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Arthouse
An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily for aesthetic reasons rather than commercial profit", containing "unconventional or highly symbolic content". Film critics and film studies scholars typically define an art film as possessing "formal qualities that mark them as different from mainstream Hollywood films". These qualities can include (among other elements): a sense of social realism; an emphasis on the authorial expressiveness of the director; and a focus on the thoughts, dreams, or motivations of characters, as opposed to the unfolding of a clear, goal-driven story. Film scholar David Bordwell describes art cinema as "a film genre, with its own distinct conventions". Art film producers usually present their films at special theaters (repertory cinemas or, in the U.S., ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Realism
Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures behind these conditions. While the movement's characteristics vary from nation to nation, it almost always utilizes a form of descriptive or critical realism.James G. Todd Jr, ''Social realism'' in: Grove Art Online The term is sometimes more narrowly used for an art movement that flourished between the two World Wars as a reaction to the hardships and problems suffered by common people after the Great Crash. In order to make their art more accessible to a wider audience, artists turned to realist portrayals of anonymous workers as well as celebrities as heroic symbols of strength in the face of adversity. The goal of the artists in doing so was political as they wished to expose the deteriorating conditions of the poor and working clas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Theodor Dreyer (1965) By Erling Mandelmann
Carl Theodor Dreyer (; 3 February 1889 – 20 March 1968), commonly known as Carl Th. Dreyer, was a Danish film director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his movies are noted for their emotional austerity and slow, stately pacing, frequent themes of social intolerance, the inseparability of fate and death, and the power of evil in earthly life. His 1928 movie ''The Passion of Joan of Arc'' is considered to be List of movies considered the best, one of the greatest movies of all time, renowned for its cinematography and use of close-ups. It frequently appears on Sight & Sound's lists of the greatest films ever made, and in 2012's The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012, poll it was voted the 9th-best film ever made by film critics and 37th by film directors. His other well-known films include ''Michael (1924 film), Michael'' (1924), ''Vampyr'' (1932), ''Day of Wrath'' (1943), ''Ordet'' (''The Word'') (1955), and ''Gertrud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenneth Turan of the ''Los Angeles Times'' called him "the best-known film critic in America." Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing voice and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences. While a populist, Ebert frequently endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, which often resulted in such fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth (1930 Film)
''Earth'' ( uk, Земля, translit. ''Zemlya'') is a 1930 Soviet silent film by Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko. The film concerns the process of collectivization and the hostility of kulak landowners under the First Five-Year Plan. It is the third film, with '' Zvenigora'' and ''Arsenal'', of Dovzhenko's "Ukraine Trilogy". The script was inspired by Dovzhenko's life and experience of the process of collectivization in his native Ukraine. That process, which was the backdrop of the film and its production, informed its reception in the Soviet Union, which was largely negative. ''Earth'' is commonly regarded as Dovzhenko's masterpiece and as one of the greatest films ever made. The film was voted number 10 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo. Plot The film begins with a montage of wind blowing through a field of wheat and sunflowers. Next, an old peasant named Semen dies beneath an apple tree, attended by his son Opanas and grandson Vasyl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Dovzhenko
Oleksandr Petrovych Dovzhenko or Alexander Petrovich Dovzhenko ( uk, Олександр Петрович Довженко, ''Oleksandr Petrovych Dovzhenko''; russian: Алекса́ндр Петро́вич Довже́нко, ''Aleksandr Petrovich Dovzhenko''; November 25, 1956), was a Ukrainian Soviet screenwriter, film producer and director. He is often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers, alongside Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, and Vsevolod Pudovkin, as well as being a pioneer of Soviet montage theory. Biography Oleksandr Dovzhenko was born in the hamlet of Viunyshche located in the Sosnitsky Uyezd of the Chernihiv Governorate of the Russian Empire (now part of Sosnytsia in Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine), to Petro Semenovych Dovzhenko and Odarka Yermolayivna Dovzhenko. His paternal ancestors were Ukrainian Cossacks ( Chumaks) who settled in Sosnytsia in the eighteenth century, coming from the neighbouring province of Poltava. Oleksander was th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The General Line
''The General Line'', also known as ''Old and New'' (russian: Старое и новое, Staroye i novoye), is a 1929 Soviet drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov. ''The General Line'' was begun in 1927 as a celebration of the collectivization of agriculture, as championed by old-line Bolshevik Leon Trotsky. Hoping to reach a wide audience, the director forsook his usual practice of emphasizing groups by concentrating on a single rural heroine. Eisenstein briefly abandoned this project to film '' October: Ten Days That Shook the World'', in honour of the 10th anniversary of the Revolution. By the time he was able to return to this film, the Party's attitudes had changed and Trotsky had fallen from grace. As a result, the film was hastily re-edited and sent out in 1929 under a new title, ''The Old and the New''. In later years, archivists restored ''The General Line'' to an approximation of Eisenstein's original concept. Much of the director's montage-l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917–1923. It was the second revolutionary change of government in Russia in 1917. It took place through an armed insurrection in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) on . It was the precipitating event of the Russian Civil War. The October Revolution followed and capitalized on the February Revolution earlier that year, which had overthrown the Tsarist autocracy, resulting in a liberal provisional government. The provisional government had taken power after being proclaimed by Grand Duke Michael, Tsar Nicholas II's younger brother, who declined to take power after the Tsar stepped down. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils ( soviets) wherein revolutionaries criticized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ten Days That Shook The World
''Ten Days That Shook the World'' (1919) is a book by the American journalist and socialist John Reed. Here, Reed presented a firsthand account of the 1917 Russian October Revolution. Reed followed many of the most prominent Bolsheviks closely during his time in Russia. Background John Reed was on an assignment for ''The Masses'', a magazine of socialist politics, when he was reporting on the Russian Revolution. Although Reed stated that he had "tried to see events with the eye of a conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth" during the time of the event, he stated in the preface that "in the struggle my sympathies were not neutral" (since the book primarily shares the perspective of the Russian working class). Before John Reed left for Russia, the Espionage Act was passed on June 15, 1917. This provided for fines and imprisonment as a punishment for interference with the recruiting of soldiers and prohibited the mailing of any newspaper or magazine that pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Battleship Potemkin
'' Battleship Potemkin'' (russian: Бронено́сец «Потёмкин», ''Bronenosets Potyomkin''), sometimes rendered as ''Battleship Potyomkin'', is a 1925 Soviet silent drama film produced by Mosfilm. Directed and co-written by Sergei Eisenstein, it presents a dramatization of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship ''Potemkin'' rebelled against its officers. In 1958, the film was voted number 1 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo. ''Battleship Potemkin'' is considered one of the greatest films of all time. In the most recent Sight and Sound critics' poll in 2022, it was voted the fifty-fourth-greatest film of all time, and it placed in the top 10 in many previous editions. Plot The film is set in June 1905; the protagonists of the film are the members of the crew of the ''Potemkin'', a battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. Eisenstein divided the plot into five acts, each with its o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist. He was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films '' Strike'' (1925), ''Battleship Potemkin'' (1925) and ''October'' (1928), as well as the historical epics '' Alexander Nevsky'' (1938) and '' Ivan the Terrible'' (1944, 1958). In its 2012 decennial poll, the magazine '' Sight & Sound'' named his ''Battleship Potemkin'' the 11th greatest film of all time. Early life Sergei Eisenstein was born on 22 January 1898 in Riga, Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire in the Governorate of Livonia), to a middle-class family. His family moved frequently in his early years, as Eisenstein continued to do throughout his life. His father, the architect Mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intolerance (film)
''Intolerance'' is a 1916 epic silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. Subtitles include ''Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages'' and ''A Sun-Play of the Ages''.Internet Archive foIntolerance (1916), D. W. Griffith. Retrieved May 21, 2016. Regarded as one of the most influential films of the silent era (though it received mixed reviews at the time), the three-and-a-half-hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines, each separated by several centuries: first, a contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption; second, a Judean story: Christ's mission and death; third, a French story: the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572; and fourth, a Babylonian story: the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia in 539 BC. Each story had its own distinctive color tint in the original print. The scenes are linked by shots of a figure representing Eternal Motherhood, rocking a cradle. Griffith chose to explore the theme of intolerance partly in response to his previous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'Inferno
''L'Inferno'' is a 1911 Italian silent film, loosely adapted from '' Inferno'', the first canticle of Dante Alighieri's ''Divine Comedy''. ''L'Inferno'' took over three years to make, and was the first full-length Italian feature film. Plot Dante is barred from entering the hill of salvation by three beasts that block his path (Avarice, Pride, and Lust). Beatrice descends from above and asks the poet Virgil to guide Dante through the Nine Circles of Hell. Virgil leads Dante to a cave where they find the river Acheron, over which Charon ferries the souls of the dead into Hell. They also see the three-headed Cerberus and Geryon, a flying serpent with a man's face. They see the Devil eating human beings whole, harpies eating the corpses of suicides, an evil man forced to carry his own severed head for eternity, people half-buried in flaming lava, etc. There follows a series of encounters in which the two meet up with a number of formerly famous historical figures whose souls were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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