Films watched Flashcards
Griffith: Death’ marathon 1913
In a film produced in 1913 by D.W Griffith, the plot is a nice guy who wants to get with this girl and he wins her over and marries her. But his gambling addiction gets bad years later and he takes money from the business when his friend notices he races to go help him, but now the main guy is considering suicide, and now it’s a race sequence. The crosscutting in the film shows the intensity and what exactly the other main character is doing, especially in the race sequence in the end. Griffith also places the heroine by the pretty nature and pond to show feminity and fertility with the mise-en-scene.
A man there was
This film released in Sweden in 1917, is based on a poem by Henrik Ibsen and directed by victor Sjostrom who also played the main character. The plot is about revenge after Terje Vigen’s town lost access to food because of the war and he is imprisoned by the enemy when trying to retrieve food for his family and town. When he finally made it home his family had died, and when he was given a chance to kill the enemy captain that imprisoned him he didn’t. One main motif throughout this film was him outside his house in different moments.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The film was made in Germany in 1919 and was directed by Robert Wiene. The film starts in the present and then gets put in the story of Dr. Caligari and the sleepwalker and it is a horror film with murders and a mystery to find out who is doing these murders. We then as an audience find out that the story is false and is made up by Francis who is in a asylum. This film is showing the mistrust of authority but then shows you can trust the authority in the end. The mise-en-scene of the film is twisty uncentered and not parallel lines.
Battleship Potemkin
This film was made in Russia in 1925 and was directed by Sergei Eisenstein and was a film about the first uprising against the Russian government that started on a battleship. The film is filled with people who are well off and poor both wanting a revolution and sailors being in the same type of outfits. This film was an example of montage editing and un continuity editing that cause a tense moment and makes the audience aware of the editing and to focus on a certain thing. Characters were based on how they looked, the doctor was chosen on his looks, and certain character types wore the same outfits.
Easy Street
A silent comedy film from the USA in 1917 and was directed and played by Charles Chaplin. The film’s plot is about the derelict getting a job at the police station and helping them in the street because all the police keep getting beat up. Charles then fights the bully in a long chase scene and then his girl gets kidnapped and he fights; in the end, the street gets cleaned up. One of the visual puns was the bottle of milk spilling on Charles’s pants; he thought the baby was peeing on him.
Safety Last
A silent Comedy Film made in the USA in 1923 was directed by Harold Lloyd. The plot is him lying saying he can do more and stuff than he can and ultimately has to climb a building for his store to raise publicity.
Sherlock Junior
A silent Comedy Film made in the USA, 1924 by Buster Keaton who also played the main character. The plot is about the main character trying to get money for a gift for his girl and the rival stealing a watch to get a bigger gift for the girl. The film then goes into a dream version of the main character a detective trying to take his rival down. One gag is the main character trying to find money and ladies losing money and him giving his found money to him.
