Week 1 - Collaboration & Alternate Lineages: Surrealism, Animation, Comedic Satire Flashcards
An Andalusian Dog
Un Chien Andalou
Un Chien Andalou by
Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali
Un Chien Andalou visuals
series of shocking, dreamlike images, none of which told a story or had any ulterior motive or alternate meaning.
Un Chien Andalou response
tremendous success
purpose of Un Chien Andalou
to pierce the self-assurance of the powerful. + “a call to murder” against the ‘museum-ifying’ of the celebrations of his centenary
Purpose UCA: While this exaggerates somewhat his radicalism and outsider status, there is considerable consistency in his attacks on the bourgeoisie, whose hypocrisy and dissembling both amused and enraged him.
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effect of uca
Bunuel’s first film would fully propel Surrealism into the artistic forefront in many different ways
the artistic longevity is its deliberate search for narrative incoherence and lack of Western logic. Essentially, Un Chien Andalou is a deconstruction of the conventions of narrative cinema.
EXAMPLE OF THIS
use of inter-titles, which follow in this order: “once upon a time,” “eight years later,” “toward three in the morning,” “sixteen years before,” and “in the spring.”
Cocteau’s Orphée based on
1926 play Orphée
moral of Orphee was
the engagement of the poet with himself, not with causes or parties.
what tdoes Death do for orpheus?
although in love with Orpheus, sacrifices her own feelings and allows the poet to remain on earth.
Orphee shot where?
shot largely in the ruined buildings of Saint-Cyr, the French West Point, which had been destroyed by the Germans during World War 11
what does cocteau retell?
In Orphée, which can best be described as visual poetry, Jean Cocteau retells the familiar tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, but in a original and fascinating way.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the film is how well the special effects are used. EXAMPLE
When the characters walk through mirrors into the “other world”, the effect achieved so convincing that it just has to be real.
On the acting side, it is probably Maria Casarès who is most memorable. Her portrayal of the death princess is both moving and terrifying. She is as cold as an ice-cube, yet her scenes with Jean Marais have a sense of tenderness that gives her character a sympathetic dimension.
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is clearly based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, in which the gifted son of Apollo tries to retrieve his beloved, Eurydice, from Hades. Here Orpheus is Orpheé (Jean Marais), a smug, successful poet reviled by a younger generation who gather at the local café. When a younger rival, Cegeste (Edouard Dhermitte), is killed, Orpheé is believed to be responsible.
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whats the twist to orphee??
instead of rescuing his wife, Eurydice (Marie Déa), he abandons her in his search for the treasures Death may hold.
who controls princess death?
a frightening cabal of wizened white men who comprise a kind of underworld committee that tracks her compliance with their orders and rigorously punishes any deviations.
Recognizable image in orphee
The portal to that world is a mirror that thoughtfully allows the characters to pass through it on their way out of the “real” world.
one of the first independent American sound films, shot in the East to avoid interference from Hollywood’s Adolph Zucker of Paramount Pictures.
Crime Without Passion
camerawork on Crime Without Passion
stunning set against the bizarre special-effects by Vorkapich, which shows, among other things, images of a large eye, the barrel of a gun, a falling body, muttered words.
Opening of CWP
The Furies
The Furies
scantly clad and airborne female Furies peering into skyscraper windows as office workers are struck with hypnotic drives of unbridled passion and the lust of adultery
The Art Deco sets and amazing sound track all add up to create a picture that just has to be seen if you are a fan of dark film.
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vorkapich originally
actor & then Hired by Paramount, and later by RKO and MGM, to construct what were initially called “transition sequences” in feature films,
Vorkapich’s “symphonies of visual movement,” as he called them, were chiefly designed to
advance the story as rapidly and vividly as possible.
symphonies of visual movement
to depicting cataclysms both natural and man-made
When working with filmmakers of an adventurous frame of mind, Vorkapich seized the opportunity to
introduce expressionist elements into his work, and some of his most imaginative effects occur in the montages he devised,
Vorkapich’s “attempts to slice through this cinematic wedding cake are honourable but doomed.” He would have fitted in far better with the pacy, staccato rhythms of Warner Bros.—but Warners, oddly enough, is one of the few major studios where he seems never to have worked.
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As fashions in filmmaking changed towards the end of the 1930s, Vorkapich’s style of montage came to seem outmoded and was decreasingly in demand.
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By a Waterfall by
Busby Berkeley
Berkeley was a
choreographer and director
By a waterfall is a # in
Footlight Parade (1933)
BB episode
Minnie the Mocher
who made betty & why?
Betty was the creation of the Fleischer brothers, Jewish immigrants from Austria, who set out, with financing from Paramount, to challenge Walt Disney
Minnie the Mocher begins w/
with live action footage of Cab Calloway,
minnie learned
Calloway sings, had learned “to kick the gong around,” to use opium, from her boy friend “Smoky” whose drug of choice was cocaine. Although the cartoon does not show Betty taking any drug, she does, to the accompaniment of Cab’s version of the song, find herself in a dream world.
Beginning of Minnie the Moocher parody of what?
The scene is a thinly disguised parody of “The Jazz Singer.”
Betty Boop and Jazz Singer (jakie)
. Like Jakie, she too runs toward jazz music. But, unlike Jakie, Betty runs toward the real thing. No “Toot, Toot, Tootsie” for her.
Minnie, Calloway sings, had learned “to kick the gong around,” to use opium, from her boy friend “Smoky” whose drug of choice was cocaine. Although the cartoon does not show Betty taking any drug, she does, to the accompaniment of Cab’s version of the song, find herself in a dream world.
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Betty Boop & Minnie story
Minnie dreamed that the King of Sweden “was giving her things that she was needin’.” Instead Betty meets a ghostly walrus with enlarged lips who sings the song.
What does Betty see in Minnie the Moocher?
Walrus transforms itself into a spectral cat whose kittens suck it dry and into a prison guard who escorts skeletons to the electric chair, among other transmigrations.
end of minnie
Finally, Betty and Bimbo run for their lives, pursued by various goblins and skeletons. Bimbo seeks refuge in the dog house. Betty climbs into her own bed. The farewell letter she left for her parents obligingly shreds itself, leaving the message “Home, Sweet, Home.”
betty boop 1st time for what?
first opportunity many viewers had of seeing Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway perform
The Fleischer brothers did more than introduce jazz to the movies ex.
added a discordant voice to the ongoing discussion in the mass media about race, ethnicity, and nationality.
. “No! He couldn’t take my boop-oop-a-doop away!” she replies. what does this mean?
Betty’s “boop-oop-a-doop,” her trademark, is not her virginity, what a conventional heroine would seek to preserve. Instead it is her sensuous approach to life.
Marx Brothers’ greatest and funniest masterpiece - the classic comedy
Duck Soup
Duck Soup is a satire that pokes fun at
blundering dictatorial leaders, Fascism and authoritarian government
Duck Soup awards
The film was devoid of any Academy Award nominations.
Duck Soup director
McCarey
The outrageous film was both a critical and commercial failure at the time of its release - audiences were taken aback by such preposterous political disrespect, buffoonery and cynicism at a time of political and economic crisis, with Roosevelt’s struggle against Depression in the US amidst the rising power of Hitler in Germany.
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Groucho line to soldier that made everyone hate film
“And remember while you’re out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we’ll be in here thinking what a sucker you are.”
Duckman and Italy
Mussolini banned the film in his country
Duck Soup 2nd life
Fortunately, the film was rediscovered by a generation of 1960s college students, and by revival film festivals and museum showings.
2 famous scenes from duck soup
the lemonade seller confrontation & the mirror pantomime sequence.
Most replicated scene
Mirror scene
Duck Soup Music: a couple of musical numbers that are perfectly integrated into the plot: When the Clock on the Wall Strikes Ten; Groucho’s song with the chorus - the Freedonia Hymn Just Wait ‘Til I Get Through With It the staged production number, The Country’s Goin’ to War
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Duck Soup meaning
The film’s title uses a familiar American phrase that means anything simple or easy, or alternately, a gullible sucker or pushover
Opening of Duck Soup
Under the opening credits, four quacking ducks (the four Marx Brothers) are seen swimming and cooking in a kettle over a fire.
Groucho reportedly provided the following recipe to explain the title: “Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you’ll duck soup for the rest of your life.”
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Duck Soup as a little surreal, a little avant-garde and especially courageous in testing the envelope of the cinematic medium.
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Roots of surrealism where?
Dada movement in Zurich Sweden
What type of people started Dada? In reaction to what?
pacifist intellectuals and artists who fled to the neutral country in protest of World War I
What did original Dadaists blame war on?
humanity’s megalomania and industrial capitalism were the principle causes of the war
Dadaists considered Dada to be a “moral revolution.” In that sense Dada was a direct result of its artists anti-war philosophy.
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dadaists creative process relied on?
creative process became a work of automation, relying on chance to relay the voice of the unconscious.
Dadaist goal
to cast doubt on the power of language, literature, and art to represent reality, which they felt was absurdly chaotic and unrepresentable.
Dadaists reveled in what they called the “anti-real.” Dadaists saw art as a pretentious luxury, so they set out to change the context in which art was to be experienced.
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First other place to embrace Dada
Paris
Sigmund Freud’s research into the unconscious and wanted to bring his theories into the creative process of Dada and those who saw psychoanalysis as an instrument of mystification and bourgeois ideals.
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this lead to
1922 dada is dead. divide because of these internal conflicts and the movement’s inability to change cohesively
Ex Dadaists naturally became
surrealists
Manifesto of Surrealism by
Andre Breton
Breton’s goal of surrealism
goal of surrealism was to synthesize dream and reality
Surrealist art challenged the limits of representation and perception.
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Surrealists believed that , images that seem incompatible with each other should be _______________
juxtaposed together
Surrealism influenced _______ film theory
Soviet Montage
the image must mark the beginning of an exploration into the unknown rather than merely representing a thing of beauty. The surrealist experience of beauty instead involved a psychic disturbance, a “convulsive beauty” generated by the startling images and the analogies they create in the mind of the viewer.
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Surrealist cinema sought to break with the conventional linear narrative style in favor of
chance events and a world of the subconscious
Surrealism 2 part mixture of
mixture of a complete rejection of rational values combined with Freud-inspired methods of liberating the unconscious,
Craftspeople
electricians, camera operators, sound recorders, set designers, painters, special effects teams, lab technicians, etc.
Production Designer (Art Director)
conceives and elaborates the settings, rooms, exteriors that give a film a physical texture and define its time period.
Cinematographer:
handles lighting, chooses lens and film stocks, decides on all elements that effect the size, color, spatial qualities and density of the image.
Editor
assembles the film footage into a coherent whole. Can sometimes save and sometimes ruin a film project.
Composer
creators of a film’s musical soundtrack. Often involved with fragments rather than completed compositions. Composers are creators of very short “musical cues” to go over scenes or transitions.
Screenwriter
creator of written script, writer of a film’s dialogue. Often treated as mere laborers by the Hollywood film industry. Some films do demonstrate that good writing (for film) can be a collaborative effort.
Producer
an initiator of projects, a fund-raiser, a deal maker, and an administrator. Also the producer can serve as a cajoler, protector of egos and/or a tyrant.
When was Golden Age of Hollywood?
40s
Limit of Golden Age of Hollywood
There was a lock on what theaters could show
Goldeng Age, what was deemed illegal?
Production companies owning theaters
Studio system internally
Lots of problems with the variety of jobs/highly collaborative process, internal tension
Surrealists hate
institutional logic that got us into wwi
Orpheus’ ________ setting not realistic to _______
contemporary setting not realistic to Greece
Love Triangle in Orpheus
Does Orpheus love wife or death?
First setting of Orpheus
Cafe of poets with youngings who dont get it
Language of DREAMS: The dreamer must accept the dream/subconscious
logic of orpheus
Who did Hollywood independently hire to do montages?
Artists
Ex. of montage artist
Vorkapich, The Furies (Crime w/o Passion opening)
Precode example of women in film
by a waterfall
Why were By a Waterfall & big budget films important
1st years of depression, people came to get transported away
Betty Boop is what side of cartoons?
dark
Minnie the Moocher song about
dealing opium
Funny change in Duck Soup
Warfare Costume Change
