Silent Cinema: General Notes
Areas of study for silent cinema Core: - Key elements of film form - Representation & Aesthetics - Context Specialist: - Realist/ Expressive critical debate This debate centres on whether film should be a ‘realist’ or an ‘expressive’ medium. In other words, should a filmmaker be concerned with representing the world as is, for example in the manner of a documentary, or should a filmmaker regard the medium as a creative one in which the everyday world is transformed? In film history this divide is traced all the way back to the period around 1895-1902 in France. The Lumiéres Brothers conceived of this new invention as one for recording found reality and in so doing encouraging the spectator to gaze freshly on a world that might otherwise be taken for granted. By contrast George Méliès made fantasy films of great imagination and creativity. In 40's, French film critic Andre Bazin set in motion a major debate as he argued both German Expressionist & Soviet Monta