Sally's First Film Class (Film History)

    Chaplin this week is very attractive to me. He is a comedian familiar to almost everyone. When I watched The Champion (1915, Charlie Chaplin) (although Ihe is very famous, this is the first movie I have seen him), I truly felt the charm of comedy and himself. I used to never understand silent comedy movies, and I don't understand why without a line, they can make the audience happy. But after I watched Chaplin's movie, I learned that comedy doesn't just rely on lines and language. A really good comedian can make the audience laugh with one look, one action, and one reaction.     The short video, Buster Keaton: The Art of the Gag , tells us how to shoot the movie, including the shooting process and the finished product after the editing. This video has taught me a lot, like the mutiple shooting shots used in post-editing, as well as special effects.     There is also a particularly interesting lens: a minute hand made of iron and a magnet o...

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.