Jeff Merrick
Film History 2: ONLINE
Rutsky
3/14/13

Mid-Term Examination

PART 1 1) Jean-Pierre Melville 2) Pier Paolo Pasolini 3) Glauber Rocha 4) Robert Bresson 5) Michelangelo Antonioni 6) Kenji Mizoguchi 7) Luis Bunel 8) Ingmar Bergman 9) Ousmane Semebene 10) Yasujiro Ozu

PART 2 1) Cinerama 2) Cinema Novo 3) The 400 Blows (1959) 4) After their promise to be set free was broken the slaves rebel and are then all hunted down and killed, besides one slave who escapes. 5) His job is to put up posters. 6) …going to see the train. 7) Rashamon (1950) 8) …the judge. 9) A groit is a West African historian/storyteller. 10) It was a film critic magazine in France that was formed in 1951 by Andre Bazin. Their ‘la politique des Auteurs’ theories would eventually form into the ‘Auteur theory. ‘

PART 3

1) Important factors that helped the film industry in Japan and Hollywood were by using a similar film industry, primarily the concept of 'vertical integration'. Creating large studio systems and solidifying bases of distribution and exhibition provided the necessary profit to increase their production values and simply create more films. Vertical integration allowed for fewer, larger companies control the market and gain very large profits while also containing their profits to themselves. Along with Japan and the US’s large movie-going populations, Japan even larger than the US, eventually drove up the demand for films. In an ongoing cycle countries like Japan and the US were able to solidify a steady stream of films, pushing their limits as they go and successfully dominating the world film industry.
3) New Wave and New Cinema changed the face of the film industry because a new generation of faces were starting to emerge. The generation of the ‘Baby Boomers’ were starting to come of age during the 60’s and 70’s and began making films by the youth, for the youth. Tired with the fantasies of Hollywood, the perpetuating myths that movies can make, young filmmakers such as Glauber Rocha, the influential Brazilian filmmaker and creator of Cinema Novo, focused more on social themes that focused more on the real people. No longer was cinema mainly utilized as a medium of entertainment, like a majority of films just prior to WW2, but now film was utilized as a tool for social change. Young filmmakers were aimed at addressing themes that reflected the youth and the counterculture. In light of these new artistic directions in cinema a whole new wave of young viewers started to shape the new face of cinema away from the voyeurism of Hollywood.

5) Hitchcock’s film The Trouble with Harry (1955) serves as a metaphor of life in the 50’s because the film very beautifully and softly shot, however the underlining events are much more sinister and dark and suggests that the tranquility of the 50’s is a façade. The 50’s marked a high point in American hysteria with the fear of communism and the fear of nuclear war. The 50’s also marked a critical era of TV, shows like Leave it to Beaver that represent America as a happy, structured and fruitful society and left out many, if not all, important social problems of the time. The Trouble with Harry plays with a similar tranquil and innocent representation of society on the surface, while gun shots and dead bodies pulls the audience out of the façade and presents the social problems of society that TV simply ignores.

PART 4

1) The Paramount Decision primarily ended block booking, where theaters were given a required ‘block’ of films they had to show. With block booking there really isn’t much competition in what films receive attention and which ones do not, because they are exhibited at a standard rate controlled by the film companies. The end of block-booking now allowed for a larger field of competition between what kinds of films were made, Independent films and Hollywood films. No longer could the film companies simply slap together a