Grand Hotel and Talkies

Nowadays when you got to the movie theaters, you don’t think about who is producing the movie. You only care about the movie and who is in it. That wasn’t always the case. For most of us, we have grown up seeing the MGM lion, the peak of Paramount, the WB of Warner Brothers, and the spot lights on the 20^th Century Fox. These symbols have almost gone numb to our eyes. I would never have thought that these companies have been around since the beginning. I guess in the film industry it is almost too hard to have turn over or new companies coming in. I wonder if the founders ever would have thought that their company would get to where they are today.

On Thursday, we watched the Grand Hotel which was filled with are star studded cast. I got to see Joan Crawford, John and Lionel Barrymore, and many others. The film I found to be excellent and was very entertaining for me to see what film was like. The movie was produced in 1932 and was directed by Edmund Goulding. This film came out only a few after the switch from silent films to these new “talkies”.  This transition become well know in many gossip magazines as “Talkie Terror”, due to it being the end for many silent movie stars who couldn’t make the switch. Clara Bow an actress who was well know in the silent movie stated that the sound in films marked the end for many actors who could not make the transition. Lots of actors struggled due to their foreign accents because many people could not see an American cowboy who has a thick German accent. These saw many stars who prospered during this time disappear.

Lionel & John Barrymore

At the beginning of Grand Hotel, we get an insight to our main characters and the reasoning behind what they are doing here. With each of them in and out of the phone booth, it seems almost mysterious due to the lighting inside of the phone booth. I would have never of known that the doctor had an injury on his face. The booth is so dark on one side you would never have known that he lost some of his face from a grenade on the Great War. Then we move into the Hotel from outside where the cars are pulling up and then enter on the busy hotel. Everyone moving around looking for their rooms or waiting on a message. This is how you can get an idea of how these characters behave in order to watch them develop over the film. You as see Baron go from a jerk to a helpful caring guy and Old Mr. Kringelein go from a shy man to someone who is more outspoken with more confidence. I found the movie to have almost a better quality to it than “Bride of Frankenstein”. Even though “Bride of Frankenstein” came out six years later. This was a very revolutionary film for the period.

Citation:

https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2014/08/31/talkie-terror-the-transition-from-silents-to-sound

https://www.filmsite.org/gran.html

German and US Films

It is strange to think about films that are outside of the US. We have grown up in a time, where the American cinema is one of the best and we don’t think of films made elsewhere. This week’s class started at across the ocean on Germany. The German cinema was well above where the US was prior to World War 2. From the films we watched like Un Chien Andalou, we experienced what these films were like. I think this film was way above my head because I did not understand what was going on and felt lost. The scenes jumped around and it was kind of mysterious to what was exactly happening. I ended up back in my room trying to understand what I saw and the meaning behind a few of these scenes. From the hand with ants, or the man dragging two dead donkeys inside of a piano. This film did a great job of show how far film has come from what we watched just a week ago.

The next film we watched was Battleship Potemkin, which demonstrated the use of the Odessa Steps sequence. This sequence helps to set up many plot points and make the view question what was happening and where the characters where in a scene. From this we saw many different angles of each part and it helped to give more depth. As you watched one character be shot, you could see it be spread out over the course of three or four different angles. These angles gave context to what was happening and demonstrate the pain that character suffer. From the child who lost his dad, or the mother holding her baby, or even the newly orphaned baby in the stroller. The break down gave more depth to a movie where you can’t hear, but you can see and feel the act.

We then watched “Bride of Frankenstein”, in this movie you can see a lot of in fluence from the German cinema.  The movie was one of the first one I watched that I had heard of and new about. I never watch that many sequels to movies because they are usually not as good as the first. This movie I thought was alright, but to be fair I have never seen the whole original movie. I now after watching this one will try to see how the original compares to this one and with my new knowledge of cinema can attempt to spot the film work. In this movie, we could see a lot of new resources and special effects being used like a larger set and many changing back grounds to the make up used to create Frankenstein’s monster. This film is getting very close to what I grew up watching with my grandparents because this is what they were probably watching when they were my age. As the class continues to progress each week, I get more excited because I get the opportunity to see films that I may never have bothered to see.

Sunrise: By F.W. Murnau

After watching the Sunrise, by F.W. Murnau which was one of the longest silent films I have ever seen. I have never been one for older movies, but it was interesting to see a story develop without any sound. In this day and age, it seems almost foreign not to have any dialog to go along with film. I felt that you really had to focus on the scene and the actors to understand the point that was attempting to be made or else you would completely miss it.

The film spoke on a relationship between a man, his wife, and a woman from city. These characters set up many hidden themes for the viewer, but it also set themes for films I have seen. I found the film to be a lot like the film and play “A Streetcar Named Desire”. Similar to Sunrise, this film involves a man and his wife and her sister who moved from a small town in Mississippi. Both of the films speak on the changes from a country side to living in a city or vice versa and the struggles that follow.

From the start of the film it seemed odd that the characters don’t have a name. The characters are given simple descriptions and from that the director must use many ways to distinguish who these people are. He uses their clothing and how they are portrayed to help the audience differentiate them. The wife is shown as clear and wearing appropriate clothes; where as the woman from the city is shown as in a darker light with more suggestive clothing. With changes like this, an audience member can simply see the difference, but get an idea about who these women are. It also helps to build a relationship between the characters and their audience. The darkness that follows the city woman, mean that trouble and temptation is lurking, where with his wife is the correct path free from sin.

The films we watched in class like “The Great Train Robbery”, we get to see how they use the background images to set the act. In “The Great Train Robbery” in one of the very first scene we notice a train moving through the window as the robbers move in on an unsuspecting victim. This is very revolutionary for the industry because before this it was mainly only a still back drop. So, having a moving background was very impressive for the spectators.

With so many changes happen to the film industry, many studios were trying to stay ahead of the competition with revolutionary advances to their films. Changes like the moving background, having a camera on a moving object, and trimming film. All these techniques lead to what we experience when watching a movie in theaters today. Without these pioneers of film, we would never have the technology we see today. The movie, Sunrise, seemed to be a very impressive film especially when it was released. The use of different scenes like the boat or the storm show off the new filming advances. It was more impressive after watching the nickelodeons and the images of the horse in motion.