FMS 321 – Social Realism II

Reaction against modernist movements form before the revolution

All means of production belong to the whole community

Represented Common worker’s life as admirable

Meant to educate the masses about the Communist Party’s goals

Severely enforced in all the arts

Major Genres

• Socialist Musicals
  • Deemed important for and about the “everyday lives” of workers
  • Not realist in sense of documentary reality
• Civil War Films
  • Important for narrating the story of Revolution
  • We are From Kronstadt (1936)
• Biographical Films
  • Featured “progressive” historical figures that prefigured Communist ideals (Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great)
  • Anti-Feudal themes
• Everyday Heroes
  • Maxim Gorky Trilogy – idea of the common man as hero

Films as “Bullets”

• 1939: Nazi-Soviet Non Aggression Pact
  • Meant to protect the USSR from Nazi invasion
  • Nazi’s attacked the USSR in June 1941
• During the pacts films such as Alexander Nevsky (1937) were withdrawn.
• But films were depicting Germans as (historic and contemporary) villains were produced almost immediately after the German invasion of Finland
• Captured German “Agfacolour” stock enabled Eisenstein to shoot Ivan the Terrible II in colour

Soviet Cinema 1945 – 50

• Soviet film industry suffered due to material and human losses of the war
• Stalin tightened control and censorship to limit the effects of Western films
• The postwar period brought even more government control with the rise of the Cold War
• Production plummeted (by 1951 only 9 films were produced, 23 in 1952)
• Acceptable genres
  • Filmed versions of staged performances
  • Short films for children
  • Experimental stereoscopic films

Stone Flower (1946)

• Based on folktale by Bazhov
• 1950: Adapted to the ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower by Prokofiew
• Acceptable genre and serves need of state
• Technically important

Fall of Berlin (1949)

• Praising Stalin for keeping promises.
• Colour = larger than life memorisation of history

Sergei Eisenstein

• Lived: 1898 -1948
• Believed cinema could unite diverse fields of knowledge and develop revolutionary consciousness

• Applied concept of dialectical materialism to film
• Theorised different types of montage with could elicit physical, emotional, and intellectual responses in the spectator

Political Problems

• Battleship Potemkin: International fame but October criticised for inaccessibility and formalism
• Traveled Europe and America. Attempts to complete films in US and Mexico failed
• Alexander Nevsky (1938) featured famous actors, a simplified plot, and an allegorical appeal to anti-German sentiment

FMS 321 – Socialist Realism

Chicago writing style

• footnotes: citations, sources you haven’t cited
• writing.ku.edu/writing-guides

---

Socialist Realism

Coming of Sound

• The USSR’s first sound experiments were released in 1930
  • Entuziam (Dziga Vertov) was a nonfiction film with an experimental, dialogue-less soundtrack.
  • The Plan of the Great Works (Abram Room) a documentary with music and spoken voiceover narration
  • Both used Russian sound-on-film systems
  • 1931: The Road to Life (Nikolai Ekk) a drama was the Soviet Union’s first all-talking picture

Social Realism

• 1932: became state policy when Stalin announced “On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organisations”
• … Socialist Realism is the basic method of Soviet literature and literary criticism. It demands if the artist the truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic representation of reality must be linked with that task of ideological transformation and education of workers in the spirit of socialism.
• 1935: Leningrad Union of Artists held the first exhibition of Sociealist Realist art in Moscow.
• Reaction against modernist movements (i.e. impressionism, cubism, etc) from before the revolution and this rejected as “decadent bourgeois art”
• All material goods and means of production belonged to the community as a whole; including art, which were seen as powerful propaganda tools
• Elevated the common worker (factory of farm) by representing his life, work and recreation as admirable.
• Goal was to educate audiences about the goals of Communism and to create “an entirely new type of human being’ or a New Soviet Man
• SR was ruthlessly enforced in all the arts.

Boris Shumyatsky

• In 1930, Stalin appointed him head of Soyuzkino Studios
• Even after Soyuzkino was dissolved in 1933, he remained in charge of production, import/ export, distribution ands exhibition.
• Championed a ‘cinema for the millions’ which would use
  • clear, linear narration
  • positive heroes as role models
  • lessons in good citizenship
  • support for Stalinist/ Communist Party policy
• Cracked down on filmmakers practicing formalism (Eisentein)

Decline of the Soviet Film Industry

• Shumyatsky failed to complete Eisenstein’s Bezhin Meadow, a devastating failure for both men.
• Failed to build Kinograd, a film community to equal Hollywood, NeuBabelsberg, and Cinecitta.
• Poor production
  • 1930: 94
  • 1935: 45 (130 planned)
  • 1936: 46 (165)
  • 1937: 24 (62)
• Arrested in 1938 for spying. Exiled.

Grigori Aleksandrov (1903 – 1983)

• Worked as Eisenstein’s Assistant Director. (Oct)
• Accompanied Eisenstein to Hollywood in the early 1930s
• Ordered home by Stalin in 1932 but deeply influenced by his journey and determined to find a lighthearted approach to Socialist Realism

FMS 321 – Postwar Japanese Film

Timeline

• US Occupation of Japan (1945 – 52)
• US – Japan Security Treaty (1951, renewed 60, still active)
• The Korean Conflict (1950 – 53)
• The Vietnam War (1965 – 73)

S.C.A.P. – The U.S. Occupation of Japan

• Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers
• Unlike Germany or Italy, Japan’s occupation was primarily American
• Goal was to eradicate “feudalism in Japanese society
• Reconstruction was widespread and deep including education, law, philosophy, politics, cultures, society, art, religion, land reform, etc.

Japan’s Postwar Constitution

Article 9

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of setting international disputes. (2) To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognised.

War Responsibility

• 2 main camps
• What/ who lead America to war?
• Any ‘borrowed’ ideology may not reflect the needs of Japan

Purges and War Guilt

• War criminals divided into A, B, and C levels of importance
• Who is innocent when almost no one resisted militarism?
  • Deception as excuse
  • Victimhood (on multiple levels)
• Not a matter of self-reflection so much as subjectivity
  • Stories presented the shutaiteki or subjective will of characters
  • Victim consciousness was necessary for both Japan and the US Occupation
    • Lack of representation of US Occupation
    • Blame for war laid wholly on the government/ military
• “Victor’s Justice”

Japanese Film Industry

Postwar Japanese film oligopoly ‘the Big Six”

• Nikkatsu 1912-42, 54-
• Shochiku 1895/1920-
• Toho 1934-
• Daiei 1942-71 74-2003
• Shin-Toho 1947-61
• Toei 1950-

Daiei Studios

• Created by the wartime govt. to consolidate resources
• Absorbed smaller studios and Nikkatsu
• Integrated modern film technology
• First successful exporter of Japanese films to West
• Rashomon

Shin-Toho Studios

• Created in response to labour strikes at Toho
• Became favoured studio for leading directors
• After Toho strikes, focused on popular genres
• An early collaborator with television production

Toei Studios

• Employed many repatriates from China
• Focused on jidai-geki and war films
• Would expand into animation (mid-50s)
• Effective expansion and diversification

The Toho Strikes

• “Everything came except the battleships”
• 4 separate strikes occurring between 1946-50
• U.S. military intervention
• Suppression of the left within the film industry
• Support of the conservative right-leaning major studios

Japan’s Film Industry and the “Red Purge”

• Officially announced by decree of SCAP, Sept 1950
• Unofficially requested by the major Japanese studios before
• Similar film industry purges were conducted in Hong Kong the same year

Censorship

• Japanese Film Industry repealed wartime restrictions, banned war-themed on 8/15
• SCAP officials from Civil Information and Education (CIE) Section met with studio heads 9/20
• CIE personnel initially consisted of liberal Roosevelt-era “New Dealers” who wanted to rebuild Japan in the image of the idealised America
• CIE’s 3-point plan to (re)educate the Japanese Film industry

Banned Films

• Film Industry identified and banned 227 – 236 films with militaristic themes
• Self-censorship was conducted so as not to aggravate SCAP
• Obedience was incomplete – some films were successfully hidden
• US military rounded up films, copies were deposited at LOC, surplus was unceremoniously burned in a riverbed
• Paternal attitude of reeducation

FMS 321 – Prewar Japanese Film

Film Industry

• Dominated by 3 large vertically-integrated entertainment corporations
  • Nikkatsu (1912)
  • Shochiku (1895/1920)
  • Toho (1934)

Nikkatsu Studios

• Oldest film company
• Used stage conventions (male actors played female roles
• Integrated modern film technology
• Opened overseas offices (Taiwan, Korea, China)

Shochiku Studios

• Entertainment Promotion Company (Kabuki)
• Extensive theatre holdings
• Long-term contracts with actors
• Rights to theatrical plays
• Latecomer to film – modernised production methods

Toho Studios

• Diversified Entertainment Coporation
• Initially weaker than others
• Gained govt. support in ‘30s
• House style – conservative themed dramas
• Actively supported the war

Major Production Trends

• Jidai geki (Period plays)
  • Chanbara (swordfilms)
  • Historical epics
  • Psychological films
  • Musical films
• Allowed filmmakers safety to make subtle critiques of society by placing social problems in the past

• Gendai geki (Contemporary plays)
  • comedy, action, home drama
  • Shomin (“Petit-bourgeoisie” film)
  • Haha mono (“Mother” films)
  • Salariman mono (“White-collar” film)
• Often more regulated than period films
• Considered less “Japanese” by some, but popular in urban areas

Humanism

• An outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasise common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems. – Oxford Dict.

Prewar Humanist Films

• Gendai geki
  • Home Dramas (Ozu, Naruse)
  • Women’s films (Mizoguchi)
  • Children’s films (Shimizu)
  • War  Films
    • Mud and Soldiers (1939, Tasaka)
    • Five Scouts (1939, Tasaka)

Japan’s Colonial Empire

1894 5: Sino-Japanese War

1904-5: Russo-Japanese War

1910: Colonisation of Korea

1914: Shandong, Caroline Is., Marshall Islands

1931: Manchuria

1937: Full-scale war with China

1941: Pearl Harbor

1945: Defeat in WWII

Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere

• Pan-Asainist ideology – “Asia for Asians”
• Anti-colonial liberation and initially extremely well-received by indigenous peoples
• Claimed that shared cultural proximity united “Asian races”
• Japan presented itself as the “leading race” (shido minzoku) of Asia, its “natural” leader
• Other races were to support Japan “each in their appropriate place” (natural and or human resources)
• Cultural Assimilation policies (language, culture, education, etc.)

Humanist War Films

• Based on best-selling novels
• Portrayed soldiers as individual human beings involved in everyday events
• Humanised the difficulties of army life thereby creating sympathy
• Critiqued by the govt. as portray the army as weak or “exhausted”

From Weimar to Nazism

Weimar Republic 1919 – 1933

Economics

• 1918: Germany lost WW1 and condition for surrender decided by the allies at the Treaty of Versailles
  • Surrender resource-rich colonies
  • Pay enormous monetary compensation to their enemies
• Weimar govt. printed more money to finance war debt = hyperinflation + massive unemployment, drop in living standards, deep national resentment against allies.
• 1929: Wall Street Crash hits Germany especially hard as it relied heavily on US loans
• 1931: Unemployment

Politics

• Pessimism lead upper class, artists and intellectuals to various forms of decadence. Lower classes often forced into liver of crime, theft, prostitution.
• Berlin symbolises these contradictions. One of the World’s “Sin Cities”
• Desperate economic circumstances divided political parties into extremes
• Lacking leadership, frequent violent conflicts
• Weimar era begins with the appointment of Hitler

Culture

• Dramatic rise in productivity
  • Expressionism, Dadaism
  • Cabaret culture
  • Robert Weiner
• Dadaism: Anti-war cultural movement began in Switzerland (1916 – 1920) protested barbarianism of war

Expressionism

• Leading art movement, roots before Weimar Republic
• Lines typically not straight. Denial of order
• Nosferatu 1922: Use of shadow distortion

Weimar Cinema

• UFA: Super studio
  • Didn’t have to leave for anything
  • Vested interest from govt.: Ideals and income
  • Privatised in 1921
  • 600 films a year
  • 1 mil customers everyday
  • Serious threat to Hollywood
    • Watching German films + thought the films were equal or superior
  • Vast, technically superior and inventive
  • Expensive super-productions (Metropolis) – Financial decline + receivership by 1927
  • New studio head Alfred Hugenberg. Sympathetic to Nazism. Produced propaganda films after 1933.
  • Gobels controlled film content through politics.

Genre Motifs

• Group collectivism as a form of social activism/ critique
• Kameradschaft (1931)
• Emil + the Dectectives (1931)
• M (193!)
• Parallel social order
• Similar structures/ functions across social groups
• Desire for social order/ social responsibility
• Adherence to decisive leadership

---

Nazi Cinema (1933 – 1945)

The Propaganda Machine

• Goebbels head of Nazi Germany’s Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
• Aimed to win loyalty and cooperation of German people
• all aspects of social life subject to official censorship
• 15% contained overt Nazi propaganda but films accounted for 20% cinema admissions

Pro-Nazi Propaganda

• Hitlerjung Quex (Steinhoff, 1933)
  • Celebrates spirit of sacrifice among Hitler Youth
  • Young protagonist defies his communist father to server the Nazi cause

Anti-Semetic Propaganda

• Jud Suss (Harlan, 1940)
  • Historical costume melodrama
  • Perpetuates corrosive stereotypes in line with nazi ideology
  • internationally successful

Entertainment Cinema

• Comedies, musicals, fantasy produced
• Hollywood-esque musicals: Frau Luna
• Münchhausen
  • Budget of 6.5 mil Reichmarks
  • 3rd film in AGFA colour
  • Politically innocuous, lavish production values

The Mexican Film Industry (1940 – 1950)

Number of films created

• 1940: 27
• 1940: 124

Mexican society

• increased political stability
  • Camacho (40 – 46)
  • Valdés (46 – 52)
• Rapid industrialisation & modernisation
• Strong economic growth (the “Mexican Miracle”)
• Shift of demographics from rural to urban areas

Mexican/US Relations

• Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, est. 1940
  • Mexico receives film stock, filmmaking equipment, and production support from US govt.
• WWII provides numerous opportunities for the growth of Mexican (film) industry

With onset of WW2 , Mexican industry has:

• decreased composition
• increased US support for film industry
• economic opportunity
• a growing audience at home and abroad
• unprecedented political stability and state support

To close “gloss gap” Mexico’s film industry adapted the Hollywood filmmaking model including:

• a studio system featuring marketable stars
• powerful producers
• recognisable genres
• well developed exhibition and distribution networks
• conventions of editing and storytelling

Mexican cinema and the state (40 – 45)

• Government enforced mandatory exhibition of Mexican films in all Mexican theatres.
• 41: implemented first censorship regulations in 20 years
  • all foreign films must be dubbed or subtitled in spanish
  • images deemed ‘offensive’ to Mexico were banned
• 42: Banco Cinematografico, a public/private partnership to fund film production
• 43: World’s leading Spanish-language cinema
  • Mexican films, starts, and genres popular across Latin America, Spain, and in the USA
  • Mexican studio films commonly idealised the Mexican nation, its people, and its customs. I.E. “Indianist” cinema

Dir. Emilio “El Indio” Fernandez

• Indian heritage, worked as an actor in Hollywood
• Often collaborated with Figueroa
• Known for films that idealised the Mexican countryside and indigenous people

Genres

• Melodrama prevalent
• ‘Cantinflas’ nonsense language poked fun at Mexican society and institutions.
• Mario Moreno: the Charlie Chaplin of Mexico

Mexican cinema and the state (45 – 50)

• After WWII, faces several challenges
  • Decreased demand, and assistance
  • Increased competition
• Govt. responds with subsidies and strengthened protectionism
  • 46: Cinema exempt from income tax
  • 47: State begins buying theatres and studios from US investors

Postwar Genres

• Darker side of Mexico’s modernisation
  • Nightclubs, brothels, city streets
  • Female protagonist ensnared by urban life
  • Mix of Noir, melodrama, and musical

45<, state subsidies/ protectionism contributed to a growing crisis in national film industry

• FPWU “closed door policy” prevented new talent from entering industry
• BNC policies encourages production of cheap, formulaic films

Prewar Mexican Cinema (1931 – 1940)

The Mexican Revolution

• Pres. Porfirio Díaz (1877 – 11)
  • Prior to rev. and leading up to is the long dictatorship of Díaz, difference between rich and poor classes developed. Main interest – making Mexico attractive to foreign investment. Tax free foreign investment. Kept wages low. Made unions illegal.
• Pres. Francisco Madero (1911 – 13)
  • After rev. Madero got unions and strike to be allowed. Not enough progress was made in the short period of time.
• Victoriano Huerta (1913 – 14)
  • Huerto nicknamed the jackal and the usurper. Worked with US military to overthrow Madero. Assumed Pres. as military dictatorship.

Plan of Gudalupe (1913)

• Delegitimized Huerta’s presidency
• Constitutional Army to restore constitutional government

Inconsistent production until presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934 – 1940)

• provided subsidies for studies
• CLASA studios

Santa (Antonio Moreno, 1931)

• First sound film
• Melodrama of young rural woman forced into prostitution in the big city after taking a solider as a lover and being abandoned by him.
• Sound film but long sections without.

Production by year

• 32: 6
• 33 – 36: 20+ each year
• 37: 38
• 38: 57 – anomaly
• 39: 37

Cárdenas support labour and formation of unions.

• UTECM
• CTM

Redes (The Wave, 1934)

• Dir. Fred Zinnermann, Emilio Gómez Muriel
• Strike to improve wages. Fishermen.
• Low budget, funded by government
• Wears its politics on its sleeve
• Only 1 hour long
• Pro-union

Production dominated by commercially oriented films

• One-off productions for quick profit.
• E.g. Comedias Rancheras genre

Comedias Rancheras Genre

• Rural settings
• Plot and style based on early 1900s musical theatre
• Folkloric themes, popular music
• Romance and happy endings
• Conservative genre that challenged Cárdenas’ more liberal agenda
• Recalled a pro-Revolutionary time of peace
• Ignores the Revolution, 1930s land reform
• 38 films in1937: more than half are folkloric or nationalistic in theme
• Signals growing “detachment from reality” in Mexican cinema. Golden Age.
• Nationalism rooted in a rural, indigenous “mexicanidad”

Allá en el ranche grande (Out on the big ranch) 1936

• dir. Fernando de Fuentes
• charro – singing cowboy stock character
• José, the charro, protects his fiancee, Eulalia, from attention of Felipe, the ranch owner
• All returns to normal by end – status quo maintained
• Internation success (esp. in Latin America)
• Tito Guízar became an international star
• 28 imitations followed over the next couple of years.

---

Gabriel Figueroa

Cinematographer

• Dual artistic/ technical role
• Responsible for look of the film
• Collaborates closely with the director throughout filming
• Head of the camera and lighting departments

Biography

• 1907, Mexico City
• Teen: studied painting and worked in a portrait studio
• 1930s: left MC and went to Hollywood to train in cinematography. Government-funded.

Strongly influenced by Mexican Muralism

• Government -supported artistic movement
• Founded on belief that art has a social and idealogical function
• Sought to create ‘authentic’ Mexican art.

Big Three: Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros.

• Figueroa is the fourth
• All committed to portraying indigenous and Spanish heritage and celebrating the Mexican people

Style

• Dramatic contrasts of light and dark
• Deep focus photography
• Low horizons
• Billowing clouds (infrared filters)
• Facial photography emphasising the heroism of peasant and the beauty of Mexican stars.

Let’s Go with Pancho Villa! (1936)

• Dr. Fernando de Fuentes
• Not “detached from reality”; openly critical of Revolution
• Produced during an “experimental” period in Mexican cineman prior to heightened commercialism
• Political “message” film
• First film made at CLASA studios
• Support from Cárdenas govt. (money and material)
• 1mil pasos, went bankrupt, govt. saved it by giving them the pass.

FMS 321 – Italian Neorealism

Background

• “Neorealism” first used to Visconti’s Ossessione (1943)
• Post-WWII Italy (1945-53) height of Neorealism
• Rome Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), Germany Year Zero (1948) – Rossellini
• La Terra Trema (Visconti 1948)
• Shoeshine (1946), Bicycle Thieves (1948), Umberto D. (1952) – Vittorio de Sica
• “Contemporary social, historical, and political subject matter”
• Protagonists consist of poor or marginalised groups
• Low budget, low production values
• Ordinary individuals in oppressive political/ socioeconomic conditions
• Location shooting
• Emphasis on non-professional actors
• Narratives typically focus on quotidian details of life; less emphasis on plot, more emphasis on occurrences/ events

Context

• Social, political, economic
  • Reaction to prewar, Fascist influence on Italian cinema. Typically light/ indirect treatment of political issues
  • Centro Sperimentale in Rome: Attended by Rossellini, Antonioni, and other practitioners of postcard Neorealism
  • Cinecittà
  • Political gap left after Fascism filled by Christian Democrats
    • 1944-48 Centrist coalition of:
      • Italian Communist Party
      • Socialist Party
      • Liberal Party
  • Alcide de Gasperi, Christian Democrat, Prime Minister 1945-48
  • 1945-48 brief window for Neorealists
  • 1948 Christian Democrats separate from the Communist and Socialist parties.
  • Oct 5 1945: Fascist film laws repealed.
    • ENIC was dismantled
      • Loss of monopoly on distribution
      • Hollywood films return. 1949: 369 (73% of box office receipts). 95 Italian films released.
  • 1949: Undersecretary of Public Entertainment, Giulio Andreotti
    • “Andreotti laws”
      • Import limits, screen quotas
      • Pre-production censorship
      • Script approval for funds and export licences
    • Chastised and punished Neorealists
      • “Washing dirty linen in public”
      • “Slandering Italy abroad”
• Aesthetic
  • Verismo. “Objective” presentation of life; lower classes; unadorned language.
  • Postwar resurgence of relish in Italian literature with novelists such as Italo Calvino
  • André Bazin “An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism”
    • “Reconstituted reportage”
      • Compares Neorealism to modern novel (Faulkner, Hemingway, Malraux, Dos Passos, Camus)
      • The modern novel reduces “the strictly grammatical aspect of its stylistics to a minimum”
      • Compares cinematography to Bell and Howell newsreel camera.
        • “Almost a living part of the operator, instantly in tune with his awareness”
      • “Air of documentary, a naturalness neared to the spoken than to the written accounts, to the sketch rather than to the painting
  • Il Bandito (Lattuada, 1946)
    • Travelling streets, discovering what is left
    • Focus on environmental, panoramic shot. 1st person.
    • American music.
  • Paisan (Rossellini, 1946)
    • Sound made on-screen, except voice over narration, very documentary
    • All on location
    • Longer takes

---

Roberto Rossellini

Biography

• Born in Rome, Italy 1906
• Son of a wealthy Italian architect
• Went to Cinema Corso as a child a lot
• Worked as an apprentice in film; gained experience in sound, dubbing, set design, editing, screenwriting
• Directed his first short documentary in 1937
• Close friend of Vittorio Mussolini, son of Il Duce

Fascist Trilogy

• Italian armed forces: The White Ship (1941), A Pilot Returns (1942), Man of the Cross (1943)
• First two funded by Fascist regime
• “Fictional Documentary”
  • Documentary footage
  • Staged action shot on location
  • Focus on contemporary narrative events

Rome, Open City (1945)

• Shot in 1945, while Italy was still at ward
• Story centred on three anti-Fascist protagonists during the Nazi occupation of Rome. Struggling to survive.
• Based in part on true events

Paisan (1946)

• Financed by international investors, distributed in the US by MGM
• Follows progress of Allied forces from southern to northern Italy
• Composed of 6 segments connected by newsreel footage

Germany, Year Zero (1947)

• Follows a 12 year old boy struggling to survive in post-war Berlin
• Financed by French production company
• Dedicated to his son
• Real settings, rough script

---

Other Neorealist Filmmakers

• Visconti La Terra Trema (1948)
  • Family in Sicily mortgage home to buy a boat to catch fish and sell
  • Everything is real
  • Encourages dialect
• Zavattini, primarily a screenwriter
  • Most vocal proponent of Neorealism
  • “Some Ideas on the Cinema” – article on ethical responsibility of filmmakers
• de Sica, starts as a romantic/ comedic actor in white telephone films. Noted for work with non-prof. actors as leads. Il Signor Max (1937)
  • Locations are in tact
  • Order and structure
  • Lighthearted subject matter. Humorous

FMS 321 – Italian Fascism

The Earlier Italian Film Industry

• Production Trends
  • Lavish historical epics: Lasts days of Pompeii; L’enferno (1911); Quo Vadis? (1912)
  • Technically advanced Cabiria (1914) influences Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) and the development of the feature length film. 
  • Italian craftsmen in particular were sought out in Hollywood for set design and art design
• Industry Structure
  • Production companies created for individual films
    • Industries destroyed from the war: personnel and lack of materials. 
  • Lack of stability (Economical, managerial)
  • Lacked vertical integration

Fascism: Preliminary Definition

• Fasces (Lat) – “A bundle” or rolls of sticks with a protruding axe. The symbol of unity, strength, and authority in the ancient Roman Empire
• Fascismo (Ita) – Signifies individual groups or factions that, when assembled together, create a powerful (political/ military) force.
• The Fascist Party (1922 – 1943) was an ultra-nationalist movement designed to unify Italy as a modern nation in opposition to:
  • Conservatism
  • Communism
  • Liberalism

Fascism in Context

• Considered a “relaxed policy” in that it was less focused than either Communism or Nazism
• Themes focused on establishing Italian Nationalism
  • The Fascist regime was a coalition of:
    • Rural landowners
    • Disaffected intellectuals
    • Superpatriots
    • Passive middle class
• Govt. left private interests – including cinema- alone. 

Fascism and the Film Industry

• Was slow in attempting to control film
• Failed to achieve full domination of the industry 
• Rarely represented Fascism in films as the main theme
• Unable to eradicate Hollywood, the party tried to compete with it
• Created LUCE (L’Unione Cinematographica Educativa), a State-controlled documentary and newsreel studio

The Conversion to Sound

• Developed together with radio
• Viewed as a ‘foreign” technology due to a lack of a domestic system
• Prohibitively expensive – many smaller exhibitors went bankrupt
• Cut into profits as loans from distributors were based on projected future profits
• Films screened had to be popular with massive audiences. 
  • Owners so deep in debt that they couldn’t take the risk of showing something that wouldn’t produce a profit

Fascist Cinema of the 1930s

• Depression triggered govt. legislation
  • Trying to protect
  • Subsidies, compulsory exhibition, foreign film tariffs, prizes
  • Venice International Film Festival (1932)
• 1934: Mussolini places the industry under control of the General Direction of Cinema (Direzione Generale Cinematografica) headed by Luigi Freddi
• 1935: Nation Office for the Cinema Industry (Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematographiche – ENIC) given authority in all areas of production,
  • Rarely used power due to lack of money.
  • National film School (Centro Sperimentale)
• 1937: Cinecitta “Film City” constructed on the outskirts of Rome to compete with Holly and Germany’s UFA.
  • Able to build a strong industry
  • Film journal “Bianco e nero” (still active)

The Failure of Fascism?

• The “Alferi Law” promoted investments in (mostly big-budget) productions.
• The “Monopoly Law” enabled the govt. to control all imported films.
• The industry was never state-based or wholly controlled by the state
• The industry never became self-sufficient and was constantly losing money

A Cinema of Distractions

• Production of commercial genres – mostly influenced by Hollywood – blended propaganda and entertainment
• Similarities and differences with Nazi cinema

---

The Extent of Government intervention

• 1920s – Early 30s: Lax relationship to narrative Film
• Freddi: Audiences would reject blatant propaganda
• Nazis’ coercive approach had a negative effect on German cinema
• Called for a “cinema of distraction” 

A cinema of distraction

• Entertainment over explicit propaganda
• Established Cinecittà 1937
• Established Centro Sperimentale 1935
• “Alfieri law” 1938
  • Aid given to producers based on ticket sales
  • Encourages popular films

Fascist Films

• Vecchia Guardia (1933)
• Camicia Nera (1932)
• Condottieri (1937) <- Look into

White Telephone Films

• Romantic melodramas or comedies featuring certain stylistic and/ or narrative conventions
• La Signora di Tutti (1934)

Forms of Censorship

• Mussolini/ regime pre-screened films
  • Refuse import of objectionable foreign films
  • Refuse release of unacceptable Italian films

Dubbing as Censorship

• Foreign imports
  • US: The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938) starring Gary Cooper
    • Importation initially blocked – Cooper inappropriate representative of an Ita character
    • Title change: Uno Scozzese alla Corte del Gran Khan 
    • Dubbing used to alter Cooper character’s nationality and any associations with Italy
    • Balance of idealogical purpose of the state with economical interests so puts the effort to edit instead of refuse.

Censorship: Ossessione (Visconti 1943)

• Disturbed Italian govt. and censors
• Benitio Mussolini initially allowed its distribution
• “This is not Italy!” – Vittorio Mussolini after 1st public screening
  • What is Italy? – Defining Italy major goal of Fascism
  • Set among poor, gritty, unglamorous
  • Signals a developing trend toward greater realism
• Fascists destroy original negative
  • but Visconti retained a duplicate

FMS 321 – History of International Sound Film to 1950: Great Britain

Themes:

• Nationalism
• Empire
• Colonialism

Pre-Sound British Film Industry:

• William Freese Greene (1855 – 1921)
  • Tributed with having developed and patent for moving pictures in 1889, two  years before Edison and six before the Lumiere Brothers
• George Albert Smith (1864 – 1959)
  • Pioneered the idea of joining two shots together. Film editing (narrative film) in 1901, two years before Edwin S. Porter in the US was credit with the same
  • The great train robbery and the life of a fireman

Main Responses to Hollywood:

• The Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 (Quota Act)
  • Specialised in producing niche films that Hollywood wouldn’t or couldn’t produce.
• English speakers > in numbers, unlike other European countries. America, England, Australia, etc. The Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 (Quota Act)

The Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 (Quota Act):

• British Government-initiated law sought to:
  • Establish vertical integration
    • Owning the studios, newspapers for reviews, transportation, etc. The only way their industry could hope to compete with Hollywood
  • Protect the British marker through film quotas
    • British theatres must show a certain amount of British films for 10 years. 7.5% of all films screened has to be British. 75% of salaries going to British subjects.
    • No mention of minimum quality for films led to “quota quickies”

Effects of  Quote Act:

• Benefits
  • Inspired production of big-budget blockbuster spectacle films dependent on forge in box office to be profitable.
  • 25 % of all films shown on British screens were British
  • Audiences came in greater numbers than anticipated
• Drawbacks
  • Lavish films struggled ot recoup production cost domestically
  • Poor quality “quickies” ultimately hurt the British film industry

---

Alfred Hitchcock Through the 1930s

• Begins film work for British studios in 1920
• Gaumont-British Picture Corporation; Gainsborough Pictures
  • Michael Balcon
• Artist; set designer
• Moved through the ranks to writer, assistant directer, director in approximately 5 years.

Training and Experience:

• Gaumont-British Picture Corporation + Gainsborough Pictures participated in co-productions with Germany’s national studio UFA
• Hitchcock worked on some of these: “The Blackguard” (Graham Cuts, 1925)
• UFA: one of the most influential studios
  • F.W. Murnau,  Fritz Lang, German Expressionism
• Comparatively weaker British industry used co-productions to improve production techniques
• Observed filming of “The Last Laugh” (Murnau, 1924)

Influence on Later Work:

• Murnau
  • Mobile camera, camera embodying psychological perspective of character, set design
• Lang
  • Thiller/ suspense narratives of psychological complexity, moral ambiguity
• Soviet-style montage
  • Saw these while in London, late 20s. “Sabotage” (1936) by Hitchcock
• German Expressionism
  • “The Lodger” (1926)

Key British Films:

• “Blackmail” (1929)
  • One of the first British sound films.
• “The Man Who Knew To Much” (1934)
  • Average people stumble upon crime, espionage, etc. Continue to pursue this out of curiosity, ignorance, and/ or necessity to prove innocence
  • Assissination attempt at Royal Albert Hall
• “The 39 Steps” (1935)
  • Most successful film yet
  • Garnered much international attention
  • Male-female couple joined (in handcuffs) by circumstances – antagonists, then allies, then lovers
  • Wrong man plot
  • “Hitchcock Blonde”
• “The Lady Vanishes” (1938)
  • Espionage thriller, sometimes interpreted as a commentary on contemporary political situation in the lead up to WWII

---

Alexander Korda (Transnational “British” Filmmaker)

• Hungarian Jewish Immigrant who back in the Hungarian film industry
• Worked in Vienna, Berlin, Hollywood, London, small skint in Paris
  • Goes to London because in the 30s, London was desperate. Took his brothers with him who were very well regarded in the industry.

• Extremely talented director and producer
• Surrounded himself with the top talent and high production values
• Keen promoter of UK films abroad
  • Savvy because he knew how to sell films abroad. Made lavish appearing films on a low budget.

• Became a passionate British Nationalist
• Was ultimately knighted for his promotion of the British Empire.
• Doesn’t really have solid roots in any single nation. Goes with the job. Related to identity. Antisemitism.
• Married to one of the most successful Hungarian actress, very successful during silent films but because of her strong accent she lost her work when sound came into film

Representing “Britishness”

• Major themes in Korda’s films
  • Empire building
  • British upper class

---

Final Project:

Feminism in film?

Dystopian society?