Silent Film Essays (Examples)

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Silent Film and Its Effect
PAGES 8 WORDS 2636

Silent films were caught in the cross-hairs of all this.
Buster Keaton: Silent Film Visionary -- Too Much Imagination

Yet, that sort of nightmare world of industrialization both inspired and was depicted in silent film. The Lumiere brothers were innovative geniuses who devised a portable camera, better equipped for transfer than Edison's bulky machine, and photographed technological marvels (like that train engine) to entertain audiences. One of the great comics of the silent film era, Buster Keaton, would explore the fascinating technological world of the railway in his greatest cinematic work, the General. The General debuted in 1927, again, the same year as the first talkie, and served as a kind of farewell to the marvelous world of the silent film era. Described as a "Civil ar farce" by New York Times reviewer Mordaunt Hall, Buster Keaton's portrayal of Johnnie Gray is viewed as "hardly the person who would be trusted….

Silent Film And How Critical Reception Shifts Over Time
The objective of this study is to examine the film Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari or 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and to examine silent film and how critical reception shifts over time.

The film Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari or 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" echoed the German psychological warfare that had been waged against the people by Hitler and throughout the film runs the theme of tyranny over such treatment and psychological maneuvers against the human soul. Over time critical reception of the silent film, 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' has noticeably experienced shifts in perception and in the reception of critics.

The basis of the story is a fictitious German town in the north near the Dutch border named Holstenwall. The story involves a fair moving into the two and along with the traditional merry-go-round and typical sideshow was Dr. Caligari,….

Silent Film: obert Flaherty and Nanook of the North
obert Flaherty is one of the most renowned filmmakers of all time. He was born in 1883 and died in 1951, so that his life and work encompassed what is frequently referred to as the Golden Age of cinema. Although Flaherty was an American, he lived near the U.S./Canadian border, and went to Toronto for his schooling. His early work experience was in the Hudson Bay region of Canada, and was as a worker for the railroad, not as a filmmaker. However, he gained exposure to themes that would eventually permeate his early filmmaking during this work experience. He began his work during the silent era and immediately came to prominence with films that focused on individual protagonists working hard to conquer nature. His most famous film was the 1922 film Nanook of the North, which immediately brought him attention as a….


The first scene of The Great Train Robbery takes place inside the railroad telegraph office when two masked bandits are able to force the telegraph operator stop a train that is approaching the station so that they can climb aboard. After getting the telegraph operator to lie about a water stop, the next scene finds the train at the water tower by the station where the bandits will sneak onto the train. The next scene shows the mail messenger in the mail car working before he hears a strange noise. hen he looks through the door's keyhole, he sees the two bandits -- the men from the station. The messenger immediately locks the lock box that contains the valuables and throws the key out the open door as moving scenery rushes by. These first three scenes are woven together seamlessly in order to create the set-up for the movie. These….

Silent Film When The Jazz
PAGES 5 WORDS 1693

For approximately three quarters of the film it is without dialogue but, "It was for the clink of plates, the rattle of ice cubes, the sound of a man singing, of two people talking, that silent films died." (Eyman 76). The lively exuberance of Al Jolson was truly what made this film an instant classic and demanded the continuation of arner Brothers and the talkies. For the first time, music had a face to accompany the voice. By January of 1928, an increasing number of theaters were wiring for sound and making way for "They Jazz Singer," which by that time was playing to a million customers a week (Eyman 77).
The powerful appeal of audible dialogue was made manifest by the success of the first 'all talking' feature, 'Lights of New York' (1928)." (Sklar 172). The draw of this picture was neither compelling acting, writing, directing, nor dialogue; it….

Silent Film Melodrama, Race, and the Oppression of Missionary Idealism: "Broken Blossoms" (1919) and "The Color Purple" (1985)
Both Steven Spielberg's rendition of Alice alker's novel "The Color Purple" and the 1919 silent film directed by D.. Griffith entitled "Broken Blossoms" function as melodramas of racial misunderstandings. This silent film tells the story of an opium-addicted Chinese man who fosters an illegitimate Cockney waif, played by Lillian Gish. The young woman is abused and ultimately killed by her brutish, prize-fighting father, the "Battling Bruiser." "The Color Purple" tells the tale of another abused young woman, the girl Celie, played by hoopi Goldberg. Celie is raped by her father, and then, when she becomes incestuously pregnant, has her baby ripped from her arms and is passed along to a man named Mister, who also abuses her and forces her to take care of his existing children from his first marriage.

Like the….

These subsequent Draculas are all pretenders to the throne, thanks to the iconographic excellence that emerged in the 1922 version. Indeed, subsequent Draculas in many cases have taken on slick, well-dressed, classy appearances, quite the opposite of the repulsive, disgusting, repugnant - and pathetically sickly - Count Orlok.
enowned film critic oger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times, 1997) praises the iconography of Mumau's Orlok: "The vampire should come across not like a flamboyant actor but like a man suffering from a dread curse"; and of course, Orlok is suffering from a disease / curse, and his bat ears, claw-like nails, and fangs are located not on the side of his head like some movies show Dracula, but in the middle of his mouth, like a rodent, which he is, at least partly. ("Nosferatu" is derived from the Greek "Nosophoros," which means "plague-carrier," which a rat is known to be.)

Meantime, part of what….

Sunset Boulevard is a classic film noir produced in 1950 and directed by Billy Wilder. The film begins with the murder of Joe Gillis, a floundering screenwriter who ends up dead in a swimming pool. "Poor dope," the voice over says. "He'd always wanted a pool. Well, in the end he got himself a pool, only the price turned out to be a little high." The voice over, delivered in classic film noir style, turns out to be none other than Gillis himself. Far from being an unreliable narrator, though, Gillis promises "the facts" and delivers. The entire film Sunset Boulevard is the retelling of "the facts" from Gillis's perspective. Wilder's choice of narration is dutifully ironic, as a failed filmmaker becomes famous. The theme of the movie is reminiscent of the Great Gatsby, with its peek at American decadence and lost dreams. Because it offers rich social commentary, Sunset….

There is a direct correlation with, say, Henry Hill's cocaine abuse and the increasingly rapid cuts between shots. Faster-paced narrative parallels quicker-moving shots. When viewers finally see the film in the theater, the finished product reads like a cohesive narrative when in fact the filmmakers strung together disparate shots and cuts and combined them later after thousands of hours of painstaking labor. Analyzing a movie must therefore include respect for the editorial prowess of the post-production crew.
Editors must be intimately familiar with the screenplay they work with, especially in films that do not have a linear narrative. For instance, Christopher Nolan's 2000 film Memento describes one man's struggle with memory degradation. elying on a non-linear plot, the filmmaker depended on the post-production crew to adequately convey the disjointedness of amnesia. Other elements like dramatic irony, in which the audience is privy to information that protagonists do not have access….

Silent Period -- I was impressed by how this chapter explains the development of film and the innovations people like Porter and Griffith made that would help to define the techniques that evolved into modern cinema.
Early Sound -- One of the things I liked about this chapter is how it explains the purpose of synced sound in film; sound enhances an image by sonically creating meaning.

Imaginative Documentary -- This chapter succeeds in demonstrating how propaganda, or politically charged film, can influence individuals. However, this chapter could use more examples of how documentary and propaganda come together.

The Influence of the Documentary -- This chapter succeeds at providing good parallels between film and real world events, and it makes good use of images to further support the examples presented. On the downside, the chapter contains too much filler information to the point that the conclusion best summarizes the chapter.

The Influence of the….

Mis) representations of African-Americans in film:
From the Birth of a Nation onward

Recently, the Academy of Motion Pictures awarded 12 Years a Slave the title of Best Picture of the year. However, it is important to remember that the development of American cinema, racism, and the perpetuation of African-American stereotypes in film has a long and ignoble history. In the essay "The Good Lynching and Birth of a Nation: Discourses and aesthetics of Jim Crow," historian Michele Faith allace examines how one of the great silent film epics directed by cinematic master D.. Griffith consciously and subconsciously validated hegemonic racial ideologies. allace argues that when cinema was in its infancy, although African-Americans were portrayed on screen less frequently than whites, they were not addressed in the same derogatory manner as characterized the Griffith epic and Griffith's masterpiece set the tone for decades afterward. "The film's continued notoriety challenges all our….

Scorsese equates him with "a magician enchanted by his own magic." This freedom allowed Welles to create from narrative techniques and filmic devices a masterpiece that is self-aware of its own form. It intends to communicate this self-consciousness to the audience, thus contradicting the classical canons of filmmaking whereby the camera ought not to be noticed and the shots should be seamless. In other words, Welles expanded the art form of cinema, using the camera the way a poet uses a pen. He even created fake news footage in unique ways to enhance the film's appearance. His immense influence can be seen more on the art form as later with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Censorship was still rife in Hollywood. The league of decency suppressed adult themes. Elia Kazan's adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) was censored. What we would see now as almost innocent -- a….


Davis who was not especially beautiful in the classical sense of beauty ruled Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s, playing tough women who chose their careers and their own desires over sacrificing for men or children or the social and economic benefits of a well protected family home. Davis who was very popular with the mostly female audience "never pretended to be dumb, or a little girl."

In the 1930s cinema tough and independent women were often nasty leading to the effect that they could rightfully be punished. Bette Davis was "the prototype of the "Hollywood Bitch."

Her characters wanted more often victimizing a weak man with her behavior finally backfiring on her. In particular, her role as Julie Marsden in the 1938 movie "Jezebel" is the quintessential Bette Davis character. A calculating tough, aggressive and complex character who decides to break the social roles of the South in the 1850s and….

1934 film The Goddess directed by Wu Yonggang, uses the film elements mis en scene and cinematography in order to compose and deliver a moving and dramatic narrative. This short clip tells the story of a woman who suddenly discovers that her savings are missing. Upon learning this she exits rapidly to find the culprit, but not before comforting her young son. The main elements used in mis en scene are the following: setting, props, costume, performance, lighting and composition. The main elements used in cinematography are: framing, shot distance, length of take, camera movement, camera angle and depth of film.
During the beginning of the clip the first element that stands out is the setting. This element is carefully chosen in order to give the audience specific information about the characters. The setting is the interior of a humble and simple home. This tells the audience about the characters….

sound technologies and sound design in Film
Sound in films

Experiments in Early Age

Developments

Crucial innovations

Commercialization of sound cinema: U.S., Europe, and Japan

Sound Design

Unified sound in film production

Sound designers in Cinematography

Sound Recording Technologies

History of Sound Recording Technology

Film sound technology

Modern Digital Technology

History of sound in films

Developments

Sound Design

Sound Recording Technologies

The film industry is a significant beneficiary of performing arts. The liberal arts combined with latest techniques and advancements experienced a number of stages. The introduction of films and sound in films was a significant development of its times. The introduction of first film along with sound was a unique event and it revolutionized the industry in such a way that it influenced every individual related to the industry to start thinking on creative and innovative grounds for improvements. The stages of films can be identified as silent films shown in theaters and they were narrated live. However the introduction of sound in films was….

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8 Pages
Research Paper

Film

Silent Film and Its Effect

Words: 2636
Length: 8 Pages
Type: Research Paper

Silent films were caught in the cross-hairs of all this. Buster Keaton: Silent Film Visionary -- Too Much Imagination Yet, that sort of nightmare world of industrialization both inspired and…

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image
9 Pages
Research Paper

Film

Silent Film and How Critical Reception Shifts Over Time

Words: 2850
Length: 9 Pages
Type: Research Paper

Silent Film And How Critical Reception Shifts Over Time The objective of this study is to examine the film Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari or 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"…

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6 Pages
Research Paper

Film

Silent Film Nanook of the North by Robert Flaherty

Words: 2202
Length: 6 Pages
Type: Research Paper

Silent Film: obert Flaherty and Nanook of the North obert Flaherty is one of the most renowned filmmakers of all time. He was born in 1883 and died in 1951,…

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3 Pages
Thesis

Film

Silent Film Critic One Cannot

Words: 968
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Thesis

The first scene of The Great Train Robbery takes place inside the railroad telegraph office when two masked bandits are able to force the telegraph operator stop a train…

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5 Pages
Term Paper

Film

Silent Film When The Jazz

Words: 1693
Length: 5 Pages
Type: Term Paper

For approximately three quarters of the film it is without dialogue but, "It was for the clink of plates, the rattle of ice cubes, the sound of a…

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4 Pages
Term Paper

Sports - Women

Silent Film Melodrama Race and the Oppression

Words: 1689
Length: 4 Pages
Type: Term Paper

Silent Film Melodrama, Race, and the Oppression of Missionary Idealism: "Broken Blossoms" (1919) and "The Color Purple" (1985) Both Steven Spielberg's rendition of Alice alker's novel "The Color Purple"…

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2 Pages
Term Paper

Film

1922 Silent Film Nosferatu A

Words: 719
Length: 2 Pages
Type: Term Paper

These subsequent Draculas are all pretenders to the throne, thanks to the iconographic excellence that emerged in the 1922 version. Indeed, subsequent Draculas in many cases have taken…

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image
4 Pages
Film Review

Film

Film Analysis of Sunset Boulevard 1950

Words: 1376
Length: 4 Pages
Type: Film Review

Sunset Boulevard is a classic film noir produced in 1950 and directed by Billy Wilder. The film begins with the murder of Joe Gillis, a floundering screenwriter who ends…

Read Full Paper  ❯
image
8 Pages
Term Paper

Film

Film Is a Comprehensive Work

Words: 2389
Length: 8 Pages
Type: Term Paper

There is a direct correlation with, say, Henry Hill's cocaine abuse and the increasingly rapid cuts between shots. Faster-paced narrative parallels quicker-moving shots. When viewers finally see the…

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image
3 Pages
Term Paper

Film

Silent Period -- I Was Impressed by

Words: 981
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Term Paper

Silent Period -- I was impressed by how this chapter explains the development of film and the innovations people like Porter and Griffith made that would help to define…

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image
5 Pages
Essay

Film

Representations of African-Americans in Film

Words: 1575
Length: 5 Pages
Type: Essay

Mis) representations of African-Americans in film: From the Birth of a Nation onward Recently, the Academy of Motion Pictures awarded 12 Years a Slave the title of Best Picture of…

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image
3 Pages
Essay

Film

Scorsese's Journey Through Film Scorsese's

Words: 1314
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Essay

Scorsese equates him with "a magician enchanted by his own magic." This freedom allowed Welles to create from narrative techniques and filmic devices a masterpiece that is self-aware…

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image
7 Pages
Term Paper

Film

1930s Hollywood Movies Depiction of

Words: 2153
Length: 7 Pages
Type: Term Paper

Davis who was not especially beautiful in the classical sense of beauty ruled Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s, playing tough women who chose their careers and their own…

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image
2 Pages
Essay

Film

1934 Film the Goddess Directed by Wu

Words: 690
Length: 2 Pages
Type: Essay

1934 film The Goddess directed by Wu Yonggang, uses the film elements mis en scene and cinematography in order to compose and deliver a moving and dramatic narrative.…

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image
40 Pages
Dissertation or Thesis complete

Film

History and Development of Sound Technologies and Sound Design in Film

Words: 11249
Length: 40 Pages
Type: Dissertation or Thesis complete

sound technologies and sound design in Film Sound in films Experiments in Early Age Developments Crucial innovations Commercialization of sound cinema: U.S., Europe, and Japan Sound Design Unified sound in film production Sound designers in Cinematography Sound…

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