Horror and Suspense

The movie "M" is usually categorized as a drama-thriller and not an outright horror film, and honestly i'd have to agree overall with that. After watching the film, I couldn't honestly point to anything int he movie itself that was scary or really enough to be "creepy" in any way. Even the scenes in the beginning where you couldn't see the murderer weren't really scary or suspenseful in any meaningful way.

The movie I chose to watch this week , "Aliens" I feels fall into 2 different horror genres. It would I feel classify as Action-horror as well as Science fiction horror. Its got all the run and gun/suspenseful action of action horror as well as the unnatural, creepy monster type creatures that would put it into the sci-fi horror genre.

In the movie "M", there is alot of use of sound effects and overall ambient sounds to flesh out the scenes. One use of it springs out to me however, and thats how the murderer's whistling comes into play in several scenes. Even before he is actually shown to us, the sound of his whistling is there, signifying his presence and trying to invoke suspense.

Contrastingly to how sound was used in "M", there is also a particular effect they used in "Aliens" to much the same effect, though to a much scarier and emotion inducing end, and that would be the sound of his alien itself as it is int he shadows near someone, even though it isn't outright shown to us. This is done to great effect as dramatic buildup throughout the film.

 The supposed "evil and "good" in Aliens is fairly easy to see throughout, with only a few main overarching themes overall. the aliens themselves are always portrayed as the evil and never as anyhting else, though there is a short part of the film where a "good" person turns to evil. the concept of good int he film is fairly light, as it applies to pretty much all the characters except for the one mentioned before and overall makes the movie a struggle for survival against a terrible threat.

Theories of Montage

The 1925 Russian film "Battleship Potemkin" was a great example of montage editing for many reasons. It conveyed subliminal messaging and abstract ideas of its time period into a movie without outright saying what thaw were, but making them firmly identifiable.

 In the images above, you see on the left the part of the movie where the doctor is examining the rotten meat.  On the image on the right, it shows him explaining in a joyous tone that the meat is perfectly fine and that there was nothing wrong with it. It demonstrates via montage the vileness leaders.

My last example of this is from shrtly later in the film when the firing squad is about to kill several of the crew for not eating the rotten meat soup. The film makes a point to show the piest several times along with the tapping of a cross in his hand, coincided with the tapping of a sword hilt on an officer. This was an abstract way of showing the corruption between the ruling party and the church at the time.

Early world cinema

The film we watched of Joan of Arc does focus solely only on the end of her life, and gives little reference back to the rest of her life except some very vague references here and there to her miracles and such. I think the director did this so there wouldn't be as much back context as to what was happening, and instead wanted to focus more on the emotions of the trial and subsequent actions therein, such as the trickery used to make her give in and answer their questions.

the film does make heavy use of close ups throughout to convey emotion, but it also uses a few other innovative techniques for its time, one of which is the tracking shot, where the camera pans and follows through a scene instead of being static.  This is used to great effect throughout the film, even starting fromt he beginning. It uses this tracking shot to show the judges in the trial, but doesn't let you get a good look at them like you otherwise would, instead, it just pans through them to give a sense of more of mass scale than of emotionalism, so the emotion is focused only on a few select characters in the film. In relation to "the subjective camera" idea, this fits perfectly, emphasizing particular scenes and actions while others are given less time to be focused upon, trying to evoke particular moods and feelings from what they present.

The use of light and darkness in Caligiri and Metropolis were used to spectacular effect for what they were trying to convey in each piece.  The light is used to create happy, more cheerful atmosphere, while darkness and shadow are used to give that gloomy, spooky feeling. This is used heavily in Caligiri to give that feeling of darkness and fright in its alleys and nights, and has become a classic of horror films for its spectacular use.

Griffith and Micheaux

The movie "Birth of a Nation" by D. W. Griffith is a movie about slavery and the freedom of african Americans before and after the civil ar. The story focuses mainly around 2 families who are from the north and south and how they handle the war and subsequent reconstruction phase of the south after the civil war. The movie is overall very racist, frequently depicting African Americans as the antagonist, while white individuals are given the role as the victim and are justified in their discrimination throughout.

The film "Within Our Gates" by Oscar Micheaux is a film made a few years after the previous mentioned one. The story follows a young African American woman who is trying to raise money for a school for her race.  It portrays racial violence at the hands of white individuals in the form of lynching and beatings and overall unequalness along with demonstrating people's prejudices.

Both fo these films deal with racism and discrimination quite a bit, but both of them take very different angles on the situation. In the case of birth of a Nation, white people are seen as the victim's of freed black people's oppression and depicts black individuals as uneducated and simple minded. On the other hand, Within our Gates" shows the mistreatment of black people after the civil war at the hands of white people and shows black people striving to better themselves.

The NAACP did their best to get birth of a Nation censored nationwide, but only met with marginal success from what I'e read. One article seems to portray its censoring as a big threat to the film, while another seems to almost all but dismiss it as a footnote. I find it difficult to say which is true, but after reading all the material and seeing the film myself, I can surmise that they did at least have some success in getting the film either censored or edited in some locations, and it most likely laid a more solid foundation for getting other films censored afterwards.

Early Silent Films and Stars..

If you look at film today, most people can't imagine the idea of a film without a "star" being featured in it, but this wasn't always the case. Back at the start of film with silent films, there was no names attached to the actors at all whom you saw on the screen at all. From the reading I've done on the subject, it would seem the reasons for this are many, though some do stand out. firstly, at the time of film's infancy, the companies producing the films were trying to make their marks in the world, so they had to reason at that point to share the so called limelight with their actors. another main factor was money, they didn't want to give actors a reason to ask for  a raise and cut into their own profits. Even further more so than those was that acting in film at the time was considered a "lower class" of acting, and was scoffed at by the already famous play actors and others alike, so people were embarrassed to be associated with the new phenomenon  known as film.

The film "The Great Train Robbery" is often considered a breakthrough film. It used several innovative techniques for its time, including crosscutting of scenes and close ups to great effect, and set a higher standard for films to live up to than had previously been done.

The Edison Trust was a collected group of almost all the major film production companies to control the film market in America and protect their collective patents. The idea behind this was to cut the inflow of foreign films that were being imported and played in theaters, as well as discourage the trust's members entry into feature film production. Opposed to this group was the Independant Film marks group, who were in a constant battle over lawsuits with the trust over trying to get a more free market on film production and whom ultimately won in the end. The city of Hollywood was formed thanks to this, as Independant film makers moved their studios to the town to get away from being harassed by the henchman of the Trust.

 The Lumiere Brothers, Edison Studios, and Melies all produced films at roughly the same point in time, but each had a very distinct style compared to one another. If we take the Lumiere Brothers for instance, their style of film was based outside on actual events. their camera system allowed them to be portable and shoot film on any outside event, unlike their main counterpart Edison. edison Studios on the other hand still filed actions of life like Lumiere did, but his films were done on fixed sets. his camera system was in no real way portable, so all scenes had to be setup and shot within a box essentially, which rather limited the scope of which he could film.

Melies on the other hand, took quite a different approach to film than the other 2. In a way it more closely resembles Edison's films in the way that it is filmed on a set area, and not in the open, but instead of filming life, Melies made films on fantasy and magic, "A trip to the Moon" is one example of his style of work, which is very different overall from any of the works from the other two mentioned filmmakers of the time.