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Decline of Hollywood Cinema (1945-1960)

Hollywood had come to a point in time where different studios had monopolized on different types of films. A-movies, B-movies, cartoons, newsreel, etc. They made it such that others could not compete in the different types of movies. Each individual studio controlled a certain outlet. The different studios didn’t work in collaboration.

Due to the monopolization, the workers went on strike. That combined with post World War II atmosphere, death of FDR, and McCarthyism. Hollywood cinema lost its footing. The monopoly was broken up and this ended the Hollywood studio era. Studios like Warner Brothers were preparing to go into temporary shutdown.

While all this was happening in America, cinema was taking shape in Europe.

Italian Neorealism (Post World War II Italy)

This was a movement that started up in post war Italy. The nation was in rubbles was recovering. The studios they had had already been destroyed in the war. In order to move forward with their cinema they used what was available to them.

They began using poorer quality newsreel stock film. Shot without sets and on location. They had minimal or no artificial lighting. Mostly non-professional actors. As a result the films had a documentary look. It didn’t have the slick and highly polished look of Hollywood.

Later on their philosophy developed into this. They stood behind their view that this is how films need to be made. Be able to depict everyday people with everyday problems. Cesare Zavattini explained that they want to show things as they are and not what they seem. Depict the common man. Reveal everyday rather than the fictional. Show the real world as opposed to fantasy. Make the films look like reality.

One of Zavattini’s films titled “Bicycle Thief” demonstrated just that.

• The focus was on the working class
• Main character is the only known actor
• Most of the filming was done during daytime (due to lack of artificial lighting)
• No real sets. Everything is shot on location. The action isn’t really setup.
• Most of the film is done in long shot. This is to show the characters in the environment. Gives you the feel of being in the slice of life.
• You don’t feel like that the director is composing the shot. It’s opposite of Orson Wells.

This style of filmmaking was meant to be cost effective. After Italy had abandoned Neorealist filmmaking. Other nations had picked it up and had become quite popular. Nations like America, England, and India.

French New Wave (Late 1950s & 60s)

The French New Wave was started by film enthusiasts. These are people who were film student that became critics. They loved all types of film and came up with Auteur Theory. Starting off with documentaries, then moving on to short films, they soon started making full features.

Their attitude was that anything goes. Approaching film in a new sort of way. 1959 Started “Modernism”.

• Jean Luc Godard made Breathless
• Alain Resnais made Hiroshima Mon Amour
• Francois Truffaut made The 400 Blows

These guys truly loved American movies, but were ready to remake cinema.

One of the films that demonstrated the whole Modernism attitude was Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live) by Jean Luc Godard. When watching the film, you notice

• He mixes styles and techniques
• He broke away from conventional ways of filming. As the movie plays you are aware of the director’s process and know that it’s a movie.
• The technique is self conscience. Sometimes the technique itself is the subject as opposed to the character.

The film is nearly opposite that of Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” where Hitchcock made you feel that its real by immersing you into the story and characters. Here the director is making an anti-illusionary film. The directing reminds you that it’s not real.

• Hitchcock used a lot of shot/counter-shot and shot/reverse-shot editing when it came to character’s having conversation. The camera movement here instead was quite random. They used distancing devices. You don’t relate with the character like in “Rear Window” because of the lack of POV editing.
• The film itself is presented in “episodes”, giving the effect that life is experienced in pieces and not a whole.
• At one point in one of the “episodes” the camera leaves and starts looking into the street, leaving the character behind as if it just left her

What is a “modernist” film?

• The idea is for the technique to draw attention to itself.
• Reflexivity
• American influence
• There is not conventional morality/heros
• unconventional narrative structure
• Mixed genre
• Less pure entertainmen, and more about issues. Attention is given to psychology and society.