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20
00:00:09,690 --> 00:00:11,951
Italy, 1939.
21
00:00:12,499 --> 00:00:13,986
Mass rallies.
22
00:00:14,068 --> 00:00:22,134
This salesman, Mussolini, is selling
an idea of order, superiority, purity.
23
00:00:22,305 --> 00:00:25,486
He becomes friends
with this man, Hitler.
24
00:00:25,886 --> 00:00:29,403
These two mates ruin
a lot of the world.
25
00:00:32,323 --> 00:00:36,913
Out of the ruins of Italy,
comes a new movie language, Neo-realism.
26
00:00:36,913 --> 00:00:41,271
A type of filmmaking
that will deal with the trauma of war.
27
00:00:41,297 --> 00:00:47,640
This is one of its most famous moments,
filmed in real streets, urgent, and tragic.
28
00:00:55,505 --> 00:00:56,964
Movies in the 1940s
29
00:00:56,990 --> 00:01:01,691
had to get this raw,
because life had become this raw.
30
00:01:01,698 --> 00:01:05,584
But before they did so, before
they entirely sobered up,
31
00:01:05,584 --> 00:01:10,575
there was the little matter
of Stagecoach and Orson Welles.
32
00:01:11,655 --> 00:01:14,706
Stagecoach made a star
of John Wayne.
33
00:01:14,709 --> 00:01:17,135
The camera rushed into his face.
34
00:01:17,436 --> 00:01:18,553
Yeah.
35
00:01:20,812 --> 00:01:22,214
Hello, kid.
36
00:01:22,214 --> 00:01:23,415
Hello Curly.
37
00:01:24,467 --> 00:01:25,664
Hiya, Buck!
38
00:01:25,690 --> 00:01:26,718
How's your folks?
39
00:01:26,745 --> 00:01:30,330
It was the 94th film
made by John Ford,
40
00:01:30,356 --> 00:01:33,904
here in his beloved monument valley,
Ford was interviewed
41
00:01:33,904 --> 00:01:37,181
by another great director:
Peter Bogdanovich.
42
00:01:37,946 --> 00:01:41,483
The interview shows
how much Ford hated analysis.
43
00:01:43,131 --> 00:01:43,919
Take one?
44
00:01:43,919 --> 00:01:46,094
There won't be more
then one take, will there?
45
00:01:46,094 --> 00:01:46,936
Shoot.
46
00:01:49,171 --> 00:01:53,542
’Mr. Ford, I've noticed
that your view of the West
47
00:01:53,542 --> 00:01:58,927
has become increasingly sad
and melancholy over the years.
48
00:01:58,927 --> 00:02:01,849
I'm comparing, for
instance, Wagon Master
49
00:02:01,876 --> 00:02:03,826
to The Man who shot
Liberty Valance.
50
00:02:04,279 --> 00:02:07,560
Have you been aware
of that... change in mood?’
51
00:02:07,586 --> 00:02:08,697
No.
52
00:02:10,795 --> 00:02:13,948
’Now that I point it out, is there
anything you'd like to say about it?’
53
00:02:14,812 --> 00:02:17,234
I don't know
what you're talking about.
54
00:02:20,671 --> 00:02:25,610
’Would you agree
that the point of Fort Apache
55
00:02:25,636 --> 00:02:28,797
was that tradition, the
tradition of the army
56
00:02:28,797 --> 00:02:31,289
was more important
than one individual?’
57
00:02:32,539 --> 00:02:33,290
Cut!
58
00:02:34,847 --> 00:02:38,796
Ford didn't want to say much
about his movies, but others did.
59
00:02:38,796 --> 00:02:41,551
One critic wrote
that he captures
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00:02:41,577 --> 00:02:45,752
‘the twitches of life and
the silhouettes of legend’.
61
00:02:46,437 --> 00:02:49,519
Stagecoach is a movie legend.
62
00:02:49,519 --> 00:02:52,081
It's about a bunch
of misfits on a journey.
63
00:02:52,081 --> 00:02:57,437
One of them, a saloon girl and prostitute,
is cold shouldered by the others.
64
00:02:57,437 --> 00:03:01,419
But she's befriended
by a cowboy called Ringo Kid.
65
00:03:02,538 --> 00:03:07,447
Many of the shots in the coach
itself are filmed with back projection.
66
00:03:08,869 --> 00:03:12,622
Ford contrasts the claustrophobia
of the coach
67
00:03:12,622 --> 00:03:17,017
with classically composed,
pastoral shots like this one.
68
00:03:17,644 --> 00:03:21,782
In this setting, the Ringo Kid
is brave enough to challenge
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00:03:21,782 --> 00:03:24,030
the snobbery against the girl.
70
00:03:25,889 --> 00:03:31,226
Well, I am really a coward.
I know I am.
71
00:03:31,226 --> 00:03:33,913
So that's why I did
foolish things.
72
00:03:34,584 --> 00:03:36,930
And I was decorated
eight or nine times.
73
00:03:37,495 --> 00:03:39,931
Tried to prove
that I was not a coward.
74
00:03:40,286 --> 00:03:43,015
But after it was all over I
still knew that I still know
75
00:03:43,015 --> 00:03:44,313
that I was a coward.
76
00:03:44,836 --> 00:03:48,839
I have always found out
the little quiet little man
77
00:03:48,839 --> 00:03:53,851
that nobody pays any attention to,
usually has more guts
78
00:03:53,851 --> 00:04:03,029
and courage than those big blow-hard,
the big noisy, you know,
79
00:04:03,055 --> 00:04:05,424
the big outspoken fellas.
80
00:04:05,424 --> 00:04:08,676
It's the little man
that does the courageous thing.
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00:04:11,558 --> 00:04:15,504
In this scene, Ringo and the girl
start a new life together
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00:04:15,504 --> 00:04:18,551
in the mythic,
meritocratic west.
83
00:04:22,322 --> 00:04:26,347
Well, kid, I told you
not to follow me.
84
00:04:30,614 --> 00:04:33,630
Ford stages the scene
in deep space.
85
00:04:35,343 --> 00:04:38,133
Stagecoach helped create
a new visual fashion
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00:04:38,133 --> 00:04:41,876
for deep space
and deep focus in the 1940s.
87
00:04:42,786 --> 00:04:45,832
As we've seen,
in Japan a few years previously,
88
00:04:45,832 --> 00:04:48,947
Mizoguchi was staging
things in depth too.
89
00:04:49,345 --> 00:04:54,904
But Ford and his cameraman
combined deep staging with deep focus.
90
00:05:03,122 --> 00:05:06,179
The trend in cinema had been
for the flattering effects
91
00:05:06,179 --> 00:05:13,124
of a long lenses which creates
shallow focus, eyes sharp, hair soft.
92
00:05:13,132 --> 00:05:15,236
Background out of focus.
93
00:05:18,849 --> 00:05:23,626
Deep focus used a wide-angle lens
allowing actors and objects
94
00:05:23,626 --> 00:05:27,647
to be really close
to the camera and really far away.
95
00:05:28,341 --> 00:05:30,387
Both can be seen, crisply.
96
00:05:31,553 --> 00:05:34,850
Deep focus emphasized
the distance between them.
97
00:05:35,444 --> 00:05:39,970
It was great at rooms,
especially if you kept the camera low,
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00:05:39,996 --> 00:05:43,816
because then you'd see the ceiling,
which plunged back into the background
99
00:05:43,816 --> 00:05:46,333
making a bold compositional line.
100
00:05:47,397 --> 00:05:49,583
Such deep staging and deep focus
101
00:05:49,609 --> 00:05:51,595
allowed the audience
to choose where to look.
102
00:05:52,316 --> 00:05:55,992
As early as 1929,
Sergei Eisenstein had suggested it
103
00:05:55,992 --> 00:05:58,171
as an alternative to editing.
104
00:05:58,766 --> 00:06:01,555
Our eyes do the editing within
the frame.
105
00:06:01,555 --> 00:06:04,149
Jumping around
from place to place.
106
00:06:04,735 --> 00:06:08,627
Stagecoach's innovations
changed film history.
107
00:06:09,241 --> 00:06:13,390
One person who saw
Stagecoach 30 times in 1940
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00:06:13,390 --> 00:06:18,726
was this man, Orson Welles,
who strode the movie stage.
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00:06:18,726 --> 00:06:22,777
The magician of cinema
who became its colossus.
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00:06:24,935 --> 00:06:28,362
In this scene from his first film,
Citizen Kane,
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00:06:28,388 --> 00:06:31,688
Welles and his cinematographer
Greg Tolland seemed
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00:06:31,714 --> 00:06:35,284
to be pushing deep staging
as far as it can go.
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00:06:35,296 --> 00:06:38,412
Welles plays
a hubristic newspaperman.
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00:06:38,415 --> 00:06:41,463
He is less than a meter
from the camera.
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00:06:41,466 --> 00:06:47,867
Everett Sloane is so far away
that he is as smaller than Welles's nose.
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00:06:48,809 --> 00:06:52,027
Such deep staging forces scale.
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00:06:52,029 --> 00:06:56,072
It's as expressionist
as the shadows in Caligari.
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00:06:56,656 --> 00:07:00,180
More than any film of its time,
Citizen Kane challenged
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00:07:00,180 --> 00:07:04,022
the soft and shallow look
of romantic American cinema.
120
00:07:04,771 --> 00:07:06,130
But why did it do so?
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00:07:06,983 --> 00:07:11,372
Because of the talent and instincts
of the magician who made it.
122
00:07:18,458 --> 00:07:22,588
RKO studio where
Welles made Citizen Kane.
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00:07:23,359 --> 00:07:26,548
He was staging Shakespeare
at the age of four.
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00:07:27,271 --> 00:07:31,063
His mother died when he was 8
and his father when he was 12.
125
00:07:31,765 --> 00:07:33,505
He lived in Shanghai.
126
00:07:33,507 --> 00:07:36,926
Visited the palaces of
faded emperors.
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00:07:36,928 --> 00:07:41,728
Got to know the story of power
and tramped through its ruins.
128
00:07:42,361 --> 00:07:45,410
He should have been
the D.W. Griffith of the sound era.
129
00:07:45,412 --> 00:07:50,664
In fact, in a career that lasted
nearly 50 years, he didn't direct
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00:07:51,149 --> 00:07:56,318
a single foot of film for any of
the four major Hollywood studios.
131
00:07:56,713 --> 00:08:00,870
Norman Lloyd played the poet Cinna
in Welles' acclaimed staging
132
00:08:00,870 --> 00:08:02,180
of Julius Caesar.
133
00:08:02,631 --> 00:08:05,965
The story of the
staging was told, inaccurately,
134
00:08:05,991 --> 00:08:09,193
in the recent
film Me and Orson Welles.
135
00:08:09,860 --> 00:08:11,965
What is my name?
136
00:08:11,967 --> 00:08:12,938
Whither am I going?
137
00:08:12,940 --> 00:08:14,179
Where do I dwell?
138
00:08:14,181 --> 00:08:15,789
Enough!
139
00:08:15,791 --> 00:08:17,176
This is worse than terrible!
140
00:08:17,679 --> 00:08:20,580
Cinna is Shakespeare's
indictment of the intelligentsia,
141
00:08:20,580 --> 00:08:22,818
he's a lofty, byronic figure.
142
00:08:22,818 --> 00:08:25,785
You know, I completely disagree!
143
00:08:26,471 --> 00:08:29,753
I never had that kind
of argument with Orson.
144
00:08:29,755 --> 00:08:32,358
As I watched that,
I was embarrassed,
145
00:08:32,358 --> 00:08:36,258
because I never would have had
that kind of argument with Orson.
146
00:08:37,367 --> 00:08:40,249
But just as an actor, like
Lloyd revered Welles,
147
00:08:40,249 --> 00:08:42,955
so Welles revered
his own heroes.
148
00:08:43,972 --> 00:08:46,768
Though he learnt much
from Stagecoach,
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00:08:46,794 --> 00:08:49,945
the great force in his
films, their battering ram,
150
00:08:49,945 --> 00:08:52,356
comes from theatre
and elsewhere.
151
00:08:52,725 --> 00:08:58,078
Here he plays Shakespeare's Falstaff,
a buffoon shot in deep space.
152
00:08:58,694 --> 00:09:01,545
He was interested
in Italian renaissance painting.
153
00:09:01,880 --> 00:09:08,296
His attraction to powerful people, kings,
tycoons, inventors is like Shakespeare's.
154
00:09:08,988 --> 00:09:12,477
Also like Shakespeare,
he looked to the past,
155
00:09:12,477 --> 00:09:15,418
to times before
democracy and liberalism.
156
00:09:18,209 --> 00:09:20,354
Here, it's the world of Henry IV.
157
00:09:20,332 --> 00:09:24,959
John Gielgud dwarfed
by a massive empty cathedral.
158
00:09:28,647 --> 00:09:32,867
Citizen Kane thinks of himself
as a Medici or a Mughal emperor.
159
00:09:33,495 --> 00:09:36,573
Kane is full of the lust
for power.
160
00:09:37,422 --> 00:09:39,924
His world is massive, but empty.
161
00:09:40,481 --> 00:09:42,635
Maybe the last time
he felt anything real
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00:09:42,635 --> 00:09:47,307
was as a boy playing
in the snow on his rosebud sledge,
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00:09:47,307 --> 00:09:51,991
in this incredible scene,
in deep space with tracking camera.
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00:09:55,328 --> 00:10:00,515
Citizen Kane denounced grandeur,
egomania and maybe, even,
165
00:10:00,515 --> 00:10:05,179
the cinematic hubris
that made Cabiria's tracking shots.
166
00:10:07,909 --> 00:10:10,660
And Intolerance's epic scale.
167
00:10:15,246 --> 00:10:18,583
And The General's outlandish
production values.
168
00:10:20,158 --> 00:10:23,871
Keaton's film was famously expensive.
169
00:10:24,729 --> 00:10:29,141
Shakespeare and the Medicis, the
Mughals, Ottomans and Stagecoach
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00:10:29,141 --> 00:10:33,895
were not the only sources
of Welles' visual and human ideas.
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00:10:34,604 --> 00:10:37,414
There was the fact
of his own body and voice.
172
00:10:37,909 --> 00:10:42,084
Both were enormous, mature,
unfeasible even.
173
00:10:42,430 --> 00:10:44,828
It was like he was painted
by Holbein.
174
00:10:45,158 --> 00:10:48,280
He could never play
a young person, or a teenager
175
00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:52,218
or an ordinary guy
or a 20th century everyman.
176
00:10:52,655 --> 00:10:57,942
The space in his films was gigantic
because his persona was gigantic.
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00:10:57,942 --> 00:11:02,462
And the sound was gigantic too,
whispers in close-up,
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00:11:02,462 --> 00:11:04,459
echoes from miles back.
179
00:11:04,713 --> 00:11:07,931
49,000 acres of nothing
but scenery and statues!
180
00:11:07,931 --> 00:11:09,495
I'm lonesome!
181
00:11:09,495 --> 00:11:14,028
'Til just yesterday we've had no less
than 50 of your friends at any one time.
182
00:11:14,034 --> 00:11:16,363
I think if you look carefully
in the west wing, Susan,
183
00:11:16,363 --> 00:11:19,528
you'll find about
a dozen vacationers still in residence.
184
00:11:19,870 --> 00:11:23,874
He extended the overlapping
dialogue of Howard Hawks' comedies,
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00:11:23,874 --> 00:11:26,243
to fill a whole film.
186
00:11:26,995 --> 00:11:28,269
Can you prove it isn't?
187
00:11:28,269 --> 00:11:31,301
Mr. Bernstein, I'd like you
to meet Mr. Thatcher.
188
00:11:31,303 --> 00:11:32,474
How are you doing,
Mr. Thatcher?
189
00:11:32,476 --> 00:11:35,324
Leland. Hello Mr. Thatcher,
my ex-guardian.
190
00:11:35,326 --> 00:11:37,539
We have no secrets
from our readers, Mr. Bernstein.
191
00:11:37,541 --> 00:11:39,799
Mr. Thatcher is one
of our most devoted readers.
192
00:11:40,013 --> 00:11:44,610
The visual ideas of Toland and Welles
about deep focus and deep space
193
00:11:44,610 --> 00:11:47,017
excited filmmakers
around the world.
194
00:11:47,182 --> 00:11:51,067
Look at the depth of this
scene in The Maltese Falcon.
195
00:11:52,385 --> 00:11:55,581
Humphrey Bogart's thumb,
no more than 20 centimeters
196
00:11:55,581 --> 00:11:58,907
from the camera,
is clearly in focus.
197
00:12:00,204 --> 00:12:04,759
And look at this incredible scene in a bar
in The best Years of our Lives.
198
00:12:05,251 --> 00:12:10,733
The older man, Frederic March
asks the younger, Dana Andrews,
199
00:12:10,759 --> 00:12:13,613
to end his romance
with the older man's daughter.
200
00:12:14,694 --> 00:12:19,061
Andrews agrees to do so
and goes to call her in a phone box.
201
00:12:19,858 --> 00:12:21,982
As the phone call's
the main drama in the scene,
202
00:12:21,982 --> 00:12:25,838
you'd expect director Wyler
and D.P. [Director of Photography] Gregg Toland
203
00:12:25,864 --> 00:12:28,692
to set up their camera near the box,
204
00:12:28,692 --> 00:12:31,657
so we can see
and hear the action.
205
00:12:31,657 --> 00:12:36,897
But, instead, they put it far away,
beside this piano,
206
00:12:36,923 --> 00:12:41,024
where a war veteran
who's lost his hands is playing.
207
00:12:41,558 --> 00:12:43,361
The father's at the piano, too,
208
00:12:43,361 --> 00:12:47,598
but anxiously looks to the tiny booth
in the extreme background.
209
00:12:49,365 --> 00:12:53,775
It's as if the crucial action
has been sucked away by a black hole.
210
00:12:53,775 --> 00:12:56,779
We're forced to imagine
the conversation.
211
00:12:56,804 --> 00:13:00,509
Just as, in real life, we
can't always see everything
212
00:13:00,534 --> 00:13:01,973
that we want to see.
213
00:13:03,707 --> 00:13:07,149
Years later the Austrian, Michael Haneke,
used deep space
214
00:13:07,174 --> 00:13:12,207
to show a woman on a train
getting away from harassment.
215
00:13:19,043 --> 00:13:23,533
And the Hungarian, Béla Tarr,
uses deep space to move our eyes
216
00:13:23,559 --> 00:13:28,002
from foreground, to the background,
and then to the foreground again.
217
00:13:28,027 --> 00:13:31,183
In each case the effect
was one of tension,
218
00:13:31,208 --> 00:13:35,703
as if the world is a force field
in which the people are held.
219
00:13:36,291 --> 00:13:42,415
Deep staging in American cinema would
become less fashionable again in the 1950s.
220
00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:46,722
The new color, widescreen film
stocks were just not sensitive enough
221
00:13:46,747 --> 00:13:50,019
to suck in all that information
at once.
222
00:13:50,044 --> 00:13:54,467
So here, in How to marry a Millionaire,
the space is shallow
223
00:13:54,493 --> 00:13:58,845
and the actors are displayed
across it like a washing line.
224
00:13:58,871 --> 00:14:04,860
Very long lenses in the 60s and 70s,
excited directors about very shallow focus.
225
00:14:04,885 --> 00:14:09,553
Here, filmed with a long lens,
Anouk Aimée floated
226
00:14:09,579 --> 00:14:13,987
in her own visual world,
like Garbo in the 1920s.
227
00:14:14,013 --> 00:14:19,713
And in the 1990s Michael Mann's film
Heat, influenced by pop videos,
228
00:14:19,739 --> 00:14:24,374
used the newest types of long lens
to create focus so shallow
229
00:14:24,399 --> 00:14:30,574
that the lights behind al Pacino
in this shoot out became dreamy blobs.
230
00:14:42,144 --> 00:14:44,103
But it was this place, Italy,
231
00:14:44,128 --> 00:14:49,424
that was at the center
of the movie world in the 1940s.
232
00:15:08,563 --> 00:15:14,264
This film school, ‘Centro Sperimentale,’
was opened under Mussolini in the 1930s.
233
00:15:20,283 --> 00:15:26,812
This famous film studio
234
00:15:26,838 --> 00:15:28,863
where great sets
have been built,
235
00:15:28,889 --> 00:15:32,295
where Italian epics and
comedies had been made,
236
00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:35,564
had been used as an army barracks
during World War II.
237
00:15:38,836 --> 00:15:41,414
And film lights were limited.
238
00:15:44,946 --> 00:15:48,309
So, filmmakers took
to the streets.
239
00:15:51,681 --> 00:15:55,289
Before the war,
central Rome looked like this.
240
00:16:00,492 --> 00:16:04,581
But, by 1945 it looked
like this.
241
00:16:10,585 --> 00:16:14,576
People still went about their lives,
but the world had changed.
242
00:16:14,601 --> 00:16:16,538
The city had changed.
243
00:16:16,563 --> 00:16:19,138
The film industry had changed.
244
00:16:19,357 --> 00:16:25,082
And so, in a series of films made in Italy
between 1945 and 1952,
245
00:16:25,108 --> 00:16:28,495
the language
of film changed too.
246
00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:32,856
What became known as ‘rubble movies’
[Trümmerfilm], were born.
247
00:16:32,882 --> 00:16:36,332
The first was this one, Rome open City
[Roma città aperta]
248
00:16:36,362 --> 00:16:39,268
directed by Roberto Rosselini.
249
00:16:40,717 --> 00:16:45,138
The film started as a documentary
about a priest in Rome during World War II,
250
00:16:45,163 --> 00:16:51,231
but grew into a portrait of the city,
struggling to resist fascism and Nazism.
251
00:16:54,231 --> 00:16:57,625
This is how the actress in
the film was shot and lit:
252
00:16:57,650 --> 00:17:00,984
old style, glamour, a negligee.
253
00:17:07,106 --> 00:17:10,255
But look at how the other woman
in the film is presented...
254
00:17:10,257 --> 00:17:13,582
Deglamorized, single light source.
255
00:17:13,607 --> 00:17:16,219
She's pregnant but not married.
256
00:17:16,219 --> 00:17:17,930
Daring for the time.
257
00:17:17,955 --> 00:17:20,233
And she's anti-fascist.
258
00:17:20,259 --> 00:17:25,792
Another anti-fascist in the film,
Don Pelligrini, is a priest in this church.
259
00:17:25,817 --> 00:17:29,726
Rossellini wanted his images plain,
unadorned,
260
00:17:29,751 --> 00:17:37,240
and so he used lenses
of about 50 mm...
261
00:17:37,266 --> 00:17:42,128
rather than Wellesean
wide angle lenses...
262
00:17:42,154 --> 00:17:45,605
or longer lenses.
263
00:17:45,630 --> 00:17:50,329
He didn't care too much
if the shot wasn't in focus.
264
00:17:56,997 --> 00:17:59,792
And whilst not hand holding
the camera much,
265
00:17:59,817 --> 00:18:03,547
he seemed to have his D.P.
loosen the head of the tripod
266
00:18:03,572 --> 00:18:05,837
to give loads of movement.
267
00:18:11,829 --> 00:18:15,577
Light bulbs were bare
in Italian Neo-realism.
268
00:18:19,743 --> 00:18:26,405
Martin Scorsese says that they influenced
the bare light bulbs in Raging Bull.
269
00:18:30,294 --> 00:18:35,802
And it's said that in these neorealist films,
we saw one of these for the first time.
270
00:18:37,263 --> 00:18:43,941
Rosselini said that if, by chance, he
made a beautiful shot, he'd cut it out.
271
00:18:46,681 --> 00:18:51,427
If the nature of movie beauty
changed in Europe in the 1940s,
272
00:18:51,452 --> 00:18:55,231
it was partly because of a
writer called Cesare Zavattini.
273
00:18:56,872 --> 00:19:03,411
He said, ‘before this, if one was thinking
over the idea of a film on, say, a strike,
274
00:19:03,437 --> 00:19:05,888
one would
immediately invent a plot.
275
00:19:05,913 --> 00:19:09,759
And the strike itself became only
the background to the film.’
276
00:19:09,784 --> 00:19:15,333
Today he said in a later interview,
‘we would describe the strike itself.
277
00:19:15,358 --> 00:19:20,439
We have an unlimited trust
in things, facts and people.’
278
00:19:20,657 --> 00:19:24,280
This was revolutionary:
the reduction of plot.
279
00:19:24,305 --> 00:19:26,675
De-dramatization.
280
00:19:27,755 --> 00:19:30,743
And Zavattini said something
even more revealing,
281
00:19:30,768 --> 00:19:34,547
‘when we've thought out a scene
we feel the need to “remain” in it,
282
00:19:34,572 --> 00:19:39,776
because it can contain
so many echoes and reverberations.’
283
00:19:41,314 --> 00:19:43,373
This was again revelatory.
284
00:19:44,163 --> 00:19:46,290
Things took place in real time.
285
00:19:46,532 --> 00:19:48,659
Ordinary details mattered.
286
00:19:49,258 --> 00:19:51,277
Where Alfred Hitchcock was to say
287
00:19:51,303 --> 00:19:54,821
that cinema was life
with the boring bits cut out,
288
00:19:54,847 --> 00:20:00,941
Zavattini and the neorealists said
that cinema is the boring bits.
289
00:20:11,832 --> 00:20:15,678
The most famous film that Zavattini wrote,
Bicycle Thieves [Ladri di biciclette],
290
00:20:15,704 --> 00:20:22,222
is about an unemployed man who has his bike
- his only chance of getting casual work - stolen.
291
00:20:22,247 --> 00:20:25,819
He and his son
look all over Rome for it.
292
00:20:25,844 --> 00:20:31,270
In the end, worn out and afraid of not
being able to get even basic work,
293
00:20:31,295 --> 00:20:33,875
he himself steals a bike.
294
00:20:40,114 --> 00:20:44,019
Director Vittorio De Sica,
has the scene shot starkly,
295
00:20:44,044 --> 00:20:48,173
in harsh light, and keeps
the camera far back from the theft.
296
00:20:48,538 --> 00:20:52,395
As if not to intrude
on the father's shame.
297
00:21:09,865 --> 00:21:12,948
But then the boy
sees the father's theft.
298
00:21:12,950 --> 00:21:14,910
We're close to him.
299
00:21:16,136 --> 00:21:18,924
This tracking shot shows that films
like Bicycle Thieves
300
00:21:18,949 --> 00:21:21,242
are not afraid of
conventional filming,
301
00:21:21,267 --> 00:21:25,515
empathy, point of view,
tension and emotion.
302
00:21:26,867 --> 00:21:31,566
But this scene, a few moments earlier,
is more unusual.
303
00:21:32,481 --> 00:21:35,342
The boy nearly
gets hit by a car.
304
00:21:35,368 --> 00:21:36,454
Twice.
305
00:21:38,867 --> 00:21:42,534
In a Hollywood film the dad
would have seen this and grabbed the boy
306
00:21:42,559 --> 00:21:47,620
and scolded him or comforted him, but
also realized how much he loves him.
307
00:21:49,569 --> 00:21:55,177
But in Italian Neo-realism such moments
just happened, without cause or effect.
308
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:57,052
It was a loose end.
309
00:21:57,078 --> 00:21:59,612
It didn't play back
into the plot.
310
00:22:00,431 --> 00:22:04,049
Pre-war film stories were chains
of cause and effect.
311
00:22:04,051 --> 00:22:08,212
But in Italian Neo-realism, the
chain was sometimes broken.
312
00:22:09,250 --> 00:22:14,022
Neo-realism turned
the realist dissidence of 20s cinema
313
00:22:14,048 --> 00:22:20,439
into a national film movement in the '40s,
that then swept around the world.
314
00:22:49,908 --> 00:22:53,088
Far away from Neo-realism
and the rubble of Europe,
315
00:22:53,113 --> 00:22:57,540
the mythic capital
of the American movie industry, Hollywood,
316
00:22:57,540 --> 00:23:01,567
started to get less glossy
in the 1940s too.
317
00:23:01,578 --> 00:23:04,964
A starlet called Peg Entwistle
killed herself
318
00:23:04,989 --> 00:23:08,113
by jumping from this letter
in the Hollywood sign.
319
00:23:10,966 --> 00:23:16,171
After a long day in the sunshine
in L.A., nighttime falls.
320
00:23:19,274 --> 00:23:22,818
There are few streetlights,
so it's really dark.
321
00:23:34,930 --> 00:23:39,506
Hardly anybody walks, so those that do
can hear their own footsteps.
322
00:23:40,073 --> 00:23:44,559
The eucalyptus and orange blossom
smells almost sickly sweet.
323
00:23:45,411 --> 00:23:49,557
The grills on windows cast
shadows like prisons.
324
00:23:50,169 --> 00:23:54,502
Throughout World War II,
Hollywood kept making this kind of film.
325
00:24:02,224 --> 00:24:08,518
Betty Grable in her feathers and décor,
was one of wartime's most popular stars.
326
00:24:09,568 --> 00:24:11,685
But America's
most curious filmmakers
327
00:24:11,710 --> 00:24:17,079
went abroad or just watched newsreels
and saw this.
328
00:24:25,420 --> 00:24:26,613
And this.
329
00:24:26,977 --> 00:24:30,558
The documentary tragedy
of Rome open city.
330
00:24:36,357 --> 00:24:39,257
The romantic exuberance
of Hollywood ebbed.
331
00:24:39,631 --> 00:24:42,298
Its paradise got a bit lost.
332
00:24:42,990 --> 00:24:44,063
And it showed.
333
00:24:44,494 --> 00:24:50,320
Between 1941 and 1959,
more than 350 dark films
334
00:24:50,345 --> 00:24:55,281
were made in Hollywood,
films that became known as ‘films noirs’.
335
00:24:57,441 --> 00:25:02,762
One of the earliest and most influential
was this one: Double indemnity.
336
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:05,499
Look at this scene in it.
337
00:25:05,823 --> 00:25:10,742
The actress and the wall at the far end
of the corridor are both in focus.
338
00:25:10,767 --> 00:25:15,621
The visual depth of Mizoguchi,
Stagecoach and Citizen Kane.
339
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:23,274
The situation is this: the insurance man
who's coming out the door
340
00:25:23,299 --> 00:25:26,643
has fallen for the woman
who hides behind the door,
341
00:25:26,669 --> 00:25:28,832
the wife of one of his clients.
342
00:25:29,541 --> 00:25:34,646
She convinces him to help her kill her husband
and share the insurance pay-out.
343
00:25:34,671 --> 00:25:35,819
They do so.
344
00:25:36,420 --> 00:25:40,455
The man's boss, in the dark suit,
begins to suspect that the wife
345
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:44,004
is the murderess and goes
to the man's apartment
346
00:25:44,029 --> 00:25:45,700
to tell him his hunch.
347
00:25:46,679 --> 00:25:49,861
If the boss saw the wife there,
it would confirm
348
00:25:49,886 --> 00:25:53,442
his hunch and implicate the man,
his employee.
349
00:25:53,942 --> 00:25:57,939
So the wife hides behind
the man's outward-opening door.
350
00:25:58,335 --> 00:25:59,774
Goodbye Keyes.
351
00:25:59,776 --> 00:26:00,849
So long, Walter.
352
00:26:04,493 --> 00:26:07,075
Double indemnity's director,
Billy Wilder,
353
00:26:07,100 --> 00:26:11,522
was an Austrian Jew
who fled the Nazis in 1933.
354
00:26:12,101 --> 00:26:15,721
Ironically filmed here
in the bright sun of Santa Monica,
355
00:26:15,746 --> 00:26:18,254
his films were
thematically dark.
356
00:26:18,771 --> 00:26:23,920
Like many émigrés who made great
films noirs... Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak,
357
00:26:23,946 --> 00:26:31,100
Otto Preminger, Michael Curtiz, Jacques Tourneur...
he loved the unpretentiousness of America,
358
00:26:31,125 --> 00:26:33,717
but hated its worship of money.
359
00:26:35,209 --> 00:26:38,326
The wife in this scene
lusts for it.
360
00:26:38,351 --> 00:26:42,858
The man lusts for her and,
because he's weak and flawed,
361
00:26:42,883 --> 00:26:44,560
for money too.
362
00:26:48,990 --> 00:26:52,763
Robert Towne who wrote
the film Chinatown.
363
00:26:52,788 --> 00:27:03,086
Cinema noir... The characters
are fated, in one way or another
364
00:27:03,112 --> 00:27:05,603
and it is a character flaw
of some kind.
365
00:27:05,628 --> 00:27:08,704
They are like moths and flames.
366
00:27:08,729 --> 00:27:12,302
You look at Walter in
Double Indemnity.
367
00:27:12,327 --> 00:27:15,118
And I wanted to see
her again, close,
368
00:27:15,143 --> 00:27:17,776
without that silly staircase
between us.
369
00:27:20,430 --> 00:27:23,236
He just can't resist
a pretty anklet.
370
00:27:23,237 --> 00:27:26,306
You look at Robert Mitchum in
Out of the Past,...
371
00:27:26,331 --> 00:27:31,386
he can't... he wants
to be with a decent girl,
372
00:27:31,411 --> 00:27:36,132
but he can't stay out of the way,
it's usually a femme fatale...
373
00:27:36,157 --> 00:27:44,110
Even when he wants
to disentangle himself, he can't avoid it...
374
00:27:44,135 --> 00:27:46,798
Geddes with Chinatown.
375
00:27:46,823 --> 00:27:53,647
There is some flaw in them,
that draws them to their fate,
376
00:27:53,672 --> 00:28:01,859
even as they try to avoid it,
not just a dark world
377
00:28:01,885 --> 00:28:05,635
where they get kind of beaten up...
378
00:28:05,661 --> 00:28:13,251
They are men who at some deep,
unconscious level seek out their fate,
379
00:28:13,276 --> 00:28:15,060
even as they try to avoid it.
380
00:28:15,526 --> 00:28:19,113
Paul Schrader who wrote
Taxi Driver and Raging Bull:
381
00:28:19,115 --> 00:28:23,984
The flawed hero which, you
know, first sort of appeared
382
00:28:24,010 --> 00:28:28,550
in Freud influenced films, you know,
but it never really took hold
383
00:28:28,576 --> 00:28:32,484
till after the war and you had
these guys came home from the war.
384
00:28:32,509 --> 00:28:38,658
And you had all of that social dislocation
where women who had gotten jobs in the war
385
00:28:38,683 --> 00:28:44,549
were now expected to give up their jobs
and men who fought in the war
386
00:28:44,575 --> 00:28:48,865
came home
and didn't have any money.
387
00:28:48,891 --> 00:28:54,994
There was a lot of frustration
and so that kind of Freudian hero started
388
00:28:55,019 --> 00:29:01,156
feeling like a much more realistic
hero than he had felt like in,
389
00:29:01,181 --> 00:29:04,379
you know, the '30s and '40s.
390
00:29:05,889 --> 00:29:11,463
War, the city of L.A., flawed characters,
and social and legal collapse
391
00:29:11,489 --> 00:29:14,903
created noir
but so did other things.
392
00:29:14,928 --> 00:29:19,956
The lattice of shadows
of German expressionism can be seen.
393
00:29:19,981 --> 00:29:24,264
In this German film,
light casts a grid of shadows,
394
00:29:24,289 --> 00:29:27,693
but the handrail
is a lattice too.
395
00:29:29,748 --> 00:29:33,549
Double Indemnity was co-written
by Raymond Chandler who,
396
00:29:33,574 --> 00:29:39,253
along with Dashiel Hammett, created
the character types and situations of noir.
397
00:29:45,553 --> 00:29:50,630
Howard Hawks filmed
Chandler's The big Sleep in 1946.
398
00:29:50,655 --> 00:29:53,532
Humphrey Bogart
played Philip Marlowe.
399
00:29:53,816 --> 00:29:56,661
The film crackled
with snappy dialogue.
400
00:29:56,686 --> 00:29:59,423
A feature of the best noirs.
401
00:29:59,423 --> 00:30:08,993
May I use your phone, Mr.
Marlowe?
402
00:30:09,019 --> 00:30:09,706
Hello.
403
00:30:09,732 --> 00:30:12,996
Police headquarter, please.
404
00:30:13,021 --> 00:30:17,472
Hello. This is Mrs....
405
00:30:17,498 --> 00:30:18,881
Hello.
What do you want, please?
406
00:30:18,883 --> 00:30:22,729
I don't want a thing! What! You called me.
I called you?
407
00:30:22,755 --> 00:30:23,720
Say, who is this?
408
00:30:23,746 --> 00:30:24,951
This is sergeant Reilly
at headquarters.
409
00:30:24,977 --> 00:30:27,572
Sergeant Reilly, well,
there isn't any sergeant Reilly here.
410
00:30:27,574 --> 00:30:28,485
I know there's not...
411
00:30:28,511 --> 00:30:30,124
Wait a minute.
You better talk to my mother.
412
00:30:30,151 --> 00:30:32,380
I don't wanna talk to your mother. Why
should I wanna talk to your mother?
413
00:30:32,406 --> 00:30:37,364
The big Sleep was the most influential
film noir since Double Indemnity.
414
00:30:37,389 --> 00:30:41,085
It's complex plot set a fashion.
415
00:30:41,110 --> 00:30:46,340
The film was co-written by Leigh Brackett,
another great female screenwriter,
416
00:30:46,365 --> 00:30:53,435
who co-wrote this film Rio Bravo,
in which Angie Dickinson gets the best lines.
417
00:30:54,299 --> 00:30:59,501
You see, that's what I'd do,
418
00:30:59,527 --> 00:31:01,921
if I were the kind of girl
that you think I am.
419
00:31:01,946 --> 00:31:06,519
And Bracket co-wrote this film,
Star Wars: The Empire strikes back.
420
00:31:06,544 --> 00:31:12,277
In the film's climax, Luke discovers,
in the style of a Hollywood romance...
421
00:31:12,303 --> 00:31:14,842
that Darth Vader is his father.
422
00:31:14,867 --> 00:31:20,193
Brackett had helped bring
traditional movie storytelling into the '70s.
423
00:31:20,218 --> 00:31:23,461
The women in film noir
haunt the films.
424
00:31:23,486 --> 00:31:28,316
Jane Greer in Out of the Past takes her
time, moves like velvet,
425
00:31:28,341 --> 00:31:35,007
knows that the man is weak,
enjoys his gaze, turns it to her advantage.
426
00:31:35,879 --> 00:31:39,670
Usually in noir it's
an immoral advantage.
427
00:31:41,222 --> 00:31:44,560
And yet of the 350 or so noirs,
428
00:31:44,585 --> 00:31:50,756
only one, this one, was directed
by a woman, Ida Lupino.
429
00:31:50,817 --> 00:31:56,963
She mastered the form,
using spot lighting and subjective camera.
430
00:31:56,970 --> 00:31:58,572
A film with down-turned eyes.
431
00:31:58,597 --> 00:32:04,172
Directing in American film had become,
by this stage, a boy's club.
432
00:32:05,128 --> 00:32:08,082
And there's so much more
to say about film noir.
433
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:14,165
The pugnacious presence of actor
Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity
434
00:32:14,190 --> 00:32:18,455
is a reminder of how noir was fascinated
by the sort of gangster films
435
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:21,472
of the 30s in which
Robinson appeared.
436
00:32:21,497 --> 00:32:25,499
In those he was
disdainful, dapper.
437
00:32:27,359 --> 00:32:29,294
And it's pessimism came in part
438
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:32,787
from the poetic realist films
of France in the 1930s,
439
00:32:32,813 --> 00:32:38,359
such as this moody encounter
between two lost souls in Quaie des Brumes.
440
00:32:40,012 --> 00:32:43,420
If proof is needed that France
influenced America in the 40s,
441
00:32:43,445 --> 00:32:47,269
look at this film La Chienne,
directed by Jean Renoir.
442
00:32:47,579 --> 00:32:50,931
A man falls in love
with a hard-hearted, young woman.
443
00:32:56,959 --> 00:33:04,082
It was remade as Scarlet Street,
by Fritz Lang, in America, 14 years later.
444
00:33:04,107 --> 00:33:08,670
The scene where the man pleads
for the woman's love is very similar.
445
00:33:09,704 --> 00:33:10,779
Its star?
446
00:33:11,138 --> 00:33:13,818
Edward G. Robinson.
447
00:33:16,771 --> 00:33:20,284
Here in Montrose,
a suburb of Los Angeles,
448
00:33:20,309 --> 00:33:23,997
a b-movie called Gun Crazy
was shot in 1950.
449
00:33:24,606 --> 00:33:28,662
It was one of the most innovative,
passionate noirs ever made
450
00:33:28,687 --> 00:33:32,904
and shows how documentary
and Neo-realism influenced the genre.
451
00:33:33,379 --> 00:33:36,642
It was directed
by this Hemingway-esque man,
452
00:33:36,667 --> 00:33:42,949
speaking on his fishing boat,
the great b-movie director Joseph H. Lewis.
453
00:33:43,689 --> 00:33:48,312
A man and a woman, passionate
and reckless, are about to rob a bank.
454
00:33:48,337 --> 00:33:50,128
Their hearts are beating.
455
00:33:50,761 --> 00:33:55,265
In a conventional noir
we'd see their faces, sweaty brows.
456
00:33:55,331 --> 00:33:58,467
Here Lewis keeps the camera
behind them.
457
00:33:58,492 --> 00:34:02,839
His D.P. sat in the back seat
on a jockey saddle.
458
00:34:02,864 --> 00:34:06,145
He made a special board
on which the camera could pan.
459
00:34:06,202 --> 00:34:07,501
Alright?
460
00:34:09,417 --> 00:34:12,894
Lewis then had new button microphones
put on the actors
461
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:15,494
and on a policeman we're about to see.
462
00:34:15,519 --> 00:34:18,732
And gave the performers
free reign to improvise.
463
00:34:18,758 --> 00:34:20,697
There's a car just pulled out.
464
00:34:20,723 --> 00:34:23,141
We can get in there.
465
00:34:23,143 --> 00:34:25,188
We'll have to... Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
466
00:34:25,214 --> 00:34:26,784
Right in here.
Fast as you can.
467
00:34:26,810 --> 00:34:30,468
Don't worry, I won't be a minute longer
than I have to.
468
00:34:30,494 --> 00:34:33,162
Here goes nothing!
Okay!
469
00:34:35,639 --> 00:34:40,486
Filming a stick up in the conventional way
was scheduled to take four days.
470
00:34:40,511 --> 00:34:44,036
Lewis claims to have shot this
in three hours
471
00:34:44,061 --> 00:34:48,985
and says that the unbroken shot
covers two miles of ground.
472
00:34:50,797 --> 00:34:52,140
Get out.
473
00:34:52,166 --> 00:34:54,209
Go on.
474
00:34:54,235 --> 00:34:57,285
That's right, stand right there.
475
00:34:57,310 --> 00:34:59,084
Okay.
476
00:35:05,192 --> 00:35:09,258
The camera and D.P. in the jockey saddle
move forward and right.
477
00:35:09,283 --> 00:35:12,910
Another sound recordist
was strapped to the top of the car.
478
00:35:12,936 --> 00:35:15,282
Well, that's a nice get up.
479
00:35:15,307 --> 00:35:16,942
I like it.
480
00:35:16,967 --> 00:35:18,582
Good looking gun.
481
00:35:18,607 --> 00:35:19,435
Thanks.
482
00:35:19,435 --> 00:35:21,010
That's English, ain't it?
483
00:35:21,012 --> 00:35:22,618
That's right
484
00:35:22,620 --> 00:35:23,975
What show are you with?
485
00:35:24,001 --> 00:35:25,670
Cheyenne rodeo in Hollywood.
486
00:35:25,672 --> 00:35:27,859
The bus will be coming through
in a few minutes.
487
00:35:27,885 --> 00:35:29,948
I got to stay too far out in front.
488
00:35:29,974 --> 00:35:31,103
You gonna play here?
489
00:35:31,104 --> 00:35:31,873
No.
490
00:35:31,898 --> 00:35:33,820
Well, it's an easy town
on shows.
491
00:35:33,822 --> 00:35:36,367
Three tickets and you've covered
the whole police force.
492
00:35:36,392 --> 00:35:38,765
That's a pretty nice gun
you've got too.
493
00:35:38,791 --> 00:35:39,687
I'm sorry, I don't let
494
00:35:39,689 --> 00:35:41,514
anybody handle it.
495
00:35:41,539 --> 00:35:43,951
Killed a man with it last year.
496
00:35:43,977 --> 00:35:45,840
Did he have it coming to him?
497
00:35:45,866 --> 00:35:49,579
Yes, but it wasn't much fun
watching him go down.
498
00:35:49,581 --> 00:35:51,778
He had no idea,
he was getting...
499
00:35:53,274 --> 00:35:56,410
The staging looks so real
that passers-by yelled,
500
00:35:56,435 --> 00:35:58,418
‘They've held up a bank!’
501
00:36:00,645 --> 00:36:01,914
Take off!
502
00:36:02,758 --> 00:36:07,889
The deadly passion and stylistic innovation
of Gun Crazy were a major influence
503
00:36:07,914 --> 00:36:11,337
on a much later film,
Bonnie and Clyde,
504
00:36:11,362 --> 00:36:14,684
about the anxiety
of a couple that robs banks.
505
00:36:14,977 --> 00:36:17,666
Your mama
could take this bank.
506
00:36:20,819 --> 00:36:22,405
Straight between the eyes.
507
00:36:22,430 --> 00:36:24,420
She didn't fool me for a minute.
Not this time.
508
00:36:25,131 --> 00:36:29,164
Paul Schrader says
that noir died out in 1958
509
00:36:29,190 --> 00:36:34,264
but its influence can be seen
much later, in L.A. confidential
510
00:36:34,289 --> 00:36:39,882
in which Kim Basinger pretends
to be Veronica Lake in this Gun for Hire.
511
00:36:40,903 --> 00:36:43,655
In Blade Runner,
in which Sean Young
512
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:48,685
walks through shadows in a pool
of light, like a film noir, femme fatale.
513
00:36:49,586 --> 00:36:55,149
In The dark Knight,
in which the city is fetid and morally dark.
514
00:36:59,445 --> 00:37:05,252
And even in Mumbai noir,
such as Shiva by Ram Gopal Varma,
515
00:37:05,278 --> 00:37:08,622
all shadows
and low camera angles.
516
00:37:12,043 --> 00:37:16,073
The influence of film noir
has travelled the world.
517
00:37:20,710 --> 00:37:24,783
So American film in the 40s
was newly serious,
518
00:37:24,808 --> 00:37:28,758
but did film noir smash
the bauble of romantic cinema?
519
00:37:30,967 --> 00:37:32,805
If you've seen this:
520
00:37:33,218 --> 00:37:36,796
the sweeping camera moves
and sweeping emotions of Titanic,
521
00:37:36,862 --> 00:37:38,923
you'll know
that the answer is no.
522
00:37:39,886 --> 00:37:42,522
Romantic cinema continued.
523
00:37:43,077 --> 00:37:48,646
But even to live in L.A. in the late 40s
and 50s started to feel different.
524
00:37:48,671 --> 00:37:51,585
Ernst Lubitsch died in 1947.
525
00:37:51,895 --> 00:37:56,165
D.W. Griffith and Greg Toland,
American cinema's civilizer
526
00:37:56,190 --> 00:38:01,216
and its deep space experimenter,
both died in 1948.
527
00:38:03,474 --> 00:38:09,387
Louis Lumière in France died too,
as did Eisenstein in the USSR.
528
00:38:10,584 --> 00:38:15,757
Judy Balaban's dad, Barney,
ran Paramount studios for decades,
529
00:38:15,783 --> 00:38:20,634
so she was at the center of it all,
and was engaged to Montgomery Clift.
530
00:38:20,643 --> 00:38:26,310
Originally our friends were
very light-hearted
531
00:38:26,335 --> 00:38:29,131
and there was a lot
of socializing and parties
532
00:38:29,156 --> 00:38:31,585
and small talk
and vacations and whatever.
533
00:38:31,612 --> 00:38:34,267
I mean, you know, we were close
to Janet and Tony and Dean
534
00:38:34,292 --> 00:38:38,117
and Jean Martin and I was close
to Sammy Davis from New York
535
00:38:38,143 --> 00:38:41,329
so we were close to Sammy and,
you know, the whole rat pack thing.
536
00:38:41,355 --> 00:38:46,159
Sinatra and Gene Kelly lived
across the street from us
537
00:38:46,161 --> 00:38:50,006
and Debbie and Eddie,
you know, it was just a lot of people
538
00:38:50,032 --> 00:38:54,202
having a lot of parties, frankly.
539
00:38:54,209 --> 00:39:00,510
But there came a moment in time
where a lot of that shifted.
540
00:39:00,512 --> 00:39:03,931
I was married to Tony Franciosa
by then.
541
00:39:03,933 --> 00:39:09,633
But the world began to be more conscious
of itself in the larger sphere
542
00:39:09,659 --> 00:39:14,317
than just simply the insular sense
of whatever your own neighborhood was,
543
00:39:14,327 --> 00:39:16,774
whether it was in the mid-west
or Hollywood,
544
00:39:16,799 --> 00:39:20,547
suddenly there was
a more universal consciousness.
545
00:39:20,572 --> 00:39:24,234
I look at periods were movies
seem to be ahead of everything,
546
00:39:24,260 --> 00:39:27,606
and then there are periods
where they seem to be behind everything
547
00:39:27,632 --> 00:39:29,120
else in the world.
548
00:39:29,201 --> 00:39:35,525
So for example...
the McCarthy era,
549
00:39:35,552 --> 00:39:42,571
would be a time when movies were caught
in the more backward part of that era.
550
00:39:47,757 --> 00:39:50,878
Calling the house Un-American Activities
Committee to order,
551
00:39:50,903 --> 00:39:54,717
chairman J. Parnell Thomas of
New Jersey opens an enquiry
552
00:39:54,742 --> 00:39:58,323
into possible communist penetration
of the Hollywood film industry.
553
00:39:58,356 --> 00:40:02,241
The committee you see came to determine
if red party members reached the screen
554
00:40:02,266 --> 00:40:03,956
with subversive propaganda.
555
00:40:06,473 --> 00:40:09,978
The question is: have you ever been
a member of the communist party?
556
00:40:10,003 --> 00:40:13,970
I'm framing my answer in
the only way in which any American citizen
557
00:40:13,995 --> 00:40:15,524
can frame his answer.
558
00:40:15,549 --> 00:40:18,431
Then you deny...
559
00:40:21,404 --> 00:40:24,691
At these hearings,
which started in 1947,
560
00:40:24,716 --> 00:40:30,603
50 studio bosses and producers agreed
to sack any of their employees
561
00:40:30,630 --> 00:40:32,762
who would not co-operate
with the government's
562
00:40:32,787 --> 00:40:37,252
new Anti-communist House Un-American
Activities Committee (Huac).
563
00:40:41,287 --> 00:40:47,298
This new poison in Hollywood life also
helped create the seriousness of film noir.
564
00:40:48,866 --> 00:40:54,796
The most principled filmmakers
refused to testify against leftists.
565
00:40:56,612 --> 00:41:03,227
Others named names, and great artists
were banned from working: Blacklisted.
566
00:41:05,565 --> 00:41:10,528
Those affected included Abraham Polonsky,
Charlie Chaplin, Dolores Del Rio,
567
00:41:10,553 --> 00:41:13,079
Paul Robeson and Dalton Trumbo.
568
00:41:14,384 --> 00:41:20,045
The House Un-American Activities became
the single biggest trauma in American cinema.
569
00:41:20,051 --> 00:41:24,461
The great cinematographer Haskell Wexler
shot America, America
570
00:41:24,486 --> 00:41:29,404
for director Elia Kazan,
who testified against the leftists.
571
00:41:30,169 --> 00:41:38,870
Kazan was a tremendously talented man
and I talked to him
572
00:41:38,896 --> 00:41:42,386
a couple of times about it,
but one of the things I remember he said,
573
00:41:42,412 --> 00:41:46,760
the main thing
about directing is casting.
574
00:41:46,785 --> 00:41:49,762
When Kazan's name came up
575
00:41:49,788 --> 00:41:52,707
for a lifetime achievement
award at the academy,
576
00:41:52,733 --> 00:41:58,011
I didn't think that Gadge,
as we called him, should get that award
577
00:41:58,037 --> 00:42:05,888
and Karl Rollins said,
‘look, he is dying, he's a great director.
578
00:42:05,914 --> 00:42:08,416
I'm going to vote for him.’
579
00:42:08,441 --> 00:42:22,368
So, I did and I wrote to Gadge and
I said, ‘dear Gadge, I voted for you
580
00:42:22,394 --> 00:42:26,289
because I think you deserved
the lifetime achievement award.
581
00:42:26,314 --> 00:42:31,659
I thought... I think it might be good
if you said something
582
00:42:31,685 --> 00:42:35,260
which may sound euphemistic, that
you're saying that you're sorry.
583
00:42:35,285 --> 00:42:38,912
That you may have
hurt some people.’
584
00:42:38,937 --> 00:42:46,932
I forget exact words I used, but...
And my nickname was Pete,
585
00:42:46,959 --> 00:42:49,731
for many years, given to me
by a whore in Puerto Rico.
586
00:42:49,756 --> 00:42:59,772
And she... And Kazan wrote me back:
‘Pete, go fuck yourself, Gadge.’
587
00:42:59,797 --> 00:43:07,664
And that's the way he was
to the moment he died.
588
00:43:07,689 --> 00:43:12,999
He must have felt guilt
that he couldn't admit?
589
00:43:13,024 --> 00:43:19,327
Well, I mean... It certainly
was an important thing,
590
00:43:19,353 --> 00:43:22,142
that he didn't have to squeal,
591
00:43:22,168 --> 00:43:27,293
he didn't have to, he was on the top,
he was on the top of the world. No.
592
00:43:27,319 --> 00:43:33,401
And you're right. Rod Steiger
and a lot of other people didn't...
593
00:43:33,426 --> 00:43:36,530
Would not accept
anything about him.
594
00:43:39,010 --> 00:43:42,027
Kazan's Oscar award was
televised of course.
595
00:43:42,052 --> 00:43:46,951
The famous reaction shots of the Oscar's
broadcast were more telling than ever.
596
00:43:46,976 --> 00:43:50,591
Karl Malden, Warren Beatty stand
and clap Kazan.
597
00:43:51,253 --> 00:43:57,273
Steven Spielberg sits and claps,
Ed Harris and Amy Madigan don't clap at all.
598
00:43:59,411 --> 00:44:05,004
Meryl Streep and Lynne Redgrave clap,
Nick Nolte doesn't.
599
00:44:10,242 --> 00:44:14,710
Back in 1949, the House Un-American
Activities Committee chairman,
600
00:44:14,735 --> 00:44:19,587
J. Parnell Thomas, was sentenced
to prison for embezzlement.
601
00:44:20,641 --> 00:44:24,169
The walk of fame in Hollywood Boulevard
has stars dedicated
602
00:44:24,194 --> 00:44:29,133
to minor show biz personalities,
but still doesn't carry the name
603
00:44:29,158 --> 00:44:31,663
of many of the blacklistees.
604
00:44:33,513 --> 00:44:37,860
And there were other momentous changes
in the American film industry at the time.
605
00:44:37,885 --> 00:44:46,618
In 1948, the five main studios were forced
by the US supreme court to sell their cinemas.
606
00:44:46,643 --> 00:44:51,613
One of them, Paramount
sold 1,450 of them.
607
00:44:51,638 --> 00:44:56,031
The government began the anti-trust
action against them because
608
00:44:56,056 --> 00:45:02,643
they said you cannot, produce, distribute
and exhibit a product without being,
609
00:45:02,669 --> 00:45:06,268
you know, violating anti-trust laws.
610
00:45:07,696 --> 00:45:14,130
And so the government began this investigation
and sued against the industry.
611
00:45:14,155 --> 00:45:19,598
It went on for some years and my father
could see, as he felt, that the handwriting
612
00:45:19,632 --> 00:45:24,103
was on the wall and that no matter how long
they fought it, they were going to lose.
613
00:45:25,044 --> 00:45:28,471
So he made a decision on behalf
of what he felt was the right thing
614
00:45:28,496 --> 00:45:34,896
for the shareholders of the company
that they should stop fighting this,
615
00:45:34,921 --> 00:45:39,108
stop spending money on it and
figure out how to, you know,
616
00:45:39,134 --> 00:45:42,499
restructure the company so that there
were two separate organizations.
617
00:45:42,524 --> 00:45:44,593
One of which would produce
and distribute the film
618
00:45:44,618 --> 00:45:47,129
and the other one of which would
be a theatre company.
619
00:45:47,621 --> 00:45:50,770
But in the early 50s,
just as the studio system,
620
00:45:50,796 --> 00:45:53,977
what Stanley Donen
called ‘the garden’, was dying,
621
00:45:54,003 --> 00:45:58,593
so it produced some
of its most splendid blooms.
622
00:46:05,955 --> 00:46:09,572
At MGM, Cosmopolitan producer
Arthur Freed gave
623
00:46:09,597 --> 00:46:14,508
sophisticates like Gene Kelly,
Vincent Minelli and Stanley Donen,
624
00:46:14,533 --> 00:46:18,533
a chance to show that the
studios still had joy in them,
625
00:46:18,559 --> 00:46:20,368
and beauty too.
626
00:46:21,849 --> 00:46:25,003
This extended dance sequence in
An American in Paris
627
00:46:25,028 --> 00:46:28,174
was influenced by the success
of the remarkable one
628
00:46:28,199 --> 00:46:30,852
in the British film
The red Shoes.
629
00:46:32,584 --> 00:46:36,814
Flashing red lights,
painted studio back drops.
630
00:46:42,572 --> 00:46:47,422
Gene Kelly was a leftist, and abhorred
the anti-communist witch hunts.
631
00:46:47,447 --> 00:46:52,629
But both he and Stanley Donen,
who started as a choreographer,
632
00:46:52,654 --> 00:47:00,634
were Americans born and bred, not émigrés,
and at first their outlook was optimistic.
633
00:47:01,798 --> 00:47:07,419
Drawn from vaudeville
and clowning as this scene shows.
634
00:47:15,774 --> 00:47:20,350
Like many of his generation,
Donen found the design, dance and sexuality
635
00:47:20,376 --> 00:47:25,231
of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers
musicals of the 30s entrancing.
636
00:47:25,900 --> 00:47:30,282
I was nine years old and I was
a little boy in a Southern town
637
00:47:30,309 --> 00:47:34,805
in South Carolina, where I was born
and grew up, and I had never
638
00:47:34,815 --> 00:47:37,397
experienced anything like that...
639
00:47:37,423 --> 00:47:43,084
And I was not in... anyway... my family
wasn't related to dancing or movies
640
00:47:43,109 --> 00:47:51,211
or anything and this moment of
transcended life, real life...
641
00:47:52,097 --> 00:47:59,378
There they were dancing
to the music, enjoying being alive,
642
00:47:59,404 --> 00:48:02,749
expressing their feelings .
643
00:48:08,583 --> 00:48:16,919
The idea of Gene Kelly singing in the rain
and letting the rain hit him, is a...
644
00:48:16,945 --> 00:48:22,534
That's the idea that he is so joyful,
that rain is a pleasure,
645
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:24,953
he is not worried
about getting wet,
646
00:48:24,953 --> 00:48:28,223
he is thrilled with
being in love.
647
00:48:31,677 --> 00:48:34,813
The camera expresses the joy
in itself without Gene,
648
00:48:34,839 --> 00:48:36,792
without even Gene Kelly
just being there!
649
00:48:36,817 --> 00:48:38,731
Just the uplift of the camera?!
650
00:48:38,757 --> 00:48:41,085
It's not the uplift
of the camera,
651
00:48:41,110 --> 00:48:45,592
it's the photograph
of the camera being uplifted.
652
00:48:45,617 --> 00:48:49,693
It's what the camera sees
that does it, the camera does nothing,
653
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:52,628
it just does
what we tell it to do.
654
00:48:53,430 --> 00:48:55,565
I can't talk to the camera and say,
655
00:48:55,590 --> 00:49:00,134
’now lift up. I want to feel the joy
of being weightless.’
656
00:49:00,159 --> 00:49:05,361
I've said this to people before
- if you say to a writer,
657
00:49:05,386 --> 00:49:10,994
’does the pencil write the story?’
Of course it doesn't!
658
00:49:11,019 --> 00:49:15,219
And the camera is just
the pencil that we're working with.
659
00:49:16,660 --> 00:49:21,057
In Singin' in the Rain, Donen and
Kelly did a kaleidoscopic sequence
660
00:49:21,082 --> 00:49:25,307
to make fun of the Busby Berkeley numbers,
which they hated.
661
00:49:40,363 --> 00:49:42,948
I used to think
they were terrible.
662
00:49:42,974 --> 00:49:47,896
Absolutely terrible and I thought
they were awful for a long time.
663
00:49:48,235 --> 00:49:52,925
And now when I look at them,
I think they really are unique
664
00:49:52,950 --> 00:49:57,844
and wonderful and they have
a point of view and I like them a lot.
665
00:49:58,162 --> 00:50:02,648
What's interesting is
they didn't change at all, I've changed.
666
00:50:02,654 --> 00:50:06,273
They are what they are.
A film locks it.
667
00:50:06,275 --> 00:50:08,653
It's like the written word
on the page.
668
00:50:08,655 --> 00:50:10,041
It doesn't change.
669
00:50:10,066 --> 00:50:14,159
It's only our opinion
of what it means that changes.
670
00:50:14,184 --> 00:50:16,167
Strong word,
not in the theatre.
671
00:50:16,168 --> 00:50:17,707
The president isn't
in the theatre.
672
00:50:17,709 --> 00:50:19,595
No, that's right.
673
00:50:19,825 --> 00:50:25,178
Change in Donen's life and work
echoes the change in Hollywood itself.
674
00:50:25,203 --> 00:50:30,416
In his film Indiscreet, starring
Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, for example,
675
00:50:30,441 --> 00:50:34,566
he used an innovative technique
to challenge censorship.
676
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:40,285
The leading man and the leading
lady, even if they were married,
677
00:50:40,310 --> 00:50:42,239
couldn't be in bed together.
678
00:50:42,264 --> 00:50:43,806
It was censorship.
679
00:50:43,999 --> 00:50:49,035
If they were married they had to be
in twin beds in the same room
680
00:50:49,044 --> 00:50:53,871
and I wanted to show
how intimate they were.
681
00:50:53,897 --> 00:50:58,580
And so I said, ‘I have an idea
of how I'll have them in bed together
682
00:50:58,606 --> 00:51:02,703
and the censors won't be able
to do anything about it.’
683
00:51:02,728 --> 00:51:08,023
In order to do it, so I could time it
and everything, I built both sets,
684
00:51:08,049 --> 00:51:11,490
both bedrooms,
on the same sound stage.
685
00:51:11,515 --> 00:51:16,051
I had a camera on each person,
we did it all at once
686
00:51:16,077 --> 00:51:20,545
and I could watch them and say,
you know, ‘do this. Do that.’
687
00:51:20,571 --> 00:51:23,932
And so it was done as a spilt screen
but we photographed it
688
00:51:23,958 --> 00:51:27,043
as though it was
happening all at once.
689
00:51:29,064 --> 00:51:30,969
How long is this going to go on?
690
00:51:32,124 --> 00:51:33,286
How long is what going to go on?
691
00:51:33,311 --> 00:51:34,624
The pretense that we're happy?
692
00:51:34,968 --> 00:51:36,284
We've never pretended we're happy!
693
00:51:36,309 --> 00:51:37,779
Who's pretending?
You are.
694
00:51:37,804 --> 00:51:38,661
That we're happily married.
695
00:51:38,687 --> 00:51:40,107
That you wanted to stay with me.
696
00:51:40,133 --> 00:51:46,000
And, as in American cinema in general,
melancholia entered Donen's cinema.
697
00:51:47,161 --> 00:51:50,473
Two for the Road was
about a married couple.
698
00:51:50,498 --> 00:51:55,592
We see one of the first road trips
they took together and one of the last.
699
00:51:55,617 --> 00:51:58,711
The movie intercuts
the time periods.
700
00:52:01,943 --> 00:52:05,253
You have to admit it.
We've changed.
701
00:52:05,278 --> 00:52:06,822
I admit it, we've changed.
702
00:52:06,847 --> 00:52:08,419
It's sad but there it is.
703
00:52:08,592 --> 00:52:13,244
People back then used to say to me,
‘I love that movie! It's so romantic!’
704
00:52:13,269 --> 00:52:20,068
And I would be stunned and say,
‘it's such a hard, tough look at marriage,
705
00:52:20,094 --> 00:52:22,139
why do you think of it
as romantic?’
706
00:52:22,165 --> 00:52:24,207
'Cause that's what I wanted it to be,
707
00:52:24,232 --> 00:52:27,471
to show you how people
could live together,
708
00:52:27,496 --> 00:52:33,024
the abrasions, the buffeting
against each other...
709
00:52:33,535 --> 00:52:40,641
and yet the way that you really
appreciate your partner.
710
00:52:41,454 --> 00:52:45,258
By this time, Donen
had made 21 films,
711
00:52:45,283 --> 00:52:48,171
some of the greatest
to come out of Hollywood.
712
00:52:48,196 --> 00:52:51,295
He was just 43 years old.
713
00:52:53,268 --> 00:52:56,103
Did you feel as if
you had run out of things to do?
714
00:52:56,105 --> 00:53:00,145
Oh god no, no.
715
00:53:00,171 --> 00:53:03,216
I mean, if you feel you've
run out of things to do
716
00:53:03,241 --> 00:53:07,317
it means you think you're stupid,
you have nothing more to say,
717
00:53:07,342 --> 00:53:11,726
I didn't think that.
I don't even think it now.
718
00:53:12,661 --> 00:53:17,236
What else did you have to say then
and what else do you have to say now?
719
00:53:19,205 --> 00:53:24,131
I think of Diaghilev
with Nijinsky, you know?
720
00:53:24,161 --> 00:53:26,562
Diaghilev was supposed
to have said to Nijinsky
721
00:53:26,587 --> 00:53:29,767
when he was asking him
to do a ballet,
722
00:53:29,792 --> 00:53:31,443
‘étonne moi!!’
723
00:53:31,468 --> 00:53:34,988
astonish me... well, that's
what I am still trying to do.
724
00:53:35,013 --> 00:53:38,384
I still want to astonish
you about my understanding
725
00:53:38,409 --> 00:53:41,188
of what it's all about,
how it is.
726
00:53:41,213 --> 00:53:44,983
How we react to it
and what can I do?
727
00:53:45,373 --> 00:53:47,567
Just as Donen's films would do,
728
00:53:47,592 --> 00:53:53,309
so mainstream American cinema on the whole
grew up in the '40s, and early '50s,
729
00:53:53,334 --> 00:53:55,308
the years of devastation.
730
00:53:55,887 --> 00:53:59,034
Under the influence of war
and Italian Neo-realism,
731
00:53:59,059 --> 00:54:01,642
American movies became darker.
732
00:54:02,332 --> 00:54:06,679
Life in mainstream American cinema
was no longer a bowl of cherries.
733
00:54:08,373 --> 00:54:12,118
And deep focus, deep staging,
film noir lighting
734
00:54:12,143 --> 00:54:15,116
and the influence
of Orson Welles
735
00:54:15,142 --> 00:54:20,542
had all given American film style
new punch and portent.
736
00:54:25,020 --> 00:54:29,495
In Britain in the '40s and '50s
we find films that best sum up
737
00:54:29,520 --> 00:54:32,141
the movie complexities
of this time of war.
738
00:54:32,988 --> 00:54:37,879
An RAF bomber pilot's plane
has been hit and is on fire.
739
00:54:38,639 --> 00:54:41,379
He has no parachute,
so is about to die.
740
00:54:41,404 --> 00:54:43,695
His last words are
to an American woman
741
00:54:43,720 --> 00:54:45,339
on a ground control base.
742
00:54:48,503 --> 00:54:52,947
English director Michael Powell
and Hungarian writer Emeric Pressburger,
743
00:54:52,972 --> 00:54:57,632
plunge us into a moment of searing
drama, romantic dialogue,
744
00:54:57,657 --> 00:55:03,430
shallow focus, rich color
and lighting that hides tears.
745
00:55:03,717 --> 00:55:05,110
Are you in love with anybody?
746
00:55:05,113 --> 00:55:06,617
No, no don't answer that!
747
00:55:06,643 --> 00:55:08,505
I could love a man like you,
Peter.
748
00:55:08,532 --> 00:55:11,128
I love you, June.
You're alive and I'm leaving you.
749
00:55:11,154 --> 00:55:12,472
Where do you live?
On the station?
750
00:55:12,498 --> 00:55:15,202
No, in a big country house
about five miles from here.
751
00:55:15,204 --> 00:55:16,140
Leigh wood house.
752
00:55:16,142 --> 00:55:17,951
Old house?
Yes, very old.
753
00:55:17,977 --> 00:55:19,722
Good. I'll be a ghost
and come and see you.
754
00:55:19,747 --> 00:55:20,985
You're not frightened
of ghosts are you?
755
00:55:21,011 --> 00:55:22,257
It would be awful if you were.
756
00:55:22,463 --> 00:55:27,009
They formed company together in 1942
and made films like this one
757
00:55:27,034 --> 00:55:31,487
which were almost mystical
in their Englishness, their romance,
758
00:55:31,513 --> 00:55:33,587
their opposition to documentary.
759
00:55:34,573 --> 00:55:36,555
The airman seems not to die,
760
00:55:36,580 --> 00:55:39,570
but, instead, to have
suffered brain damage.
761
00:55:40,124 --> 00:55:44,511
During losses in consciousness,
he imagines going to heaven
762
00:55:44,536 --> 00:55:48,526
to argue for more time on earth,
because he has fallen in love
763
00:55:48,551 --> 00:55:49,993
with the American woman.
764
00:55:50,969 --> 00:55:55,312
Heaven's in black and white,
an art director's fantasy.
765
00:55:56,622 --> 00:55:59,874
The title of the film,
A matter of life and death,
766
00:55:59,899 --> 00:56:02,106
tells us what it deals with.
767
00:56:02,131 --> 00:56:06,459
The biggest things in life,
especially when the world's at war.
768
00:56:06,849 --> 00:56:09,836
Powell and Pressburger showed
that moviemakers didn't have to choose
769
00:56:09,861 --> 00:56:15,609
between honesty about the trauma of war
and the high style of romantic cinema.
770
00:56:16,197 --> 00:56:20,888
No other filmmakers of their time
could so combine the two.
771
00:56:21,799 --> 00:56:24,294
And another English filmmaker
of the 40s told us
772
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:27,996
that war and trauma
bring out the best in us.
773
00:56:28,021 --> 00:56:30,684
Here he is, Humphrey Jennings.
774
00:56:30,709 --> 00:56:35,658
Posh, skinny, playing a post man
who's so devoted to his duty
775
00:56:35,684 --> 00:56:40,304
that even after he's tied up,
he still gets his letter delivered.
776
00:56:40,845 --> 00:56:45,184
Soon he was directing,
with a poetic style all of his own.
777
00:56:45,209 --> 00:56:48,608
The great British director
Terence Davies reveres Jennings.
778
00:56:48,633 --> 00:56:51,842
Yes, even if he had made
only Listen to Britain,
779
00:56:51,867 --> 00:56:55,847
it's one of the great poems...
that's a voice.
780
00:57:02,357 --> 00:57:06,074
The most moving sequence
is around the national gallery
781
00:57:06,103 --> 00:57:09,803
and when... the people are
just enjoying the song
782
00:57:09,829 --> 00:57:13,267
and it may be their last summer
where they are free
783
00:57:13,292 --> 00:57:17,506
and you see Marie Hersh
playing one of the Mozart piano concertos
784
00:57:17,531 --> 00:57:20,275
and you just think what
he is saying is that...
785
00:57:20,300 --> 00:57:23,243
something that is
quintessentially British.
786
00:57:23,268 --> 00:57:24,930
That no one else has got.
787
00:57:24,957 --> 00:57:29,313
We've got that
and we were prepared to fight for it.
788
00:57:30,723 --> 00:57:32,976
Jennings believed that
because British people
789
00:57:33,001 --> 00:57:36,905
shared the same landscapes,
history and culture,
790
00:57:36,931 --> 00:57:39,937
they've got a collective unconscious.
791
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:42,457
What he called the
‘legacy of feeling.’
792
00:57:42,482 --> 00:57:45,395
The thing that gets people
through trauma together.
793
00:57:46,073 --> 00:57:49,045
And in terms of film style,
Jennings felt that
794
00:57:49,070 --> 00:57:51,538
there is a force field between shots.
795
00:57:51,727 --> 00:57:55,231
Look at this moment, again from
Listen to Britain.
796
00:57:55,256 --> 00:57:57,833
A half dozen tin hats.
797
00:57:57,858 --> 00:58:00,740
Then cut to
five bare headed women.
798
00:58:00,765 --> 00:58:03,136
Their heads where the hats were.
799
00:58:03,161 --> 00:58:07,990
Then a statue of Charles I,
who was beheaded.
800
00:58:12,782 --> 00:58:18,440
Three images together giving us
an eerie feeling of vulnerability of heads.
801
00:58:18,749 --> 00:58:21,790
The cinematic sum,
greater than its parts.
802
00:58:21,815 --> 00:58:25,885
Eisenstein's 1+1=3 again.
803
00:58:28,362 --> 00:58:33,785
And in 1949, a final British film,
marvelously summed up
804
00:58:33,810 --> 00:58:39,024
the changes in western cinema,
the trauma, poetics, the expressionism
805
00:58:39,049 --> 00:58:41,806
and shadow play,
in these years.
806
00:58:42,610 --> 00:58:46,471
The third Man is set in
Vienna after World War II,
807
00:58:46,496 --> 00:58:49,631
a city split between
the victors.
808
00:58:50,660 --> 00:58:53,784
The film's writer, the catholic novelist
Graham Greene,
809
00:58:53,809 --> 00:58:58,008
planted, at the heart of his story,
a great moral crime.
810
00:58:58,593 --> 00:59:04,703
A man, Harry Lime, played by Orson Welles
is making money by selling penicillin
811
00:59:04,728 --> 00:59:06,546
that's supposed to treat children.
812
00:59:07,209 --> 00:59:11,639
Director Carol Reed liked
the seriousness of this idea.
813
00:59:11,664 --> 00:59:15,826
Its pessimism reminded him
of the 30s French poetic realist films
814
00:59:15,851 --> 00:59:17,189
he so admired.
815
00:59:18,111 --> 00:59:23,591
He and his cinematographer filmed
many shots off the horizontal axis,
816
00:59:23,617 --> 00:59:26,210
to show the moral imbalance.
817
00:59:36,014 --> 00:59:40,035
Director Reed had edited this Oscar
winning wartime documentary -
818
00:59:40,279 --> 00:59:42,189
Miles of wire netting
for the beaches.
819
00:59:42,191 --> 00:59:44,864
Seventy-two hundred tons
of petrol per day.
820
00:59:44,947 --> 00:59:47,272
With an underwater pipeline
to carry it to France.
821
00:59:47,298 --> 00:59:49,636
A white star
is the emblem of liberation -
822
00:59:49,662 --> 00:59:53,438
and, like the Italians
and some of American filmmakers,
823
00:59:53,463 --> 00:59:58,239
felt that cinema had to engage
more with reality.
824
00:59:59,778 --> 01:00:04,844
This sequence in The third Man,
in which Welles' Lime is first revealed,
825
01:00:04,869 --> 01:00:10,076
had the expressionist bravura
of Welles' own film, Citizen Kane.
826
01:00:45,126 --> 01:00:50,304
In this famous ending, Lime's descent,
disappointed friend, Holly Martins,
827
01:00:50,330 --> 01:00:55,927
stands to the left of the image,
waiting for Anna, Lime's old girlfriend,
828
01:00:55,953 --> 01:00:58,567
whom Holly has come to love.
829
01:00:58,592 --> 01:01:02,009
She walks towards him
from the extreme distance...
830
01:01:02,034 --> 01:01:04,120
the deep staging of Welles.
831
01:01:04,979 --> 01:01:08,749
Reed doesn't cut the shot,
or dissolve the walk
832
01:01:08,774 --> 01:01:11,891
as Scorsese would later do
in Taxi Driver.
833
01:01:25,458 --> 01:01:30,776
Reed lets Anna walk the
whole way, in real time,
834
01:01:30,802 --> 01:01:35,076
the de-dramatized time
of Italian Neo-realism.
835
01:01:35,101 --> 01:01:40,227
Writer Greene envisaged a happy ending,
where Anna would take Holly's arm.
836
01:01:40,556 --> 01:01:45,209
As Roman Polanski would do decades later
with the ending of Chinatown,
837
01:01:45,235 --> 01:01:47,985
Reed rejected such optimism.
838
01:01:48,010 --> 01:01:52,035
Anna turns away from Holly
and walks out of shot.
839
01:01:52,060 --> 01:01:55,760
She prefers the memory
of the rogue Harry Lime
840
01:01:55,794 --> 01:01:57,989
to the weak, decent man.
841
01:01:58,723 --> 01:02:03,247
One of the most daring endings
in mainstream film history.
842
01:02:04,201 --> 01:02:07,157
One of the greatest
films ever made,
843
01:02:07,183 --> 01:02:11,273
The third Man
is a compendium of 40s cinema.
844
01:02:13,081 --> 01:02:17,540
The new moral seriousness of the movies,
their realism and deep staging,
845
01:02:17,565 --> 01:02:24,607
would sweep across the world in the '50s,
to India, Africa, South America and Japan.
846
01:02:28,582 --> 01:02:33,879
New continents of filmmaking
would emerge, new stories and styles,
847
01:02:33,904 --> 01:02:36,393
framings and visions.
848
01:02:36,419 --> 01:02:41,419
For the first time in the story of film,
cinema would be global.
76038
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