ENTRY # 7

Week 2 part 1 of 4

Sound Comes to Cinema

From the very origins of cinema film makers tried to joint sound and image. In August of 1926 Warner Brothers debuted with the vidaphone, which was the first commercially, viable method for connecting sound to image. In the other hand, in September of 1929, major studios were producing exclusively sound film. After four years, in 1932 conversion of cinema theatres was completed, they were all wired for sound. As soon as producers decided to ditch silent cinema they did it lucidly, completely and smoothly.  Warner Brothers was a small company that was seeking for innovation. They wanted to use sound as a way to compete with the big silent film companies. Therefore, they used a movie called Don Juan and jointed it with a prerecorded orchestra. In that time sound was not the main attraction, but it helped to support the Silent Film. The next step was to incorporate these short sound films into silent films; these were called part-talkies. The most famous part-talkie is The Jazz Singer from 1927, which included intertitles, silent film characteristic acting and some singing performances. In 1929, Applause was performed for the first time.  It was directed by Rouben Mamouilian, who was born in Russia and went to the U.S.A. in the 20’s; he was considered a very important person of the musical stage. The film was starred by Helen Morgan, who was a great theatre performer and know was able to be seen in films. He didn’t want to make stage films; he was worried about losing all the beauty of silent film with this new technology. Although he didn’t wanted to film a play; he said “talking pictures to know have been really substitutes, they have been staged imitations, mirrors of acted plays and that is not their purpose. They should be motion pictures, always using the old motion techniques but substituting dialogue for titles.” He worked very hard to make his version of sound film as lithe and as visually moving and expressive as Silent Cinema. He was interested in keeping film fluid and visually expressive, however he coveted with maintaining the good old style. The potential possibilities of the talking picture lied in keeping the advantages of the silent cinema features with the added use of sound that will make it so much richer.

ENTRY #6

Fifth lecture, Part 5 of 5

Cinema as visual art

One thing we can learn from Silent Cinema and from Docks of New York in particular is the imperativeness of making everything visible, to tell the story through visual means. Sperberg is a genius at solving problems by coming out with a new way of showing something. He applies unusual angles to catch the viewer’s attention. Regardless of the lack of sound, “the effect” is transmitted by a convincing shot. He found new ways to introduce characters to the audience in order to avoid clichés. For instance, he shows the reflect of a woman instead of showing her, and then when she goes underwater to kill herself, splashes of water and a wave are shown. This kind of tacit and non explicit shots create very interesting moments in screen, which calls for the audience attention. Ducks of New York and Street Angel give a generalization about silent film making abstractions of the real world. Both, in the title cards, introduce the characters by their job; they are presented more as types or stereotypes than people. In addition, both have very melodramatic plots. The films are situated in the past and started in a point of abstraction. The power and specificity of Sperger’s images are features that make his films outstanding. This two films make the most of Silent Cinema because their directors do get the stories not from words but from images, people moving in and out of light and shadow, the attitudes of the actor’s bodies, the way they looked, their gestures, the objects and the visual motifs. Due to the above, compositions became abstracted and emotionally charged that tell the story. Silent Cinema turned film into a personal, emotional and direct visual medium that speaks directly to us.

ENTRY #5

Fourth lecture, Part 4 of 5

Docks of New York

In this lecture the teacher presented another silent featured film, contemporary of Street Angel, Docks of New York of the director George Brancroft. They were both made in 1928. Brancroft was one of the Hollywood’s most exciting directors, because he spoke to the audience through strong and powerful images. He valued the beauty of the image over its plausibility or coherence. With this movie he proved he could have beauty and story. Although these two films were romances about two people who fell in love, experienced obstacles and then overcame them; they presented very contrasting differences. Their narratives were developed in very distinct worlds. Brancroft constructed smaller and colder worlds while Borzage’s were transcendental and artificial.  Moreover, George’s movies tended to be cruel, cynical, crowded, noisy and energetic.   Finally, another relevant disparity between these two movies was the inner time of each one; Street Angel is a story of years while Docks of New York takes place mostly in one night and in the following day.

ENTRY #4

Third lecture, part 3 of 5.

This lecture was about the movie Street Angel (1928) of the director Frank Borzage, because he characterized what was great and strange in Silent Cinema. Firstly, it is important to know that this director was truly in charge of his films; he took care of every little detail involved in the creation of his movies. He was a great artist, and an excellent representative of this genre. In addition, he is known for have made very simple stories. However, he used to record more scenes than the needed in order to have a good amount of material to work with and to select the most accurate shots when editing.  Hence, he inverted a lot of money, time and dedication in the elaboration of each film. He was so powerful that he could oversee his screenplays. Not only he knew how to give actors and characters situations they could visualize to capture the true emotion in the screen, but he had a great use of visual motifs to tell the story by visual means only. His philosophy consisted on showing externalized emotions before showing title cards. He achieved people to get attached to specific characters before the distinction between good and bad roles were made. People were not touched by the logic causes of the story but by the form, which is the image herself. The most upstanding motifs in this film were paintings; they served as repetitive symbols carriers of meaning across the story. Images were allowed to speak. Although he externalized emotion, he was not always too explicit; he let viewers imagine some facts by using poetic imaginary; he attempted to manipulate them. His world was charged with melodrama. Instead of giving what was physically right in a way, he gave what was emotionally right; what the audience needed. Both contrast between black and white, and hard light and shadow were used as significant elements that expressed messages by means of abstract composition. The casting was a vital part of Borzage’s development of ideas; he succeeded in making a very good contrast between internal and external characteristics. There was the small and thin woman which personality was strong and the big and stocky man who was humble and fragile.

Related to the general terms of this course, the teacher clarified Silent Film made in Hollywood is abstract and emotional, in contrast Sounded Film is totally the opposite. Silent film set up the coming of sound in that the former had to be the contrary of the first. Silent Cinema is about turning a world into a different one through abstracted and lifted images, and Sounded Cinema aims to generate more realistic stimulus.

The information I found the most interesting was about the actress performance on this film, which was determinant in its quality. She used the Italian way to perform, which involves lots of expressions by dint of her hand expressionistic movement. Provided that the actress controlled the scene, she had to know how to work in the screen, find the correct light and stand in it to glow.

ENTRY #3

Second Lecture, Part 2 of 5.

Silent Cinema

In this lecture the teacher pointed out that in order to understand the transition to sound from silence in cinema we first have to appreciate silent cinema. He said something I found really accurate: “Artist created art without sound effects”. It was a matter of turning internal problems into physical expression because emotions could be transmitted only through image. Moreover, light and shadow were extremely important due to the changes in image they were able to produce aimed to create certain feelings, emotions and atmospheres. He also highlighted the importance of understanding the value of silent films and cited Jeanine Basinger, a film historian, who said that in this type of cinema there was no noise to distract us from our feelings. He also referred to James Card, the author of Seductive Cinema, who declared that Silent Cinema demanded a different kind of participation from the viewers, an active one. To sum up, I have experienced this cinema and I can say it is wonderful to discover different means to communicate; sometimes I feel more touched or I get to understand much better the messages the director tried to communicate by using the actors and the scenery in a very theatrical way. 

ENTRY #2

Firts Lecture. Week 1, part 1 of 5.

In the first lecture the teacher explained some basic terms that he pointed out as basics to start this course and sketch a few aspects in which we are going to work through the course. First of all, he said language was a way of doing things, shared by filmmakers and audiences; in this respect he clarified he was just referring only to Hollywood by that he meant he was talking about the American Film Industry. Then he highlighted that Hollywood was focused on telling stories that emotionally involved audience with the main objective of getting money. Not by showing a stoning picture or by demonstrating the abstract qualities of cinema, but by giving the audience a very personal but at the same tame communal experience of identification with the story and the characters. In this regard he pointed out that we were going to study the mechanisms of making films that we could "feel". The third concept he illustrated was Film Style, as the way images and color were used in films. After that he elucidated Classical Hollywood Cinema, a very general style that filmmakers engaged with between 1917 and 1960. This cinema followed some similar stylistic rules, they skipped over time in between scenes, and the story was about heroes overcoming obstacles to reach their goal. Although there is a style of everything, there exists something called The Style of a Filmmaker, the unique creation of a distinctive world. In addition he mentioned the relation between Storytelling and the viewers’ part in this respect completing the story from its own perspective. Finally, he refers to the two units that divided the class, sound and color as elements that constituted new tools that served to move audiences meanwhile they produced new challenges. 

Some of the aims of the class are:

- To understand why specific choices were made by certain filmmakers

- Whether technology can help moving audiences

- Distinguish the continuities and changes in film art and viewer experiences in the transitions from no sound/no color to sound and color.

ENTRY #1

I chose the course THE LANGUAGE OF HOLLYWOOD: STORYTELLING, SOUND AND COLOR due to the great interest I am experiencing for the cinema. The teacher of this course is Scott Higgins, an Associate  Professor of film studies at Wesleyan University, who received the Wesleyan University's "Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching." The course is divided into three main themes: Introduction, Sound and Color. It is suposed to last five weeks. Through the introduction of the elements such as sound and color to the cinema I will be able to know how they could influence the directors' expression in certain genres and in specific times. Among the materials of study, a few movies and several readings are included.