Mark Cousin

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What Is Real? Artifice and Authenticity in “The Story of Film”

Posted by Gloria on December 6, 2012
Posted in: Documentary, Film, History, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 5 Comments
Dansk: Blikdåse med reklamefilm på Statsbiblio...

Dansk: Blikdåse med reklamefilm på Statsbiblioteket. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The last episodes of the 15-part of THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY (2011), filmmaker and narrator Mark Cousins continues to explore the constancy of change in cinema as it moves from celluloid to the digital era. Throughout the 1990s and onward, authenticity and artifice weave in and out of the picture as directors all over the world explore, question, and reference the realm of possibilities.

During this time, film becomes more “real” with expanded use of documentary style  demonstrated in Iranian films like LIFE, AND NOTHING MORE (1992) by Abbas Kiarostami and the handheld roughness of  BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. Paradoxically, directors are exploring the “unreal” with movies such as the jaw-dropping HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (2004) by Yimou Zhang, horror film RINGU (1998) by Hideo Nakata; and the “mash-up” music video style of MOULIN ROUGE (2001) by Baz Luhrmann.

Of course, as time moves on, computer-generated graphics create spectacle of the kind created in GLADIATOR (2000) and  AVATAR (2009) to the point that films start feeling like video games. (The utter disdain with which Cousins spits out the words “hobbits and avatars” is highly entertaining, by the way.)

On the other end of the spectrum are directors like Van Trier, Tarantino, and the Coen Brothers who erase boundaries and artifice to create films that strive to be more real — and less real — at the same time.

Like the adage goes, “Nothing is constant but change.” And film is no different.  Technology will continue to influence the realm of possibilities. More corporate marketing (and perhaps less of culture) will continue to influence what’s seen on the silver screen. And directors will continue to strive to deliver their individual visions.

One of the most compelling clips in this part of STORY is the side-by-side comparison the shower scene in Hitchcock’s PSYCHO and Van Sant’s 1998 version. Like an ongoing conversation with the past, film will continue to quote film.

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THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY (2011) is a 15-part, 15-hour documentary exploring the convergence of technology, business, intelligence, and vision that has created the remarkable and powerful art of cinema. Music Box Films is distributing this new documentary, and Chicago’s Music Box Theater has just completed a multi-week screening of this ambitious effort. The DVD has been released. You will want to add it to your collection.

 

Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow

Europe’s New Wave Ripples Around the World: The Story of Film

Posted by Gloria on November 24, 2012
Posted in: Documentary, Film, History, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

Ten hours into THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY  (2011), my head was reeling with “begats,” such as this-scene-was-influenced-by-this-scene-which-was-influenced-by-this-scene etc., etc. In sum, like all art — and life itself — filmmaking is influenced by what has come before, the impact of cultural and political changes, and what technology allows. As this history of film gathers steam across time, the cross-pollination of influences and innovation gets more and more diverse and less linear.In the segments of THE STORY OF FILM that explore movies of the 1960s and 1970s, filmmaker and historian Mark Cousins examines the influential directors of Europe’s New Wave, the emergence of a new, “dazzling” world cinema, and the evolution of American film post-Hollywood’s Golden Age. As this new wave of world cinema grows and matures, filmmaking around the world doesn’t just reflect culture, it attempts to change it.

Here are only just a very few of the notable films cited by Cousins from the world cinema directors of the 1960s and 1970s to add to your Watch List:

-Roman Polanski’s TWO MEN AND A WARDROBE (1958) and THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967)
-Andrei Tarkovsky’s ANDRE RUBLEV (1966)
-Milos Forman’s THE FIREMAN’S BALL (1967)
-Nagisa Oshima’s BOY (1969)
-Vera Chytilova’s DAISIES (1966)
-Ousmane Sembene’s BLACK GIRL (1969)
-Ritwik Ghatak’s THE CLOUD-CAPPED STAR (1960)
-Werner Fassbinder’s THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VAN KANT (1972)
-Donald Cammell & Nicholas Roeg’s PERFORMANCE (1970)
-Bernardo Bertolucci’s THE CONFORMIST (1970)

One of the most spellbinding moments in THE STORY OF FILM is watching the beautiful and imaginative continuous shot from the funeral scene in I AM CUBA (1964) by Mikhail Kalatozov. What an achievement — without computer-generated graphics. You can watch this one again and again.

Following the growth in world cinema, Cousins opines that American film of the ’70s was next up for a sea change, emphasizing the cynical and dissident films, such as Mike Nichols’ THE GRADUATE (1967) and CATCH 22  (1970);  the “assimilationist” film, like Peter Bogdanovich’s THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971), which simultaneously pays homage to film’s past and its future; and identity films, such as Martin Scorsese’e ITALIANAMERICAN (1974).

The next era covered in THE STORY OF FILM “ushers in the age of the multiplex,” with blockbusters like JAWS, STAR WARS, and THE EXORCIST from the States, and Bollywood and Bruce Lee from Asia.  Stay tuned….just a few more hours to go!

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THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY (2011) is a 15-part, 15-hour documentary exploring the convergence of technology, business, intelligence, and vision that has created the remarkable and powerful art of cinema. Music Box Films is distributing this new documentary, and Chicago’s Music Box Theater has just  completed a multi-week screening of this ambitious effort. The DVD will be released in November 2012. You will want to add it to your collection.

 

Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow

The Story of Film: The Profoundly Personal Films Arrive

Posted by Gloria on November 21, 2012
Posted in: Documentary, Film, History, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

After the plethora of sweeping, epic melodramas in post-WWII films, the next era of innovation in moviemaking took the opposite road: exploring the “profoundly personal” experience.In Part IV of  the 15-hour documentary, THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY (2011), filmmaker and historian Mark Cousins delves into the work of cinema’s great New Wave innovators of the 1950s and 1960s.

During the beginning of this new wave in film history, Cousins cites four great directors as the movers and shakers who took film to this new, personal level: Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Jacques Tati, and Frederico Fellini. These innovators championed the role of film itself becoming an integral part of the narrative.

Citing Bergman’s SUMMER WITH MONIKA (1953), for example, there is a groundbreaking scene where Monika looks at us directly, straight into the camera, changing the audience’s relationship to the story being exposed on the screen. In Robert Bresson’s masterpiece, THE PICKPOCKET (1959), Cousins notes that the film demonstrates the “total rejection of gloss,” stripping down the story to emphasize the flatness of the everyday. Thirdly, he recognizes the briliance of visionary director Tati with MONSIEUR HULOT’S HOLIDAY (1953), a film which basically affirms that “the story doesn’t exist,” Tati preferring incidence and details to a plot line. And last but not least, Cousins highlights the work of Frederico Fellini, whose major construct was portraying life as a circus world, with films such as  NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (1957), using improvisation as opposed to linear storytelling.

As the story of film evolves, these four influential filmmakers gave way to the French New Wave directors of the early sixties. Cousins calls these innovators “the film school generation,” who embraced filmmaking as an intellectual endeavor, creating even more “narrative ambiguity” in movies and focusing on the meaning of life and existentialism.

For starting an exploration of this period, go with classics such as CLEO FROM 9 -5 (1962) by Agnes Varda; LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD (1961) by Alain Resnais; Francois Truffaut’s 400 BLOWS (1959); Jean Luc Goddard’s A MARRIED WOMAN (1964); Marco Ferreri’s THE WHEELCHAIR (1960); Sergio Leone’s FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964); and I AM CURIOUS YELLOW (1967) by Filgot Sjoman.

And then like every other era, the French New Wave lost its steam and made way for a new world cinema that “dazzled” the industry. Stay tuned….

THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY (2011) is a 15-part, 15-hour documentary exploring the convergence of technology, business, intelligence, and vision that has created the remarkable and powerful art of cinema. Music Box Films is distributing this new documentary, and Chicago’s Music Box Theater is conducting a multi-week screening of this ambitious effort. The DVD will be released in November 2012. You will want to add it to your collection.

P.S. — Part of the experience of watching this series is sinking down into your seat and giving into the filmmaker’s hypnotic narration. Have a listen….

Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow

After the War: Rubble, Sex, and Weeping

Posted by Gloria on November 15, 2012
Posted in: Documentary, Film, History, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Like life, film never stops changing.

With STAGECOACH (1939), John Ford introduced a new cinematic vision using deep staging and deep focus “that allowed the audience to choose where to look” on the screen.

This innovation, according to Mark Cousins, creator of THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY, changed film forever, influencing Orson Welles to take “deep staging as far as it could go” in creating his masterpiece, CITIZEN KANE (1941). Film had never looked like this before.

In the opening of Part 3 of THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY, we see a quick newsreel clip of Hitler and Mussolini sharing a lighter moment. The voiceover provided by Cousins recognizes that these two men wreaked havoc on the world, and then just like that, we’re off to “Post-War Cinema.” Maybe film of the war years is a separate story for another time.

Nonetheless, the saga of THE STORY OF FILM is a compelling commentary on the constant evolution of film, a reflection of the ever-changing human experience. There has been war. Barriers are going up. Some barriers are coming down.

After the war, the Italian cinema made an indelible mark on filmmaking, with its “rubble” films, presenting the stark, bleak reality of post-war destruction, changing the nature of beauty in cinema, from soft focus romance to dark and dreary reality. The Italian neo-realists, per Cousins, created “cinema that features the boring bits of life,” as opposed to Hitchcock who said that “cinema is life but without the boring bits.”

The convergence of new directorial styles and gloomy world views gave us a Hollywood that began emphasizing film noir, with films like SCARLET STREET (1945) by Fritz Lang; GUN CRAZY (1950) by Joseph Lewis; THE HITCH-HIKER (1953) by Ida Lupino, Hollywood’s only female film noir director; and the pitch-perfect noir classic, THE THIRD MAN (1949) by Carol Reed.

As much as noir became the Hollywood norm during this post-war period, the American film industry still created vibrant stunners such as SINGING IN THE RAIN (1952)  and AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951), ensuring audiences that joy could still be found in this neo-realist world.

And while the brooding vision of the post-war years went on, borders were redrawn and decolonialization was happening. As a result, the faces of world cinema came to the forefront in Egypt, India, China, Mexico, Britain, and Japan. In the 1950s, the human story went global, and in the film world, the emphasis moved to grand melodramas about the perils of life, love, lust, and survival.

David Lean delivered big drama with GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946). And American movies certainly had their own glossy tortured tales like Nicholas Ray’s REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)  and JOHNNY GUITAR (1954).  The world saw other groundbreaking weepers, such as PATHER PANCHALI (1955) by Satyajit Ray and DONA BARBARA (1943) by Fernando Fuentes and Miguel Delgado.

As with each segment of  THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY, my list of must-see films expands. I’m starting with CAIRO STATION (1958), with Youssel Chahine, which Cousins taga as “the first great African/Middle Eastern film,” and a revisit to the ultimate sexy melodrama of the 1950s, ...AND GOD CREATED WOMAN (1956) by Roger Vadim and starring Brigitte Bardot.

THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY (2011) is a 15-part, 15-hour documentary exploring the convergence of technology, business, intelligence, and vision that has created the remarkable and powerful art of cinema. Music Box Films is distributing this new documentary, and Chicago’s Music Box Theater is conducting a multi-week screening of this ambitious effort. The DVD will be released in November 2012. You will want to add it to your collection.

Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow

So Many Stories in “The Story of Film”

Posted by Gloria on October 6, 2012
Posted in: Documentary, Film, History, Movies. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 11 Comments

Today I learned that the first real movie star, Florence Lawrence, committed suicide with ant poison, that the first close up in cinema featured a sick kitty, and there was some hot erotic dancing going on in the silent movies.

Of course, the history of cinema is comprised of much more than the stuff of cocktail conversations. It’s a vast collection of stories that have impacted each and every one of our lives.

THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY (2011) is a 15-part, 15-hour documentary exploring the convergence of technology, business, intelligence, and vision that has created the remarkable and powerful art of cinema.

THE STORY OF FILM is quietly narrated by its creator, film critic and historian Mark Cousins. Part I of STORY includes “The Birth of the Cinema (1900 – 1920)” and “The Hollywood Dream (1920s),” which provides a sequence of mini tales featuring the inventors, the stars, the breakthroughs, and the innovations that started it all, from the Lumieres to Lloyd. The segments on the evolution of film editing are particularly strong.

Like a professor, Cousins will periodically veer into non-essential territory  (like fretting over the glamour and the glossy veneer of Hollywood), which doesn’t particularly add to the narrative, but no matter. He has compiled an anthology of information and resources that will be turned to again and again.

Of course, because of the sheer breadth of material, Cousins must alight on some topics for only moments of time, leaving us wanting more. After seeing the shocking clip of Asta Nielsen’s erotic dance from the 1910 silent film THE ABYSS, for example, I am hoping that someone has created a documentary on THE HISTORY OF EROTIC DANCE IN SILENT FILMS.  

(You can view the entire film at http://archive.org/details/Afgrunden_1910. The dance begins at 20:11 and there’s much more to it than in the clip above.)

Music Box Films is distributing the documentary, and Chicago’s Music Box Theater has just begun its multi-week screening of this ambitious effort. The DVD will be released in November 2012.

Next up is Part 2, “Expressionism, Impressionism and Surrealism: Golden Age of World Cinema (1920’s).”  

Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow