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COM 329, Contemporary Film
Study Guide
Chaudhuri textbook
Introduction, European Cinema, and Scandinavian Cinema
Introduction
-What is “world cinema”?
-Nation as imagined community, actively constructed in films
-What is “national cinema”?
-A nation-state’s involvement in cinema. . . a number of forms: (a) state investment (subsidies, film foundations); (b) state protection (e.g., quotas, taxes on imports); (c) industrial assistance (training institutes); (d) intervention (censorship); (e) national festivals; (f) cooperation with another state.
-Role of new technologies (e.g., VCRs, Internet) in accelerating flow of films internationally
-Cultural imperialism thesis vs. complex globalization of “Hollywood”
-International growth of the multiplex & blockbuster release strategy
-“Big Three” European competitive film festivals—Cannes, Venice, Berlin
-Academy Awards as Hollywood industry event and global spectacle only
-Art cinema (including “auteur” cinema) vs. Hollywood films
-Postmodernism (and film. . . including simulation, prefabrication, intertextuality, bricolage)
-The MTV aesthetic—postmodernism in television
-Post-colonialism and Eurocentric applications of Western theories (e.g., Marxism, feminism)
-Third Cinema theory—First Cinema (commercial, studio-based, Hollywood model); Second Cinema (European art cinema and auteur cinema); Third Cinema (cinema of militant collectives)
Chapter 1: European Cinema
-European cinema’s defining aesthetic as realism—Italian Neorealism, French documentary movement cinema verite, French New Wave “slice of life” approach
-Contemporary European cinema and realism—“the skin of the real,” “hyperrealism,” a disregard for realism (partly as reaction to the communist doctrine of Socialist Realism), surrealism, magic realism
-Contemporary British cinema—“kitchen sink” realism (including Mike Leigh’s films, such as Secrets and Lies), heritage pictures, comedies
-Black British cinema
-British Asian films (including Gurinder Chadha’s films)
-British Celtic cinema
-French Cinema du look—a negative term for style over (political) substance
-Cinema du look artists—Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva), Luc Besson, Leos Carax, Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro, Matthieu Kassovitz
-The New German Cinema movement—starting in the 1960s, with filmmakers such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders
-Post-wall German cinema—new generation of filmmakers who distance themselves from NGC’s overt socio-political critique; aim to make films that are accessible and liked by the German public
-Post-wall artists—Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), Wolfgang Becker (Good Bye Lenin!) (both by X Filme, Tykwer’s company)
-Ostalgie—nostalgia for the communist GDR (East Germany)
-Post-Franco Spanish cinema—after much censorship under General Franco, a new permissiveness in which filmmakers explore sexual identity politics
-Post-Franco artists—Alejandro Amenabar (The Sea Inside), above all Pedro Almodovar (All About My Mother, Talk to Her)
-Polish cinema—the great influence of the late Krzysztof Kieslowski (The Decalogue, Three Colours—Blue, White and Red)
-Czech film—a background of political trauma under Stalinism, the Prague Spring, and
the subsequent “normalization” (repression), then the 1989 “Velvet Revolution”
-Banning of films during “normalization”—including those surrealist animator Jan Svankmajer [surrealism declared illegal after WWII!]
-Jan Svankmajer (Little Otik, Dimensions of Dialogue)
-Czech historical films—e.g., Kolya
-Yugoslav war films—a background of catastrophic ethnic violence as communism collapsed
-Key example—Emir Kusturica’s Underground
Chapter 2: Scandinavian Cinema
-Scandinavia = Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland
-Pre-eminence of Sweden and Denmark during the silent film era--e.g., Victor Sjostrom, Mauritz Stiller
-Later, known for art cinema—e.g., Carl Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman
-Finally, in the 1990s, known for Dogme 95, the Danish film collective launched by Lars von Trier andThomas Vinterberg [and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, Kristian Levring]
-Kammerspiel theater tradition
-Role of state support in Scandinavia, includimg Nordic Council and its Film and Television Fund
-Dogme 95; the ten filmmaking rules (“Vow of Chastity”) drawn up in 25 minutes “amid gales of laughter”:
1. Location shooting using only props and sets found on site
2. Diegetic sound
3. Handheld cameras, with the cameras following the actors rather than actors
moving to where the camera is
4. Color film stock and natural lighting
5. Academy 35 mm format
6. Contemporary stories set in the “here and now”
7. No optical work or filters
8. No “superficial” action involving guns and murders
9. No genre movies
10. The director must not be credited
-Examples of Dogme 95 films—The Idiots (von Trier), Festen (Vinterberg, Close Analysis), Julien Donkey-Boy (Harmony Korine, U.S.)
-Questionably or “semi” Dogme 95—Breaking the Waves (von Trier; Close Analysis), Dancer in the Dark (von Trier)
-Dogme 95 as “back-to-basics” realism
-Swedish cinema after Ingmar Bergman—e.g., Lukas Moodysson (Together, Close Analysis)
-Finnish cinema—e.g., Aki Kaurismaki (his “Finland trilogy” and his newer Le Havre)