midterm review quiz q&a

Question 1

T/F? early silent films avoided adaptations of famous operas and shakespearean plays. The absence of sound made such subject-matter impossible to adapt.

Answer 1

false

Question 2

T/F? The Great Train Robbery (1903) marked the beginning of cinema of narrative integration, because it was the first time that the specific details of characters mattered a lot for the enjoyment of the audience.

Answer 2

false

Question 3

Studios controlled films from production, through distribution, to exhibition from the rise of Hollywood until the 1948 US v. Paramount decision. This business practice is known as __.

Answer 3

vertical integration

Question 4

T/F? In or around 1909, filmmakers began to put the camera slightly closer to the actors so that their facial expressions would be more visible.

Answer 4

true

Question 5

T/F? The earliest animated films used stop-motion filming of physical objects rather than hand drawing cartoons frame by frame.

Answer 5

true

Question 6

T/F? Film that could capture and record natural colors was not invented until after the silent era, so silent film could only rely on tinting, toning, and hand painting to add color.

Answer 6

false

Question 7

Which of the following early cameras also doubled as a projector?

Answer 7

cinematographe

Question 8

T/F? The language barrier of intertitles prevented silent films from being a global phenomenon.

Answer 8

false

Question 9

T/F? Many early westerns were filmed on the outskirts of New York City.

Answer 9

true

Question 10

Matinee idol refers to ______.

Answer 10

a male star with romantic appeal to draw female audience in the daytime while the men were at work

Question 11

The term “cliffhanger” comes from the silent film era, and specifically originated from __.

Answer 11

serial films

Question 12

“Actualities” are films which depict ____.

Answer 12

scenes from daily life

Question 13

T/F? Actress and producer, Alla Nazimova lived openly in Hollywood with another actress. However, her silent films never approached an open acknowledgement of gay identity.

Answer 13

false

Question 14

T/F? The nickelodeon was the name given to the huge, fancy new movie theatres built in the 1910s as the feature-length film became increasingly popular.

Answer 14

false

Question 15

D.W. Griffith’s rise to prominence changed the expectations for a film director in many ways. Which of the following is NOT an accurate example of those changes?

Answer 15

Directors became increasingly dissatisfied working with the same actors on multiple films and began to insist on more frequent turnover in the studios’ stables of actors

Question 16

Which of the following was NOT an early silent film genre?

Answer 16

comic book films

Question 17

Étienne Jules Marey provided an important precursor of motion pictures with his invention of _____, which exposed twelve images around the edge of a circular glass plate that made a single revolution in one second.

Answer 17

photographic gun

Question 18

T/F? During the 1920s, black roles in mainstream Hollywood films were minor and still based on stereotypes.

Answer 18

true

Question 19

Edwin S. Porter’s Life of an American Fireman (1903) is notable for

Answer 19

The successive shots that show the same action from 2 vantage points

Question 20

T/F? The United States was the only country to have significant production of serial films in the 1910s.

Answer 20

false

Question 21

Which of the following is NOT a reason why film actors finally started to become celebrities in the 1910s?

Answer 21

Mary Pickford’s marriage to Douglas Fairbanks was the first Hollywood event to attract public attention to the lives of movie stars

Question 22

What did the German brothers Max and Emil Skladanowsky invent?

Answer 22

bioscop, projects moving pictures

Question 23

T/F? The close-ups and point-of-view shots found in films before 1905 were mainly used as momentary stylistic flourishes rather than as systematic storytelling devices.

Answer 23

true

Question 24

Who is Maciste?

Answer 24

popular strongman character who first appeared in Cabiria (1914)

Question 25

What is a key reason why Italian filmmakers were the first to produce epic films on massive scales?

Answer 25

low cost of labor in Italy

Question 26

T/F? Between 1911 and 1925 half of all films copyrighted in the U.S. were written by women.

Answer 26

true

Question 27

T/F? The popularity of the Edison Kinetoscope was brief, and Edison soon built the Vitascope as a rival to the Lumière brothers’ Cinématographe.

Answer 27

true

Question 28

Which of the following statements is NOT true about filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché?

Answer 28

Guy-Blaché co-founded United Artists

Question 29

Who was the camera operator best known for many years of collaboration with D.W. Griffith?

Answer 29

Billy Bitzer

Question 30

T/F? During the U.S. nickelodeon boom, most films shown in nickelodeons came from abroad.

Answer 30

true

Question 31

Which country rivaled the United States in film output in the first decade of silent cinema, even surpassing American movie making in quantity of movies made for a period?

Answer 31

france

Question 32

T/F? The Lumière brothers were so convinced by the long term appeal of motion pictures that in 1905 they sold their photography business to pursue films full time.

Answer 32

false

Question 33

The Great Train Robbery (1903) featured colored accents on clothing, like a dress or a bandana. How would such specific items be colored in the silent era?

Answer 33

hand coloring

Question 34

What is a race film?

Answer 34

Films aimed primarily at black audiences and typically produced by smaller production companies outside Hollywood

Question 35

T/F? At a time when naturalistic acting was the norm in filmmaking, Alice Guy-Blaché encouraged her performers to pursue a more exaggerated style.

Answer 35

false

Question 36

The single biggest factor in the decline of French filmmaking from its early dominance was ___.

Answer 36

devastation of WW1

Question 37

Which of the following is NOT an achievement credited to Lois Weber?

Answer 37

She ascended to an executive role at Metro Pictures, a picture described at the time as “the most responsible job ever held by a woman.”

Question 38

Since 1897, the Edison company tried to force its competitors out of business by

Answer 38

suing them for patent infringement

Question 39

What is the Hollywood studio system (as it came to be in the silent era)?

Answer 39

The method which broke down the production of films into a sort of assembly line with writers, designers, directors, and editors all piecing projects together

Question 40

T/F? By 1922, just eight major studios accounted for close to 80% of all domestic film production in the United States.

Answer 40

true

Question 41

What caused the nickelodeon boom around 1905?

Answer 41

The emergence of film exchanges, which rented movies to the exhibitors who built the nickelodeons. Easily access to a large quantity of films allowed exhibitors to cycle through many films and keep the audiences coming back

Question 42

Which of the following was NOT a response to the release of Birth of a Nation (1915)?

Answer 42

Oscar Micheaux, the most important black filmmaker of the era, was forced to move to France to continue his career

Question 43

More popular in Europe and most notably employed in the US by Charlie Chaplin, the practice of carefully crafting an arrangement of space and action within a mostly static frame is referred to as ___.

Answer 43

staging in depth

Question 44

T/F? The first successful public display of film projection was done in Berlin by the Skladanowsky brothers.

Answer 44

true

Question 45

Georges Méliès is remembered as a pioneer for his ____.

Answer 45

trick films with special effects

Question 46

The first known example of a moving camera can be found in ____.

Answer 46

Panorama of the Grand Canal (1896)

Question 47

Roughly how long were the films screened at the Grand Cafe in Paris by the Lumière brothers in 1895?

Answer 47

between 5 seconds and 1 minute

Question 48

T/F? Compared to most of Hollywood history after the development of sound films, women were far more prevalent at all levels of the industry in the silent era.

Answer 48

true

Question 49

Why does The Sprinkler Sprinkled (1895) stand out from the other Lumière films shown at the Grand Cafe in 1895?

Answer 49

it attempts to tell a comical story

Question 50

Which of the following was NOT a necessary precondition for the invention of cinema?

Answer 50

The ability to encode an optical soundtrack directly on a filmstrip

Question 51

Which of the following best explains the founding of United Artists?

Answer 51

it was formed in response to Hollywood Studios’ strict control over directors

Question 52

Who was the most popular animated cartoon character of the 1920s?

Answer 52

felix the cat

Question 53

The increasing use of close-ups, cut-ins, and intertitles as a means of presenting increasingly complex stories came about in which age of silent film history?

Answer 53

silent cinema’s transitional age

Question 54

The Italian epic Cabiria (1914) is noteworthy for its _____.

Answer 54

elaborate tracking shots and camera movement

Question 55

Which coloring process added color only to the “whites” of black and white film?

Answer 55

tinting

Question 56

French comedian Max Linder, cinema’s first international comic star, had a strong influence on _____.

Answer 56

Charlie Chaplin

Question 57

Who is considered the first female filmmaker?

Answer 57

Alice Guy-Blache

Question 58

As it refers to early motion pictures, the term cinema of attractions suggests that audiences were primarily drawn to early cinema by _____.

Answer 58

film’s ability to offer visual amazement and new ways of seeing the world

Question 59

T/F? Many early westerns were filmed on the outskirts of New York City.

Answer 59

true