Films Flashcards
Where is Murnau from and what was his American debut?
Murnau was a German director and a leading figure in the phenomenon of German expressionism. His first American film was sunrise.
What is the plot of sunrise?
Women from the city attempts to lead a married man into rebellion against his family and move with her to the city. She tells him to drown his wife which he attempts but then couldn’t do it in the moment. He realises his love for his wife and pursues to reconcile and win her back. She, horrified doesn’t let him of this easily and eventually she caves in while they do a series of romantic gestures. They travel home from the city by boat where a storm hits and he gives his wife a bundle of tweed to cling onto. He wakes up ashore bewildered and his wife is nowhere to be seen, Presuming she had now drowned he heads home only to be greeted by the lady from the city presuming he did as she wanted. He attacks her and he is made aware that his wife was alive from holding onto the reeds. He goes straight to see her. Meanwhile the lady from the city’s carriage runs into the lake.
Expressionism
Expressionism explores the psychological state of the characters rather than the realistic representation of the world.
Identifiable through non-realistic sets, distorting and exaggerated angles, intense colour and a developed sense of terror and foreboding.
Expressionism gained popularity in 1920 Germany and served to contrast Hollywood films. It emerged due to the embargo of American films into Germany leading to as demand for German made films.
Critics described it as ‘anti-realist’.
Realism
Defined by its verisimilitude (believability) of characters and events. Characters often marginalised and makes ‘visible unseen groups and audible unheard voices’.
Identifiable through long takes of minimal editing. Extended depth and focus and panchromatic film to enhance the sense of normal, real life being present.
Content dealing with current issues.
Non professional actors used, established actors employed who had previously been stereotyped.
Marxism is often found to be the base of realism.
Hollywood Melodrama
Integration of music and drama. Music used to invoke moods and signal emotional themes.
Not goal orientated. Focus on the restoration of relationships. More circular than linear. Conflict occurs because of external agency or influence.
Concerns popular culture and mainstream audiences.
Overly exaggerated emotional depiction.
Deals with emotional conflict between family and sexual relationships and usually ends in a happy resolution, especially in American films , whereas European films often have a bittersweet conclusion.
Filmmakers employed closeups and acknowledged the power of editing in heighten the story.
Sunrise (Kammerspielfilme)
Sunrise has both expressionistic elements and realistic elements.
‘the expressionistic aesthetic allows an audience to accept the phycology of the characters. The realistic aesthetic allows an audience to trust in the reality of the films settings. Sunrise seems to leap of the screen and affect its audience with expressive and real cinematic techniques’(Amerikaner, 1996)
Kammeraspielfilme retains @the morbid psychological themes but casts them in a realistic way’ (cook, 1996)
