CINEMA IN THE '60s

Some Context on the times:

-First TV broadcasts in color

-President John F. Kennedy's assassination and Martin Luther King’s

-Miniskirt made first appearance

-Race riots, anti-war protests, women and gay marches

-Martin Luther King, Woodstock Musical Festival in upper-state New York

-Arpanet (first Internet) invented

-First Man on the Moon with Apollo 11 space flight

-Questioning of authority, more freedom and rights demanded for women and minorities (e.g.: homosexual marches)

-Sexual Revolution

-Socially accepted drug use (LDS, marijuana) psychedelic music.

-Breaking up of conventions and imposed morality

  

-Young people begin to revolt against the conservative norms of the time, creating a “counterculture” in USA, against the social conformity trend in the 50s (as excessive materialism) and the extensive govt. intervention in Vietnam (Hippie movement created)

Effect on Cinema

 The counterculture movement had a significant effect on cinema:

 -Movies begin to break social taboos such as sex and violence, causing both controversy and fascination. 

-They turn increasingly dramatic, unbalanced, and hectic as the cultural revolution was starting. 

  

-The 1960s were also about experimentation. With the inclusion of light-weight and affordable cameras, the underground (outside the scope of mainstream media and popular culture) vanguard film movement progressed.

Technical Innovations

-The invention of the Nagra 1/4", sync-sound, portable open-reel tape deck. 

-Move to all-color production in Hollywood films.

-Expo 67 where new film formats like IMAX were invented and new ways of displaying film were tested (motion picture film format, greater size and resolution than conventional film systems)

-Flat-bed film editing tables appear, like the Steenbeck. Better editing, less risk of damaging film. 

Events in Film Industry

-Removal of the Motion Picture Association of America's Production Code in 1967. Voluntary MPAA film rating system.

 -The Studio System has much less control over filmmaking in general. Take-overs by multinationals (Paramount case forbid vertical integration before) 

-The rise of 'art house' films and theaters (not mainstream cinema aimed at mass) 

-Fall in sales, worst economical years for the studio system.

-The rise of independent producers that worked outside of the Studio System. 

-The French New Wave and New Hollywood (End of Classical Hollywood)

-Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité documentaries (capture of reality/truth)

NEW HOLLYWOOD

-Because of decaying Studio System, new approach to filmmaking: intention of being innovative

-Technicolor became used far more frequently, and widescreen processes and technical improvements, such stereo sound and 3-D, invented in order to retain audience and compete with the advance of television, generally not succeeding in the aim

-New audience generation: counter-culture bred, tendency to like art films, nude scenes, violent movies

-Musicals and historical epics not calling attention as before

-Less control of the Studio System on hired individual filmmakers to make market flexible against this changed context

-In movies, new levels of violence, sex, society-defying scenes and passion for artistic value itself (Controversial themes)

-Technically, the greatest change the New Hollywood filmmakers brought to the art form was an emphasis on realism, contrasted with “Old Hollywood’s artificiality,” as in musicals

-More introspective movies (e.g.: from real demons to inside psyche ones, as in Hitchcock’s Psycho, character with multiple personality disorders)

Bonnie and Clyde

Video Embedded

Some characters of epoch you might know

•Woody Allen

•George Lucas

•Keith Carradine

•Harrison Ford

•Clint Eastwood

• Brigitte Bardot

The End of New Hollywood

-Blockbuster mentality / high concept projects (e.g.: star wars)

Soundtracks and Sequels

FRENCH NEW WAVE

-Group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Some were writers of Cahiers du cinéma.

-New Wave filmmakers linked by their rejection of conventional cinematic form and their ideals of iconoclasm. 

-New filming techniques:

Innovative shots (see video)

Rapid scene changes

Improvised dialogue

Stylistic aggressive approach to defy mainstream conventions (eg.: characters directing themselves towards audience)

Themes, as accepting the absurdity of human existence, and the use of broke-up narrative structure.

-Radical experiments with editing, visual style and narrative, part of a general break-up with the conservative style. 

-Half necessity and half vision, artistic themes represented on tight budgets. Limited crew and cast. Forced improvisation with equipment.

Jean-Luc Godard

•One of the most extreme/radical New Wave filmmakers.

•Broke with conventional filmmaking, audiences sometimes concluded he felt contempt of them for making such aggressive changes in movie structures, or radical shots

• Existentialism, politics and Marxism common themes.

Weekend shot

Videos For CINEMA IN THE 60's

Closed Framing basics

Closed framing is a type of shot which conveys an artificial environment, in where the characters are in a way controlled or imprisoned by an external force which they can't perceive. This evokes this "made" setting in which characters are not in control, as if outside forces where dominant over their fate, movements, etc., creating a clautrophobic effect. Visual and sonic elements are usually overloaded in order to convey this artificial tone, as the frame captures the characters. An example of closed frame is the shooting in Elephant, in where the camera follows the characters of behind, as if showing they are not in control of their environment.  

Mise-en-scene school's essence

The concept which we tried to capture was the standardisation to which the students are subject to: the uniformity in which everyone is turned (tried to turn) into certain model student (through imposal of uniform, haircut, behaviour, etc.). This school conformity is the essence we tried to evoke in this shot, by aligning the characters in two symmetrical rows and dressing everybody equally (also the equal poses), conveying a sense of discipline and order. Being a fairly long-shot with straight angle, there was space for the spacial depth to be noticed and the sun to hit in only one of the sides of the character's faces, in order to enforce/maximise this equality, this constant conformist view of creating repeated stereotypes.

Mise-en-scene of Rear Window's (Alfred Hitchcock) opening scene

a) An urban ambience is conveyed, creating this sense of close together/packed up society, as we can see the several tall buildings and the cars, evoking a busy situation, a contunuity of a routine, creating a stereotypical, NORMAL, situation. Also, a nearly claustrophobic feeling is created by this enclosed environment. The light-rythm and stable cadences of the music also help convey this "normal" situation, an everyday routine. The stillness of the shot helps the audience perceive the movements inside it: the blinds going down showing more detail each time, the cars passing by, people moving. 

b) The camera suddenly zooms in the set from inside the place in where it was, so it creates the effect of being a point of view, of being the eye of the character the audience will soon see. This represents the character as being a watcher, a spy of this environment. It foreshadows the role of the character, who, from the space in where the camera in placed, looks all around him all day long (this is then conveyed as the camera starts showing the whole set, rotating and "looking" at it).

Mise-en-scene of the Last Emperor

In this particular shot from the Last Emperor, a sense of power and royalty is evoked, contrasted with the conveying of a "finale"/doom ambience: the end of this exotic culture. In order to convey this effect, the shot has been set up in such a way to create different sensations on the spectator. It is a long-shot, which gives a broad image of the whole set: a temple which inspires power by its magnitude and exotic style, perfectly aligned rows of followers, a central passage through which the Emperor's caravan is being transported, and a part of landscape (sky) behind the temple. The long distance of the shot gives characteristic power to the set, as the spectator can view (shot is slightly high-angled for it to have a wider approach to every single object in the scene-specially characters, as the contrasting colours tell the audience about this culture: a different, exotic one) the hugeness of the space in where the characters (spacially small in contrast with the vast set, also conveying this powerful sense of magnitude, representing therefore the cultural royalty and power, respect) are symmetrically aligned and ordered. This symmetrical display of the whole set (passageway in the middle, aligned follower lines, temple in the center) gives a sense of discipline and respect from behalf of this culture, hinting us about its importance and tradition. The lighting is carefully chosen to convey an atmosphere of doom, as it is dull, and the sky behind the set is grey, using the opaque colour to generate this ending effect: the ending of all this powerful and ancient culture, which is magnificent as ever but at the border of collapse.