Otto Preminger, Howard Hawks,Billy Wilder and early Orson Welles. Notable films include The Maltese Falcon (1941), FallenAngel (1945), The Big Sleep (1946), Key Largo (1948), and Touch of Evil (1958).

French Nouvelle Vague/New Wave: In France during the 1950s, a cinema magazine wasproduced entitled ‘Cahiers du cinema’, in which new theories of film art and production wereexplored. Central to the ideas of film propounded by this magazine was ‘auteur theory’, or thetheory of the author. It was argued that each director was in fact an artist of the film-text, and assuch could produce a distinct personal style beyond the conventional plot-driven, stalely editedfilms that were otherwise popular. The Nouvelle Vague directors sought to make intelligentcinema that, through the use of specific techniques, would alienate the audience from the filmworld and thus enable them to look at the mise-en-scene and the film techniques critically. Thiswas achieved by voice-overs which would explain what would happen at the end of the film,undermining the narrative and thus limiting its importance. Also, sometimes the characters of thefilm would address the audience directly to explain their motives for the same reason of limiting

the importance of the plot. The disunity, lack of strict editing, almost home-made feel of thesefilms were all designed to show to the audience the art and artifice of film. These directors wereinfluenced significantly by Italian Neo-realism and the avant-garde movement in Europe.Similarly, they praised many Film Noir directors for their distinctively styled films. Techniquesfavoured by the Nouvelle Vague directors include long tracking shots, jump cuts, improvisedacting and rapid change of shots. Handheld cameras were used frequently as budgets wereusually low, and sets, props and locations were anything that happened to be around at the time.Notable directors include Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol. Notablefilms include Le Beau Serge (Beautiful Serge, 1958), Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows,1959), À Bout de Souffle (Breathless, 1960) and Vivre Sa Vie (My Life To Live, 1962).Associated with the Nouvelle Vague movement were a group of directors known as the RiveGauche (the ‘Left Bank’). While the Nouvelle Vague directors had strong backgrounds in filmand film theory, the Left Bank directors were often visual artists or came from art history orliterature backgrounds. As such, their films experimented more with narrative rather thanrejected it outright, furthermore they did not have the same reverence for American auteurs asthe Nouvelle Vague did, and they adhered much less to the auteur theory; Left Bank directorsoften collaborated for films. Notable figures of the Left Bank include Alain Resnais, AgnesVarda and Chris Marker. Notable films include Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Hiroshima, My Love,1959), L’anneé Dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad, 1960) and La Jetée (The Pier,1962).

German Expressionism: Similar to the European avant-garde and the Soviet Montagemovements, German Expressionism in film was related strongly to modernist movements in art.It also began in the 1920s, and was often filmed with low budgets because of the depressedeconomy. Films of this era often dealt with dark themes such as madness, and were precursors ofthe horror genre. Architecture was also a common focus at this time, and techniques includetheatrical lighting, dramatic shadowing, heavy symbolism, and distorted sets and surrealistacting. Notable directors include Fritz Lang, Paul Wegener, F.W. Murnau and Arthur Robison.Notable films include Das Kabinett des Doctkor Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, 1920)Nosferatu (1922), Schatten (Shadows, 1923), Metropolis (1927) and M (1931).

Indian Parallel cinema: This movement is so-called because it was created as an alternative toBollywood cinema; Parallel cinema deals with issues and contains techniques starkly distinctfrom popular cinema. It began in the 1940s, but reached it’s peak in the 1960s when a number ofdirectors became frustrated with the whimsical music and fairytale plots of Bollywood and itslack of basis in reality. As such, Parallel cinema became known for strong realism, starkdepictions of everyday life, a lack of music and a corresponding naturalness to the mise-en-scene. The directors became more like auteurs, and as such, began to experiment with cameraangles, lighting and so on. The movement continued through the 1970s and 80s where it becamemore popular and was, by the 1990s, subsumed into mainstream cinema. Notable directorsinclude Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Bimal Roy, Shyam Benegal, AdoorGopalakrishnan and Govind Nihalani. Notable films include Nagarik (1952), Devi (1960),Swayamvaram (1972), Aakrosh (1980), Elippathayam (1981) and Ardh Satya (1983).

Italian Neo-realism: Italian Neo-realism was a movement which lasted around a decade, fromthe early 1940s to the early 1950s. However, its directors, techniques and ideas have influencedmany filmmakers right up until the present day. The neo-realists, as the name suggests, wereinterested in capturing the grim reality of everyday life in wartime Italy. The poverty anddecaying morals of Italian society was widespread, and yet there were no portrayals of it in thecultural media of the time. It was this disdain of the lack of realism in popular cinema that theNeo-realists began making their films. While at the time, these films were not popular orsuccessful, the directors were later acclaimed for their rawness and purity of technique, theinfluence of which can be seen in movements as diverse as Nouvelle Vague, Cinema Novo,Indian Parallel Cinema and Dogme 95. These techniques include handheld camerawork, non-professional actors and non-literary dialogue, realistic settings, natural lighting and minimalprops and frequently children as central characters. The actions portrayed were usually realisticand mundane, highlighting the hard labour of the people, the squalid conditions in which theyworked and lived, and the associated disintegration of morals and thus of society. Notableauteurs in this period include Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. Notablefilms include Ossessione (Obsession, 1943), Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City, 1945), Ladridi Biciclette (The Bicycle Thieves, 1948) and Umberto D. (1952).

New German cinema: This movement in cinema stretched until the 1980s, and began in 1962when a group of young directors signed a pact named the Oberhausen Manifesto which statedsimply that ‘The old cinema is dead. We believe in the new.’ These young filmmakers rejectedthe cinema of the time which was mainly concerned with popular light entertainment, anddemanded a cinematic culture based in intellectualism and artistic innovation rather thancommercial factors. Furthermore, this movement was one of the first to actively encourage theparticipation of female filmmakers, and advocate for the independence of women in society.These films were also usually quite critical of the social and political environment of Germanypost-war. Many films dealt with the issues of public amnesia and the restriction of civil rights inGermany during the 1970s. Early New German films were often made with small budgets. Whilethere were not necessarily any uniting techniques which were specifically New German, theyborrowed significantly from the Nouvelle Vague movement. New German cinema was bornperhaps more out of a sense of common ideals rather than commonality in filmmakingtechniques. Notable directors include Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, WernerHerzog, Alexander Kluge, Jean-Marie Straub and Margarethe von Trotta. Notable films includeAbschied von gestern (Yesterday Girl, 1966), Summer In The City (1970), The Great Ecstasy ofWoodcarver Steiner (1974), Angst essen Seele auf (Fear Eats The Soul, 1974), and Die verloreneEhre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, 1975).

New Iranian cinema: Beginning in the late 1960s, and continuing in different forms until thepresent day, films of the New Iranian cinema movement are embedded with political, intellectualand social ideas. After the Iranian Revolution and the subsequent crackdown on cultural formsthrough tough censorship laws, film directors in Iran who wanted their work shown locally havehad to negotiate this terrain carefully. As such, a major technique of these auteurs is the use ofsymbolism. In particular, censorship relating to the presentation of female figures is very strict,so these directors often use children as central characters and embed in their actions severallayers of meaning. Mise-en-scene and the framing of scenes are often of central concern to New

Iranian cinema; the heavy influence of poetry and art is evident in many directors’ works. Lifeand landscape are imbued with a fragile beauty that pervades even the most mundane momentsin time and place, and narratives are kept simple in order to portray this beauty in the smallestdetails. With the increase in popularity of New Iranian cinema overseas, more and moredirectors appear to flout the rules of Iranian censorship completely, and thus rarely, if ever, havetheir films shown in Iran itself. Notable directors include Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, MajidMadiji, Bahman Ghobadi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Notable films include The White Balloon(1995), Gabbeh (Persian Rug, 1996), Children of Heaven (1997), The Wind Will Carry Us(1999), and Kandahar (2001).

Soviet Montage: Soviet Montage was arguably the first movement in cinema history. It occurredaround the 1920s, when film was beginning to be thought of in artistic terms. There was muchdebate over the elements of film, and which of these elements would deem it unique over othervisual art forms. Inevitably, the ‘editing’ of a film was considered the director’s key tool ofmanipulation. As such, Soviet Montage argued against the continuity editing used by the makersof popular films, and instead (as the name suggests) created films heavy with montage. Thesemontages were generally made up of a series of independent shots, sometimes with a directrelation, but often with symbolic meanings. These shots were used to create a tone or a mood inthe film beyond the temporally and spatially bound fare of the normal narrative structure. A keydirector of this movement, Sergei Eisenstein, listed five different methods of montage. Thesewere; metric montage (cutting between cuts based on a set time cycle); rhythmic montage(cutting betweens shots based on the timing and pace of the actions on screen); tonal montage(cuttings between shots based on the tone, or emotional meanings the director wishes to elicitfrom the audience; associational montage (cutting betweens shots based on an amalgamation ofthe above three montages in order to gain maximum reaction from the audience and alsomaximum abstractness); and finally intellectual montage (cutting between shots wherein oneshot contains the action involved with the plotline, and the second shot contains an action whichadds symbolism to the first shot). Notable directors include Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov,Vsevolod Pudovkin and Dziga Vertov. Notable films include Battleship Potemkin (1925),Oktyabr (October, 1927), The End of St Petersburg (1927) and Man With A Movie Camera(1929).1