Film Persona

"The New Babylon" by Grigori Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg  Like many of the other Soviet films of the 1920s, " The New Babylon " used a fictional account of non-fictional historical events to represent the opinions of the Communist Soviet state. In fact, the film goes directly to the source of the Communist ideology that represented the current political state. Most would assume this was Karl Marx, and it was. However, Karl Marx took his inspiration from the 1871 Paris Commune. Marx describes the Paris Commune as "A dictatorship of the proletariat." In order to understand " The New Babylon ," you must at least have come contextual knowledge of this point in history. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the city of Paris was surrounded by Prussian forces. Within the city, a civil war spread between the right-leaning bourgeois and the left-leaning socialist laborers. Eventually, the socialists took power in Paris and established a new gover...

  Harry Beaumont's "The Broadway Melody" With the inclusion of sound in films with the 1926 hit " The Jazz Singer ," Hollywood was attempting to construct a new standard for sound pictures. There were many experiments with the technology from 1926 to 1929. However, MGM commissioned a production of " The Broadway Melody ," which was not only one of the first full-sound films but the first full-sound musical, as well.  The film is about two sisters who work as traveling performers and eventually get a chance to perform on Broadway. One of the sisters, Queenie, gets a big break and the attention of a wealthy love interest. Meanwhile, the other sister, Hank, must reconcile with her own shortcomings and even her romantic partner pursuing her sister Queenie. The theme of the film deals with stardom and the selfish effects that follow. At the beginning of the film, everyone is happy and emotionally bonded. However, once Queenie starts to come into her own, sh...

  Dziga Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera" In the 1920s, Soviet filmmakers were revolutionizing filmmaking with montage theory. Through the editing of images, they could create abstract ideas and tell coherent narratives. However, most Soviet filmmakers, like Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, created fictional narratives to represent a certain ideology, namely the propagation of Communist theory. However, one filmmaker declared it his mission to abolish all non-documentary-style films. This filmmaker, Dziga Vertov, was controversial and despised by his peers. His crowing achievement, however, would go on to surpass his peer's work in retrospective acclaim. This film, " Man with a Movie Camera ," took the ideas of Soviet montage and applied them to objective docu-style filmmaking. With the film, Vertov examines the very nature of film itself and the relationship between the filmmaking and their audience. All of the images you see in " Man with a M...

  Paul Fejos's "Lonesome" Paul Fejos's " Lonesome " is a part-talking film about two New York City residents over a 24-hour period. Most of the film is silent, but there are scenes that are dedicated to the audible conversation between the two love interests. The film begins in a busy New York City, as Fejos creates a noisy hustle and bustle. The two characters feel alone and isolated, until meeting each other. Once they find each other, the background noises become quiet to make room for their audible dialogue. The film is known for its sparing use of dialogue during a period of Hollywood that had not yet established sound as a permanent fixture. 

  Germaine Dulac's "The Seashell and the Clergyman" Germaine Dulac had been directing films for over a decade by the time she made her most famous piece, 1928's " The Seashell and the Clergyman ." The film was a surrealist piece of cinema during a time when surrealism hadn't been properly established as a recognized creative effort. The original scenario of the film was written by Antonin Artaud.  The film follows the erotic hallucinations of a priest lusting after a general's wife. The sequences often express the priest sexually violating, berating, or controlling this woman, while at the same time appearing weak and immaculate. The priest cannot seem to help his uncontrollable urges. Perhaps Dulac is demonstrating the way in which men in society exert control over women as a means of acting out their masculine urges for control and conquest. However, Dulac does not seem to equate this need for power to masculinity, as she very clearly makes a point...

  Paul Leni's "The Man Who Laughs" After the commercial successes of " The Hunchback of Notre Dame " in 1923 and " The Phantom of the Opera " in 1925, Universal Studios wanted to replicate this success by finding another vehicle for Lon Chaney. Chaney had made a name for himself by playing characters that required heavy prosthetics and make-up and was especially known for doing his own make-up stylings himself. The vehicle for Chaney was intended to be an adaption of Victor Hugo's 1869 novel " The Man Who Laughs ."  In order to capture the Gothic quality of the source novel, the studio contracted German Expressionist Paul Leni to direct the film. Leni had made a name for himself in Germany with his acclaimed 1924 piece, " Waxworks ." Eventually, Chaney's contract expired, so Leni brought Conrad Veidt along from Germany to be his leading man. Vedit had performed for Leni in his films before, including " Waxworks ." ...

  Alan Crosland's "The Jazz Singer" Before 1927, there are only a handful on instances in which sound appeared in moving pictures. Films were completely silent, since the process of capturing light on celluloid to make films did not involve capturing sound, as well. Typically, music accompanied most films through an orchestra or piano player present at the film screening. The only instances of a filmmaker experimenting with additional sound were short subject pieces that were created specifically for the purposes of experimenting with sound. The only feature length film to experiment with sound before 1927 was D.W. Griffith's " Dream Street ," which was shown in New York in 1921 using a sound-on-disc system called Photokinema. This film had a single singing sequence with crowd noises. It did not, however, contain any dialogue sequences. It wasn't until 1927's " The Jazz Singer " that a full-length feature film would debut not only audible s...