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Week 2 | Date: 1/25/12 | The Birth of an American Industry | Reading: Short History of Film 2
Winsor McCayEdwin PorterLois WeberRobert FlahertyErich von StroheimCharlie ChaplinBuster Keaton
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Winsor McCay (1867-1934)
Began painting circus signs and postersBegan illustrating criminal trials and sporting events in CincinnatiBecame a newspaper cartoonist (famous for Little Nemo)Inspired by Porter, he drew and produced Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend, which he took on the road and introduced
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Winsor McCay
His work met with confusion—audiences did not know how to see animationGertie the Dinosaur was his breakthrough—the first time audiences got it (he took it on the road as well).
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Winsor McCay
Gertie was a cultural breakthrough; suddenly audiences realized they were not being fooled. Appearing in person, McCay displayed tall stacks of original drawings before making the extinct reptile come to life on a screen behind him. His live performances consisted of a dialogue between the animator and his creation. The audience stared in amazement as they realized no magical wires or mirrors could create a moving dinosaur before their eyes. Although Gerties did not speak, she responded instantly to every one of McCay’s commands. She charmed audierices with a distinctly demure personality. She was comic and coy. She was alive' She was the first true animated cartoon character. (Film 100)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Winsor McCay
Gertie the Dinosaur and Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Edwin Porter (1869-1941)
Born in Italy.“Porter’s clever method of snipping and splicing celluloid strips into coherent story-pictures became the foundation of film editing” (Film 100).Early in his career illegally duplicated Melies films.Firsts: first night filming, first time-lapse, first 360 degree panorama, first full-fledged documentary: The Life of an American Fireman (1902).
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Edwin Porter | The Great Train Robbery
Notables:An identifiable Western.Use of title cards.Huge cast of 40!Shot in three days.A recognizable narrative structure.The beginning of modern editing—cross-cutting.Caused a sensation on first screening.
Watch The Great Train Robbery on YouTube
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois Weber (1879-1939)
"Along with D.W. Griffith, Lois Weber was the American cinema’s first genuine auteur, a filmmaker involved in all aspects of production and one who utilized the motion picture to put across her own ideas and philosophies.”—Anthony Slide
About Lois Weber (IMDB)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois WeberFilm History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois WeberFilm History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois WeberFilm History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois WeberFilm History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois Weber
Watch Hypocrites on YouTube
Film History
Lois Weber's HYPOCRITES, was a bold indictment of political corruption, the church, and the business world. Much of the film has a pictorial quality. Many of the scenes are carefully composed, to make visually beautiful patterns. In a dual role, the lead actor plays a monk who sees the hypocrisy of the world and a minister who is stoned to death by his congregation for unveiling a statue of "The Naked Truth." As film historian Kevin Brownlow relates, "Audiences flocked to see the nudity and were then obliged to sit through the moral lesson." Critics were astonished. Variety proclaimed, "After seeing it, you can't forget the name of Lois Weber!" –from an IMDB Post
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty (1884-1951) Film History
Key WorksNanook of the North (1922)Moana (1925)Man of Aran (1934)Louisiana Story (1948)
British filmmaker John Grierson coined the term “documentary” to characterize Nanook.
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the NorthDavid Lavery “Nanook of the North.” The Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature. Ed. Alan R. Velie and Jennifer McClinton-Temple. Detroit: Facts on File, 2007. 242.
Film History
Nanook of the North: A Story of Life and Love in the Actual Arctic was the first film of American documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty (1884-1951). Coming as it did less than a decade after the overtly racist silent film milestone Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915), Flaherty’s film, funded by the French fur company Revillon Frères and distributed by Pathé, presented a stark contrast: a humanistic, poignant, dramatic, starkly beautiful, and sympathetic look at an Inuit hunter’s struggle to survive in an inhospitable environment. Described by film historian David A. Cook as “the first sustained encounter between the civilized world and the Eskimo, outside of professional ethnographic circles” (A History of Narrative Film, 4th
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the North Film History
Edition, 191), Nanook was made for $50,000 and was a box-office success. Flaherty knew a great deal about his subject from long service in the far north as abusinessman and engineer, but Nanook, like many of the great documentaries, was anything but an exact record. Nanook’s family in the film, for example, is a fictional construct. The dramatic capture of a seal, killed by Nanook through a breathing hole in the ice, was, in fact, staged for the camera. The suspenseful ending, in which Nanook struggles to find life-saving shelter, was completely staged. (In reality, Nanook would indeed die of starvation two years after the film’s completion.) A natural storyteller but a not so authentic anthropologist, Flaherty was determined to craft his tale of a noble savage even if he had to lie to tell the truth as he perceived it. Nanook nevertheless captures, with
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the North Film History
admiration and without condescension, a multitude of valid and engaging ethnographic moments in the lives of his subjects: Nanook’s “son,” suffering from astomach-ache, actually enjoying the taste of castor oil; Nanook’s rapid construction of an igloo, complete with an ice window, before our very eyes (though one wall of the bigger-than-life-sized enclosure was left unfinished to allow for proper lighting and camera access); the collective vanquishing of a two-ton walrus; the “family” settling down for a night’s sleep, naked, wrapped in furs. Silent film, theorist Béla Balázs argued in his Theory of Film, specialized in the art of “physiognomy”: the ability to simultaneously reveal the wonder of the face and the inner workings of the soul. Nanook is full of faces: the rich countenance of Nanook himself, the extraordinary muzzles of his team of huskies, the face of nature itself.
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the North Film History
The Library of Congress has designated Nanook a “culturally significant” work worthy of preservation in The National Film Registry.
Further Reading
Barsam, Richard Meran. The Vision of Robert Flaherty: The Artist as Myth and Filmmaker. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1988. Flaherty, Robert J. “How I Filmed Nanook of the North: Adventures with the Eskimos to Get Pictures of Their Home Life and Their Battles with Nature to Get Food. The Walrus Fight.” http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/23_rf1_2.htm
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the North
Watch Nanook in its entirety on YouTube
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957)
Born in AustriaOne of many European expatriates in Hollywood
Most famous for:
Foolish Wives (1922)Greed (1924)Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Erich von Stroheim | Greed
Newsreel: Von Stroheim Directs Greed
Watch the last three minutes of Greed
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin
Born in London.First performed on stage at age 8.Raised in orphanages and boarding schools.Discovered by Mack Sennett.First movie millionaire.Chaplin merchandise popular for 25 years.Formed United Artists with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith.Stayed silent even into the sound era.Never an American citizen, was denied reentry to the US in 1952 because of back taxes and Communist sympathies, and “subversive morals.”20 year late career exile.Knighted in 1975.
Film History
Chaplin at the IMDB
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin
“Chaplin’s career peaked at the perfect time. After the 1890s, the novelty of moving images was gone and throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, audiences were still viewing movies as sideshow entertainment. . . . . But Chaplin lent the sheer force of his personality to the medium. His mesmerizing expressions and enigmatic mannerisms gave cinema its most infectious quality. To millions of people abroad, his radiant face was the first they had ever seen in a motion picture. In America, his outlandish performance were responsible for the word of mouth that lured reluctant parents and eager children to a theater for the first time, and his indelible characterizations made moviegoing a habit.”—Film 100
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin: Key Works
The Kid (1921)The Gold Rush (1925)City Lights (1931)Modern Times (1936)The Great Dictator (1940)Limelight (1952)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie ChaplinThe Gold Rush (1925)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin
Easy Street (watch entire film on YouTube)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin
The deeply personal nature of Chaplin’s movies revealed motion pictures as a form of expression, and with each new film his admirers witnessed anevolution. As a performer Chaplin continued to add new meaning to the persona of the Tramp. As a filmmaker, Chaplin seemed to follow his muserather than trends of the film industry. when studios had abandoned short film for feature lengths, Chaplin continued to pump out two-reel comedies until he had exhausted the form. When talkies took over after 1929, Chaplin continued with pantomime in City Lights and Modem Times (1936), well into the sound era. Each picture charted Chaplin’s journey into new territory, and this had a significant effect on artists, who would now see film as an avenue of self-exploration.—Film 100
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Buster Keaton (1895-1966)
“Keaton, even more than Chaplin, knew how to create a tragedy of the object.”—Andre Bazin
From a vaudeville family.His father threw him all over the stage, prompting Harry Houdini to call him “Buster.”His start in the movies was with the infamous Fatty Arbuckle.
Film History
Keaton at the IMDB
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Buster Keaton (1895-1966)
Best known for his “ability to mix trick photography, unprecedented stunt work, and elaborate prop gags in a way never again matched” (Film 100).Career went into sharp decline due, in part, to his heavy drinking. He ended up in a mental hospital in 1935.
Film History
Keaton at the IMDB
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Buster Keaton: Key Works
Our Hospitality (1923)Sherlock, Jr. (1924)The Navigator (1925)The General (1927)Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
Watch The General.
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton Montage
Keaton Stunts
Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. (entire
film)
Film History
