Final 1 Movies

Question 1

L’avventura

director/date/themes

Answer 1

Michelangelo Antonioni
1960
subjective time, disconnect from reality, no cause/effect, dialogue unimportant, auteur, time of image, missing female lead, disconnect with characters, no closure, boredom, temporality, alienation to modern life, deserted

Question 2

Psycho

director/date/themes

Answer 2

Alfred Hitchcock
1960
playing with time, ambiguity, open space, auteur, harsh lighting, raw contrast, repeating crew, personal but not anti-classical, voyeurism, eye motif

Question 3

Psycho

background/exhibition/differences between book and film

Answer 3

background: hitchcock buys book rights, paramount says no, hitchcock produces it himself but gives paramount distribution and gets to keep 60% of revenue and creative freedom, film made
exhibition: people not allowed in late, very influential/instant success, some criticized it first but then apologized, heavily analyzed by film historians, changed film criticism

difference between book and film:

book: begins w/ Norman, , Norman is unlikable and older, book “cheats”
novel: starts with Marion, Norman is young and sympathetic, movie doesn’t cheat

Question 4

Black Sunday

director/date/themes

Answer 4

Mario Bava
1960
internationalism, auteur, italian new wave, slow, long camera takes, impossible space, limited editing, use red/blue special effects, take on new genre, successful more abroad than in italy, low budget but looks high budget, international co-producers

Question 5

Breathless

director/year/themes/distribution

Answer 5

Jean-Luc Godard
1960
playful, chaotic, open ended, jump cuts, self-reflexive, auteur, complex yet transparent characters, film for film movers, parody, ambiguous ending, modern

distribution: loved by critics and audiences (rare) very successful

Question 6

Onibaba

director/date/themes

Answer 6

Kaneto Shindo
1964
allegorical, national identity, the bomb, repetition, guilt, long shots, jump cuts, less coherent, modernity, style over production value, the mask, identity, ambiguity

Question 7

Persona

director/date/themes

Answer 7

Ingmar Bergman
1966
ambiguity, face/eyes/hands/mirror themes, doubling, the mask, dual identity, balance of power, motherhood, class struggle, intimacy, auteur, modern cinema

Question 8

Gentle de Poe (director and plot)

Answer 8

Michelangelo Antonini film about the italian country

Question 9

400 Blows

Answer 9

Francois Truffaut about ambiguity, long shots, tracking shots, outdoors