Toy Story and Muybridge

Ran across this on the internet today... It was like a mash up of pop culture and the beginning of film in an institutional space... loads of commercial interests in this make it seem like such an obvious show, but I think it still seems cool despite that.






You can see the photos of the other stuff here too.

Just thought it was kinda funny.

My Music Video Inspiration: "La Rue"

This is the best clip I could find online to give you a glimpse of where I got my inspiration from.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Otherside

Here's the video Elizabeth mentioned. It's not a great copy but the only one I could find online.

Homage to the Avant Garde

Here is an old music video for The Red Hot Chili Peppers 'Otherside' from their popular album Californication. It is a great example of contemporary artists appropriating a film style from the past in order the meaningfully communicate to their audience.

I think it's a cool video and one of my personal favorites.

Bernard ran into an old friend this week.

Max Davison in "The Call of the Cuckoo" (1927)

This comedy shows a bit more of the range of the period - especially since it's built on a kind of stereotyped portrayal of Jewish characters.

Harry Langdon - The Strong Man

Harry Langdon - Long Pants

Another great comic of the period, Harry Langdon - here in a very dark comedy.

Chaplin - The Great Dictator (1940) - The Final Scene

As the Jewish barber Schulz who impersonates the anti-semitic dictator Hynkel, Chaplin gives his own political speech to a world on the brink of World War II.

Chaplin - The Great Dictator (1940) - Hynkel's speech

With The Great Dictator, Chaplin used sound to add to his satirical portrayal of Adolf Hitler as the petty tyrant Adenoid Hynkel. Very broad comedy, hilarious stuff - and it got him to trouble years later when members of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee determined that he had been "prematurely hostile" to fascism and the Nazis.

Chaplin - Modern Times (1936) - The Waiter's Song

Ana amazing event for the contemporary audience - Charlie sings.

Chaplin - Modern Times (1936) - The Factory

The classic scene from Modern Times- The Tramp is now a worker, driven mad by the machine rhythms of factory work.

Chaplin - The Gold Rush (1925) - Dinner in the Cabin

Another classic comic scene.

Chaplin - The Gold Rush (1925) - Table Ballet

One of Chaplin's most famous set pieces.

Chaplin - The Idle Class (1921)

In "The Idle Class," Chaplin tells a sentimental, 19th-century sort of story abut crossing lines of class.

Chaplin - The Immigrant (1917)

"The Immigrant" shows Chaplin's consistent identification with the diverse immigrant population of the United States - his sense that "the people" really meant the people rejected and exploited by those with power.

Chaplin- One A. M. (1916)

Chaplin - The Police (1916)

Many of Chaplin's early comedies are available online, in versions of varying quality.
"Police" shows that Chaplin introduced social and political themes from early in his career.

This Just In

 

 F. W. Murnau's 1922 masterpiece of expressionist horror, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror, will be shown Thursday, March 11 at 6:30 pm at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, with live original musical accompaniment by the Thad Wilson Group. Looks like it's free. Info here:

Nosferatu at American Art Museum

We'll see a bit of Nosferatu in just a few weeks, in our sessions on German silent film.

The Son of The Sheik (1926) - Rudolph Valentino

This excerpt illustrates what captivated filmgoers saw in Valentino - and why reformers thought he was too hot for the screen.

The Sheik with Rudolph Valentino - 1921 Part 3 of 9

The film that made Valentino an international sensation - and film history's prime instance of the movie star as sex symbol. The displacement of sexuality on to exotic cultures was already firmly established in films when "The Sheik" appeared - but Valentino's performances embodied the idea as no one else's ever did.

Tumbleweeds - W. S. Hart 1925

Hart's films set the terms and conventions for much of the history of the Western - one of the most influential and enduring of Hollywood genres.

D. W. Griffith - Way Down East (1920) Part 14 of 15

The famous and still amazing ice-floe sequence.

D. W. Griffith - Broken Blossoms (1919)

Considered by many the most poetic, profoundly resonant American silent film. The story of a young girl, brutalized by her father, who takes refuge with a kind (but sexless) man in London's Chinatown still has the power to shock and distress.
(The other sections of the film are also available on YouTube.)

DW GRIFFITH - ONE IS BUSINESS THE OTHER CRIME - 1913

One of Griffith's most radical statements - and one that influenced many of his admirers among left-wing movements in Europe.

DW GRIFFITH - DEATH'S MARATHON - 1912

Another outstanding example of Griffith's mastery of meolodrama.

DW GRIFFITH - MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY 1912

Griffith uses the conventions of 19th-century melodrama to tell a story about contemporary urban life - in perhaps more realistic detail than anyone else had previously done. Despite the unapologetic racism of "Birth of a Nation," Griffith shows his abiding and progressive impulse to portray American life as a melting pot of diverse ethnic groups and economic classes.

DW GRIFFITH - A CORNER IN WHEAT 1909

A landmark in two significant ways - one of Griffith's earliest developed, sophisticated narratives; and an outstanding example of his attempts to bring social awareness to the emerging art of cinema.

Further Reading

The Phillips had an exhibit about 3 years ago called Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film which showcased a few of the films we have seen in class. Here is a page from the Washington Post that has a few articles on the exhibit that I thought would be enlightening to the class. When I went to the exhibit, what I found interesting was the movement (no pun intended) from art to cinema. While we may see these short films as being boring or trite, I like to imagine what people in that time thought of this revolutionary idea.

It is too bad this exhibit is long gone because it provides a different perspective on early film than I think we perceive it to be. We are familiar with the dramatic and often dim narratives of modern "art films" but these early works are a more literal take on the relationship between art and film.

Muybridge Revisited

A short key-framing animation that reminded me of Muybridge motion ...
What really was interesting for me was the process in his era for doing this motion and how today you can do it.

Morgan Spurlock at the Corcoran Tuesday, February 2 at 7 pm

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock will discuss his work in the Corcoran auditorium this Tuesday, February 2 at 7 pm.
Mr. Spurlock is best known for the documentary Super Size Me, which chronicles the effects of eating exclusively McDonald's meals for thirty days. (They weren't good.) Super Size Me was the first documentary to make it to The New York Times' list of Top Ten Films Now Playing and was nominated for an Academy Award.
His current project is 30 Days, the documentary television series for which he and other subjects have tried out an unfamiliar job, way of life, or social setting for a month.

Mr. Spurlock will be (briefly) introduced by your instructor for this course, Bernard Welt.
The Special Events Office wants you to know they'd love it if Corcoran students attended this interesting event. Please contact them about attending, or show up early to inquire about seats.

The Boxing Cats (Prof. Welton's) - Edison 1894

The greatest film ever made.

Muybridge

Here's a link to the Corcoran page on:
Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change
April 10 – July 18, 2010

Philip Brookman, curator of the upcoming Corcoran exhibition on Eadeweard Muybridge, will be filling us in on his plans for the exhibition at the begining of our class session on Thursday, January 28.

For Thursday, January 28

The original Lumiere Bros. film, "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat," can be found down further down this page (as a link to a video on YouTube). Above that are links to several of the short films by celebrated directors that make up the film Lumiere & Company, a celebration of one hundred years of cinema, released in 1995.

I'm hoping some more folks sign up for the Yahoo group soon, so that we can use that as a simple and efficient means of distributing information and getting feedback quickly. Meanwhile:

-Please try to complete assigned readings for Thursday, within limits of reasonable effort. (If there are readings you just can't get at, that are not yet available on reserve in the library, we will manage to catch up.)
The Oxford History of World Cinema will provide the general outline of cinema history to ground our discussion; the books by Grievson and Cohen will focus our attention on particular issues; and the occasional readings available online will mostly be on specific films.
Please note that the first of these, Karen Littau's essay on "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat," is available in the READINGS links on this blog as well as in a READINGS folder in the LINKS section of our Yahoo group.

-Please post your comments on our topics of discussion from last week, the films we viewed, and/or our plans for the course at this blog. (You can hit the "Comments" button of this post or create a new post.) If there's anything you'd like to make sure gets heard loud and clear before the syllabus is finalized, send a note to the Yahoo group.
Which you need to join if you haven't already.

I will be adding more links to films available online this week, including a number of the short films we'll view in class. If you happen on anything you think is relevant to the topic of early cinema, please post it here.

Lumière and Company - David Lynch

Lumière and Company - Lucian Pintilie

Lumière and Company - Zhang Yimou

Lumière and Company - Gaston Kaboré

Lumière and Company - Idrissa Ouedraogo

Lumière and Company - Gabriel Axel

Lumière and Company - Costantin Costa-Gavras

Auguste and Louis Lumiere - Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

There are many versions of this celebrated early film available online. This one adds some rather nice music.
PLEASE NOTE that Karen Littau's essay on "Arrival of a Train" is available in the LINKS section of our Yahoo group. There's a direct link to it from this blog, in the column of readings on the right side of this page.