Sally's First Film Class (Film History)

Longer shot film developed better in the early cinema. It attracts more and more people to notice film and love to see films. At first, people only saw the interesting image, but with the development of film, poeple started to see the plot. So, narrative film became popular. Just like now, the topic that everyone liked at that time was the issue of female status and human rights and racial equality.  I'd love to talk about the form films were at that time. As we know, silent film is the earliest film in the history. In the beginning, the movie had only images, and sometimes added some music, without lines. Everyone just looked at the image changes. Just like The Kiss in the Channel (1899) . After a period of development, the silent film began to have a background music, and gradually there were narrations written in the subtitles. You can understand the plot of this movie through the subtitles. But I don't really like this kind of movie that requires subtitles to understa...

The first film we should read this week is interesting. This is a good way to record a game. Lots of people who are far from the place that has game like ball game can see it on the screen by making it as a documentary film. It creates a new form to make film. In the Shelley Stamp's opinion, female fans are important for the female film. Some actresses reflect some quality that women have like independence, and female fans are interested in these kind of film. Also, it can give people a impression that women can do something like these women in the films. It makes a big role at that time. But at last, the author said that some female heroes get married at last. Maybe they want to show the love. Or maybe they want to show women that they need to get married to live at last. So, it can have lots of ways to interpretation. 

In the chapter 12, Shelley Stamp , The Slient Cinema Reader , the author emphasizes the female actresses and filmmakers. Female characteristic appeared on the screen. They made films about female like adventure film and so on. They wanted to reflect the female power and to value the female in the society. Some films reflected the depictions of female independence within, and some films reflected the professionalism of women. Like The Perils of Pauline (1914) . We can see lots of actresses act action movie and they need to do some difficult and sophisticated action. It was popular from that time.  It also showed that female fans were important at that time. But in the series of Les Vampires(1915) , the thief was a woman. We can know that in French movie, this kind of movie was immoral becausit included crime. I think that this movie also had a little prejudice against women. 

In the book, Early Cinema (2004) , "Non-liner approach" proposed by Deac Rossell is very attractive to me. He make a opposite opinion with Salt. "Rossell suggests that we must also pay close attention to Salt's evolutionary dead-ends if we are to generate a balanced understanding of early film culture." (p33) If we only chose one way to approach early film, we will lose a lot of meaningful and amazing fields of film. This opinion makes a positive effect in the film history. I really like the film, Vampyr (1932) , This film's plot is very clear that I can see the characteristic of narrative film obviously. It is a good example in the development of silent film. In this film, we can see the good and evil clearly. "Good" people had a happy ending, and "Bad" people got the punishment they deserved. In my perspective, it played a positive role in the society at that time. Also, it was helpful for the education.

The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) used shots to give a story to audiences. In that movie, director used some black background to make it partly hidden and partly visible and gave audiences more spaces to imagine. Their expression, their behavior and so on also showed the love between these two people. They are shy, avoid others, and don't want others see them at first. And this image built a phenomenon which is dubious relationship. So, this is the important point that narrative films came out. Also, films became more popular than before. But the cinemas didn't have a good influnces at that time. The important point is the Paris Charity Bazzar Fire (1897). Cinemas also made some bad effects on people. For instance, there were some boys steel things because they saw some films about that. So, after the bad reputation on cinemas, The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) gave a good beginning at the narrative films. From my perspective, it is true that the uses of cinema are from d...

Hello everyone! I'm Xiyue Zhang, you can call me Sally. I'm freshman and major in Film Studies. I also want to minor in music and Japanese. This is my first film class. I'm really excited! I'm in China now. Just finishing the 14 days quarantine in the hotel. But I also need to quarantine in my home by myself. Because in the airplane when I came back to my hometown, two people were diagnosed COVID-19 and they sit on my right. It was really scared, but untill now, I feel really good! The reason why I take this class is that I am film major and I need to take film history class. To be honest, my history is bad before. But I think film history is good for my knowledge reserve. And I will try mt best to study film history! Also, film is interesting and I like to study it.