Lecture 7: Georges Melies--The Magician of the Screen
A. Georges Melies (1861-1937) Father of Film Fantasy [view image]
1. The White Magician
2. Nouveau Riche of Industrial Revolution
B. Robert-Houdin Theater in Paris [view an image of Robert-Houdin and an illustration of the theater]
C. Gaston Tissander and La Nature
D. The Fascination with the Lumieres films
E. Innovations of Melies
1. Bouguereau comes to life- Beaux Arts look
2. The Inner Vision- first real filmmaker, screenwriter, set designer, director
3. Double exposure, multiple exposures, stop motion, fadeout, dissolve
Stop-motion animation in a film by Melies
4. First motion picture production studio
5. Superimposition
F. Problems
1. Stagy, no closeups
2. Superseded by Edwin S. Porter
G. Voyage a la lune (France, 1902)
1. Masterpiece of Melies
2. Influence of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon
3. Chatelet Girls
4. Fascination with technology
5. Bouguereau-esque vision
6. Baroque throne room of Gianlorenzo Bernini--Cathedra Petri!
7. Alphonse Mucha and Art Nouveau
Alphonse Mucha poster in Art Nouveau style for Sarah Bernhardt
8. Sarah Bernhardt and Granola Cookies
9. Stop motion, superimposition, acrobats, smoke bombs, illusionistic sets like
engravings that slide up and down
H. The Demise of Melies
1. Too repetitive
2. 1913- World War I eve and army requisitions studio
3. 1923- theater demolished
4. 1929- penniless at 68
5. 1931- the rediscovery of Melies by D.W. Griffifth, Rene Clair, Charlie Chaplin, Jean Cocteau
6. 1938- dies at old performers home at Orly
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Lecture 8: From The Other Paris to Max Reinhardt
A. Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) and the Other Paris
1. Rival of Ingres
2. Romanticism
3. The power of color versus line
4. Liberty Leading the People - 1830
5. Othello 1816 [view an image of Eugene Delacroix's Othello 1816 and a comparison of Delacroix vs. Ingres]
B. Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)- heroic materialism
1.Social Realism- the heroism of modern people
2. Show me an angel and I'll paint one
3. Hatred of Bougereau
4. 1855- Salle des Refuses
5. The Stone Breakers (1849) [view an image of Courbet's The Stone Breakers, 1849, Dresden]
C. Edouard Manet (1832-1883)- Impressionism
1. The reaction to photography- is art dead?
2. Optical sensations of light and color
3. Dejeuner sur l'herbe1863--Lunch on the Grass [view an image of Manet's Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe, 1863]
a. Shocking, not idealistic
b. Reaction to Romantic
c. Art for art's sake
d. Man losing importance in the machine age
D. Claude Monet (1840-1926) Impressionism
1. Views of Rouen Cathedral 1894
2. Matter as color and light, dehumanization of form
3. Complimentary colors and choppy brush strokes
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C. Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)- Pre-Expressionist, or Post-Impressionist
Starry Night 1889
1. The flip side of the industrial revolution
2. Admirer of Courbet
3. Man as victim- moody and sickly
4. The Night Cafe 1888 [view an image of Van Gogh's The Night Cafe, 1888]
5. The background is alive and is fertilized by the artist's emotions
6. Intense emotional expression
nitecafesm.gif (36192 bytes) The Night Cafe 1888 by Van Gogh
7. Van Gogh as Sexual Predator- parallels with Theodore Kazinsky, the unibomber
a. Love of his brother
b. Stalker obsesses with women
c. Acute paranoia and rejection of modernity
d. Hatred of society which slighted him
e. Violent
f. Lives primitively
D. Edvard Munch (1863-1944)Post-Impressionist, Pre-Expressionist
1. Influence of Van Gogh- primitive forces within all of us
2. Influence of Sigmund Freud- death wish, role of women, repression
3. Distortion, exaggeration, anguish- abandon natural imagery for greater impact
4. Neuroses, fear of women, social anxiety
5. The Scream 1893- psychic anguish, existential loneliness, morbid, disorienting diagonal. [view an image of The Scream]
6. Spring Evening on Karl Johann Street 1892
7. Theater design for Max Reinhardt 1906 in Berlin
Lecture 9: Inside the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
A. Max Reinhardt- head of German theater 1907-1919
1. Die Kammerspiele 1906- intimate theater in Berlin for 300 people.
2. Der lehnstuhl sagt alles
3. Stimmung
4. Sie haben die Farbe von krankem Zahnfleisch
5. Baroque chiaroscuro- influence of Caravaggio and Rembrandt
Paul Wegener in The Golem, Germany, 1920
and Reinhardt-style kammerspiele lighting
Background of the Golem
6. Psychic acoustics- light, smoke, movement, crowd movement, drain stimmung from scene
Crowd handling in the Reinhardt style in
movie Monna Vanna, Germany 1922
B. Hans Poelzig- Grosses Schauspielhaus 1919/ Great Playhouse
1. Expressionist architect - technically a Romantic Expressionist
2. Fascination for theaters and carnivals
3. The building is alive
4. Leitmotif
5. Capriccio
6. Friend of Emil Nolde
C. Emil Nolde- early 20th century German Expressionist [view an image of Emil Nolde's St. Mary of Egypt Among Sinners, 1912, Hamburg]
1. Influence of native German tendencies towards Expressionism
2. Die Brucke- the link between nature and emotion
a. Heroes are Munch, Van Gogh- communal craft guild
b. Religion, ecstatic fervor, bold tempest of color
c. Reduction to essentials
D. Pablo Picasso and Cubism 1881-1973
1. An architecture of color
2. The Cubist Movement- prismatic reordering of reality, Three Musicians, 1921
3. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1906 by Picasso
E. Lyonel Feininger- Cubism in Germany ca. 1912
1. End of the Seance (Lecture) 1910
2. Angles with Bluebird 1912
3. Cycle Race 1912
4. The Privateers 1920
F. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff- German Expressionist-Cubism ca. 1912 [view images of Houses at Night by Schmidt-Rottluff, 1912, Summer 1913 by Scmidt-Rottluf (Caligari would probably have been like this in color) and Way to Emmaus 1918- by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (note similarity to Caligari set design)
G. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Germany, 1919)- directed by Robert Wiene
1. Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari
2.Cesare the somnambulist
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1919
3. Dr. Caligari, Francis, Alan and Jane
4. Robert Wiene
5. Hermann Warm and Walter Reimann
Set design by Warm / Expressionist-Cubist Set
6. Der Sturm- "Storm",emotionalism, link between nature and emotion
7. Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer
8. The Schauerfilm
"Dr. Caligari" fan Rob Zombie dressed as John Barrymore as
Svengali from the 1931 American movie