Thursday, January 28, 2010

Dogme 95 vs. Italian Neorealism

The rules to Dogme 95 are:

1. Filming must be done on location.Props and sets must not be brought in.If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa.Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic.
3. The camera must be a hand-held camera.Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted.The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.
4. The film must be in colour.Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now).
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.
10. The director must not be credited.

A contrast of Dogme 95 to Italian neorealism is that it is different in the way that Italian neorealism reality and show's how life is like while Dogme 95 does not give credit to the director and Italian neorealism does.

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando's acting could be seen as similar and different to today's acting. Brando uses alot of body action in his acting to express his acting which is method acting like the scene where he picks up the white glove and it comes natural to him to act on it and pick it up which was not in the script.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Italian Neo-Realism

The origin of Italian Neo-Realism goes a long way toward understanding Italian neo-realism. By the outbreak of World War II, the country had been under Benito Mussolini's hefty thumb since 1924. In the regime's 1930s heydays, swank productions set in big hotels, tony nightclubs and ocean liners made up the "white telephone" movies, the shorthand term for their decadent Deco interiors. The protagonists always found a resolution to their insipid dilemmas, the prevailing Italian style as unchallenging as blowing bubbles. There were also plenty of American imports, equally unreflective of Italian realities. Describing this time, Federico Fellini said, "For my generation, born in the 20s, movies were essentially American. American movies were more effective, more seductive. They really showed a paradise on earth, a paradise in a country they called America."
Whether they were being shown the glories of their Roman past, their fascist future or of l'America, a country unreal outside the movie-house, what Italians rarely saw were images that reflected their lives. As early as 1935, anti-Fascist journalist Leo Longanesi urged directors to "go into the streets, into the barracks, into the train stations; only in this way can an Italian cinema be born."
Some American influences were The Player from the Italian neo-realism film Bicycle Thieves.

International Cinema vs. Hollywood Cinema

Hollywood movies:Birth of a Nation, Modern Times, His Girl Friday, Double Indemnity, Casablanca, Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Citizen Kane, Angels with Dirty Faces, On the Waterfront and It's a Wonderful Life.

International movies:Arrival at a Train Station, Trip to the Moon, The Last Laugh, Battleship Potemkin, Cabinet of Dr. Calagari, Metropolis and Bicycle Thieves.

I really can't think of anything that both types of movies have in common but there are a few things that they do not have in common for instances I think that Hollywood cinema has always had line that they don't cross and keep everything to a minimal while the international cinema could push it a little more and do certain things and not look twice. I also believe that international movies first came out and Hollywood movies got alot of ideas from them as far as alot of things go. In Hollywood the movies usually and the same and the good guy always wins and I think that International could do the opposite and it would be ok and the heroes are different.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Method Acting

Method acting, or as it is sometimes simply known, the Method, is a technique used by actors. Method acting is thought to have revolutionized acting as we known it today. It is the antithesis of the wooden actor and uses techniques such as sense and memory to achieve realism in acting. Actors who use the Method rely on using their own emotions from their past in order to bring new depth to a part. Method acting is thought of as an American form of acting, but it was a Russian theatre director named Konstantin Stanislavski who wrote books on the subject in the 1930s. Around the same time, one of Stanislavski’s students, Richard Boleslawsky, opened an acting school in New York. Boleslawsky began teaching Stanislavski’s basic principles of acting.