The Many Faces of Cinema

[Pherdy]

This is my latest FCM project: an overview of all major film movements in cinema history. As you can see, the following list is very incomplete. Furthermore, it appeared impossible in some occasions to differentiate a film movement from a spur of a particular genre. Therefore, I have not only listed major, general movements (and directors associated with them), but also important genres – other than those that are of all times, like drama, comedy, thriller, crime etc – and either their most important directors or some example movies.

Feel free to make suggestions to further complete this overview.

(by the way, I’ve divided film history into five major era’s. However uncomfortable this can be in many cases, it is for functional purposes, and in fact I remember seeing this exact pentalogy of cinema’s history somewhere, although the names could be different – and I’m not quite sure where I saw it).

My major sources were Bordwell and Thompson’s film history bible, aptly titled “Film History”, and a number of general information websites, such as Wikipedia and Filmsite.org

SILENT ERA(1890’s-1920’s)[/b][/size]
Futurism (Italy):
German expressionism: Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Robert Wiene
Soviet Montage School: Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein,Dziga Vertov
Dadaism: Man Ray, René Clair
Surrealism: Salvador Dali, Luis Buñuel, Germaine Dulac
Cinéma Pur: Dudley Murphy, Henri Chomette, Laszló Moholy-Nagy

Genres:
Scenics, Topicals, one shot gags (1890's)
Historical spectacles (Italy): Fall of Troy, Last Days of Pompeii
Slapstick: Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy
Animation (1920's)
French impressionism: Abel Gance, Marcel L’Herbier, Jean Epstein, Jean Renoir

GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD (1930’s-1940’s)[/b][/size]
Film noir: Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Raoul Walsh, Billy Wilder
Neorealism (Italy, 1940’s): Vittorio De Sica, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini
Poetic realism (France): Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo, Julien Duvivier, Marcel Carné

Genres:
Feature length animation: Snow White, Pinocchio
Screwball comedy: It happened one night, Easy living, Bringing up baby
Universal horror: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy
Musical: Meet me in St. Louis, The Wizard of Oz
(B-)Western: Stagecoach

INTERNATIONAL ERA(1950’s-1960’s)[/b][/size]

Nouvelle Vague (France): Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Rivette
Cinéma Rive Gauche (France): Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, Georges Franju, Alexandre Astruc, Henri Colpi, Alain Robbe-Grillet
Czech wave: Milos Forman, Vera Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jan Nemec, Jaromil Jires, Ewald Schorm, Jirí Menzel, Vojtech Jasný
Japanese New Wave: Hiroshi Teshigahara, Kon Ichikawa, Kawashima Yuzo, Nagisa Oshima, Susumu Hani, Shohei Imamura, Masahiro Shinoda, Seijun Suzuki
Swedish wave: Ingmar Bergman, Vilgot Sjöman, Bo Widerberg
New Hungarian Cinema: Miklós Jancsó, István Szabó, Karoly Makk, Zoltán Fábrí
Cinema Giovane (Italy): Federico Fellini, Ermanno Olmi, Michelangelo Antonioni, Francesco Rosi, Marco Bellocchio, Gillo Pontecorvo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci
Young German Film: Edgar Reitz, Alexander Kluge, Jean-Marie Straub
Kitchen Sink Cinema (Great Britain): Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Lindsay Anderson
Cinema Nôvo (Brazil, 1960’s): Glauber Rocha, Ruy Guerra, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Carlos Diegues
Young Cinema (Soviet Union): Andrei Tarkovsky, Larissa Shepitko, Kira Muratova, Sergej Parajanov, Marlen Khutsiev, Alexander Askoldov, Andrei Konchalovsky
Polish Film School: Andrzej Wajda, Andrzej Munk, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Wojciech Has, Jerzy Skolimowski, Roman Polanski
Novi Film (Yugoslavia): Aleksandar Petrovíc, Dusa Makavejev
Direct cinema: Maysles brothers, Donn Pennebakers, Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, Frederick Wiseman
Independet film: John Cassavtes, Roger Corman
American avant-garde: Maya Deren, Shirley Clarke, Gregory Markopoulos, Willard Maas, Marie Menken, Curtis Harrington, Sidney Peterson
avant-garde styles:
New American cinema (underground) (US): Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, John Waters, Jack Smith, Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage
Structural film (US): Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, George Landow, Paul Sharits, Tony Conrad, Joyce Wieland, Ernie Gehr, Kurt Kren, Peter Kubelka
Feminist avant-garde: Chantal Akerman, Sally Potter, Martha Rosler, Cecilia Condit, Su Friedrich, Barbara Hammer, Sadie Benning

Genres:
Spaghetti western (Italy): Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, Giuseppe Petroni
Jidaigeki (Japan period pieces): Akura Kurosawa, Kon Ichikawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Kihachi Okamoto
Creature feature/space B-movies: Ray Harryhausen, George Pal, Ed Wood!!!
Ostern (Soviet Union):
French heist film: Jean-Pierre Melville, Jules Dassin, Henri Vernieul, Claude Sautet
Kaiju (Japanese monster films): Gojirra, Mothra, Gamera, King Ghidorah
Historical epics: Ben-Hur, Spartacus, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Cleopatra
Spy fiction: James Bond, Mission: Impossible (tv), The Avengers (tv)

NEW HOLLYWOOD(1970’s-1980’s)[/b][/size]
New Hollywood: Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Brian DePalma, George Lucas, Paul Schrader,
Foreign invasion of New Hollywood: Ridley Scott, Peter Weir, Wolfgang Petersen, Paul Verhoeven
Neue Kino (Germany): Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Wim WemdersIranian wave: Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi
Magic realism (Holland, 1980’s): Alex van Warmerdam, Jos Stelling
Cinema of Transgression: Nick Zedd, Kembra Pfahler, Casandra Stark, Richard Kern, Lydia Lunch
New York's No Wave: Amos Poe, Vivienne Dick, John Lurie, James Nares
Blaxploitation:
Hong Kong New Wave: Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, Patrick Tam, Yim Ho, Allen Fong, Dennis Yu
Asian minimalism (70's-present): Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Tsai Ming-Liang, Jia Zhang-Ke, Edward Yang

Genres:
Event pictures: Star Wars, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future
Cult: Scary, uncanny and unreal: John Carpenter, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, David Lynch
Teen movies (1980’s): John Hughes
Testosteron action films (1980’s): Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Dolph Lundgren, Jean Claude van Damme
Kung Fu (Hong Kong, 1970’s):
Yakuza films (Japan): Noboru Ando, Akira Kobayashi, Joe Shishido, Bunta Sugawara, Ken Takakura
Pink Films (Japanese softcore): Shunya Ito, Teruo Ishii, Koyu Ohara

BLOCKBUSTER PERIOD(1990’s-2000’s)[/b][/size]
Dogme #95: Lars von Trier, Tomas Vinterberg, Kristian Levring, Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, Harmony Korine, Susanne Bier
American independent film: Jim Jarmusch
Anime: Hayao Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii
Avriri Manifesto (Israel, 2000’s): Yoav Tal, Rom Barnea, Ido Gideon, Yuval Zuker
Remodernist film: Harris Smith, Jesse Richards, Wolf Howard

Genres:
Superhero revival: Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men
Monster/Disaster movie revival: Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Godzilla, Armageddon
Adventure revival: Pirates of the Caribbean, The Mummy, National Treasure
J-Horror (Japan): Hideo Nakata, Kaneto Shindo, Masaki Kobayashi, Takashi Miike, Takashi Shimizu, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
K-Horror (Korea): Ahn Byeong-ki, Kim Dong-bin, Park Ki-hyung, Kim Ji-woon, Kong Su-chang
Sequel/prequel craze: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Shrek, Ocean’s Eleven



title courtesy of kino ;D

[Pherdy]

it'll be tough to get this whole post right at some point: there seems to be a thin line between what is a general movement and what just a spur, or a genre, or a manifesto or whatever.

the D.W. Griffith era should be included indeed. as for the others, I wasn't sure personally where or if they fit in any of the categories I already had. Ozu, for instance, was not considered part of the Japanese New Wave of the sixties for some reason: he was from before that, but I have no movement for that yet. I included the jidaigeki genre just to include Kurosawa and the likes, but I wasn't sure Ozu made those films.

for similar reasons, many of the directors you mention are hard to put in just one group, although the obvious solution would be to have them at various 'movements'.

documentary as a movement doesn't exist either, that is the oldest genre (technically), but a specific documentary movement is there already, Direct Cinema. I was about to include Cinema Verité too.

your Dogme argument is a poignant one. I remember my Film History teacher saying "in fifty years from now, when film historians talk about the nineties, they say it was the period of 'Dogma 95', but we know today that is was but a small passage with a lot of attention, and not a greater tendency in cinema at the time".

this is problematic in a thread like this, because apart from such obvious 'waves' like the Nouvelle Vague or its various counterparts, few such periods would actually be classified as movements per se. I'm not sure if simply "Film History" would be the right title, but I would consider renaming this post - yet my intention was to give some sort of overview of the many stages cinema underwent during several times.

the period titles (especially the "International Era") are on my part, I thought it summarized the periods nicely with obvious flaws in that no period should be captured under just one name, nor is any movement restricted to a certain period (although some, like those of the 1920's and 1930's, seem so).

but I know there's a lot missing yet.

[Pherdy]

then I'll keep thinking about a new name

I've added some more new waves (Yugoslavia, Hungary, Soviet Union with Tarkovsky, Italian young cinema with Fellini, Left Bank cinema)

animation might work as a genre, or maybe more specific subgenres of animation can be traced to a certain timeframe.

I guess that's also what you mean by French Impressionism, for instance, not really being a movement, more a style tendency of sorts.

[Capo]

Juicy thread, and I've got a helluva lot to say about it. But not tonight...

[The Ghost of LLC]

Yeah, if I weren't running on two hours of sleep in the past 30 hours, I'd give you a more in-depth break down on my thoughts as well.

But, in a nutshell, I give you my compliments. Very nicely done, from what I can tell.

[Capo]

I think Cinema underwent most of its changes before pre-recorded sound came in. "Silent Cinema" is such a vague term which covers the most exciting years of innovation (arguably).

Also, it seems absurd to me to divide the historical linearity of the medium into set decades, such as the "twenties" or "thirties" or whatever. Specific years should be accounted for, as regards change: 1927, 1967, 1977, etc. (and those three dates relate only to Hollywood, really; with pre-recorded sound, the end of the Hays code, and Star Wars's release, which pretty much changed everything).

Movements are iffy, too, because many are coined after the event; the French critics spotted thematic and aesthetic trends in a lot of the American films that came flooding in after WW2, and noir has been around since. It's only a conscious style now, in homage to that style which emerged "by accident".

As for specifying the "Silent Era", a good way to start is "cinema of attractions" and "narrative cinema"; the former was all about using films as spectacle, as a self-evident act not unlike that seen at the circus. There was an obvious proscenium arch, with no close-ups, and events unfolded in a visually convoluted manner, often with many things happening at once (Méliès's films are full of crammed mise-en-scènes). Then you've got The Great Train Robbery in 1903 which is a seemingly muddled but interesting step toward circular narrative; Griffith develops that into a fully sophisticated, manipulative narrative technique - notably, via the close-up, and also by parallel editing to invoke rhythm into storytelling.

More to come...

[Pherdy]

but it's not a history lesson, Capo. I justed wanted to big a large enough overview of 'waves', movements.

[Capo]

Ah, fair enough. Conscious movements (like Dogme), or defined periods (such as the "cinema of attractions" vs. "narrative cinema" of the silent period)?

Well, then...

Does German Expressionist Cinema belong to this medium, as a specific cinematic movement (like Dogme), or is it not just a cinematic "imitation" of the broader movement?

That'd be my first question. Others would follow.

Also, the blockbuster can be traced back to the late seventies, with Spielberg and Lucas storming the box-office.

[Capo]

Oh, and I also still think that the idea of movements being restricted to set decades (anything ending in "'ties", like nineties) is strange, as things don't happen like that. If we're being specific enough to define movements, we should also attempt to specify how long they lasted - and try to make room for directors which overlap from one to the other (if we are to include directors at all, instead of just films as examples).

Has anybody read Mark Cousins's The Story of Film? It reads chronologically, but tries to draw up parallels across continents and cultures and industries as he goes, and goes to some (by no means extensive) lengths to define certain characterstics of each.

As an interesting starting point, I'll type out the contents page, and how he divides his chapters:

SILENT

1 TECHNICAL THRILL (1895-1903)
The sensations of the first movies
How the first filmmakers devised shots, cuts, close-ups and camera moves.

2 THE EARLY POWER OF STORY (1903-18)
How thrill became narrative
The emergence of Hollywood, the star system and the first great directors.

3 THE WORLD EXPANSION OF STYLE (1918-28)
Movie factories and personal vision
Mainstream filmmaking and its dissidents in Germany, France, American and the Soviet Union.

SOUND

4 JAPANESE CLASSICISM AND HOLLYWOOD ROMANCE (1928-45)
Cinema enters the golden age
Movie genres, Japanese masters and depth staging.

5 THE DEVASTATION OF WAR AND A NEW MOVIE LANGUAGE (1945-52)
The spread of realism in world cinema
Italy leads the way, world cinema follows and Hollywood's dark visions.

6 THE SWOLLEN STORY (1953-59)
Rage and symbolism in 1950s filmmaking
Widescreen, international melodrama and new, early-modernist directors.

7 THE EXPLODED STORY (1959-69)
The breakdown of romantic cinema and the coming of modernism
A series of new waves transform innovative filmmaking on every continent.

8 FREEDOM and WANT SEE (1969-79)
Political cinema around the globe and the rise of the blockbuster in America
Revivals in German and Australian cinema and the emergence of Middle Eastern and African cinema; Jaws and Star Wars.

9 MEGA-ENTERTAINMENTS AND PHILOSOPHY (1979-90)
The extremes of world cinema
The influence of video and MTV; challenging films made in non-Western countries.

DIGITAL

10 CAN SEE (1990-Present)
Computerisation takes cinema beyond photography
A global art form discovers new possibilities.

---

It was first published 2004; it's a shame that his third part comprises more than a decade, because so much happened in the nineties and continues to happen; a bit expansive for one chapter.

[Pherdy]

admin said:

Oh, and I also still think that the idea of movements being restricted to set decades (anything ending in "'ties", like nineties) is strange, as things don't happen like that. If we're being specific enough to define movements, we should also attempt to specify how long they lasted - and try to make room for directors which overlap from one to the other (if we are to include directors at all, instead of just films as examples).

the decades serve as references, of course these are not restrictions. think of them as starting points in the formation of this thread. specific dates could be just as problematic though.

but the decades serve as guidelines. "Blockbuster period" was just a name, I know blockbusters have existed since the twenties, so don't take all that too seriously. Event pictures are already included in the 1970's part, so it's not like I forgot or anything.

and yes, I think both German Expressionist Film and Dogme should count, so there's your answer

the director comment is indeed a bit tricky. some directors have moved between movements, some have never belonged to any, and some movements/genres can only be showed by means of specific titles and not directors. I guess my original post shows that I encountered those problems immediately.

now I'm thinking of it, perhaps a similar thread - chronicling film history on a specific subject - could be made about genres, or as your earlier comments about milestones (like the Hays code), a similar thread about important moments in film history, could be made later.

[Capo]

I think it's very natural to assume the two go hand in hand. In a sense, this thread is dealing with film history.

[Pherdy]

sure, but you know what I mean. I had no pretentions with this thread other than to make a "list".

writing a film history chronology doesn't seem too interesting to me at this moment, although the debate coinciding with it would be fun