European Art Cinema
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i EUROPEAN ART CINEMA European art cinema includes some of the most famous films in cinema history. It is elite filmmaking that stands in direct opposition to popular cinema, and yet, it also has an intimate relationship with Hollywood. This guidebook sketches successive phases of art cinema in Europe from its early beginnings of putting Shakespeare’s plays on the screen, through movements such as Expressionism and Surrealism, to the New Waves of the 1960s and more recent incarnations like Dogme 95. Using film examples, John White examines basic critical approaches to art cinema such as semiotics and auteur theory, as well as addressing recurring themes and ideas such as existentialism and Christian belief. The different levels of political commitment and social criticism which appear in many of these films are also discussed. The book includes case studies of eight representative films: • The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Wiene, 1920) • Earth (Dovzhenko, 1930) • A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1956) • Hiroshima mon amour (Resnais, 1959) • Aguirre, Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972) • Comrades (Douglas, 1986) • Le Quattro Volte (Frammartino, 2010) • Silence (Collins, 2012). John White is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at Anglia Ruskin University, UK. He is co-editor of The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films (2015) and author of Westerns (2011). ii iii Routledge Film Guidebooks The Routledge Film Guidebooks offer a clear introduction to and overview of the work of key filmmakers, movements or genres. Each guidebook contains an introduction, including a brief history; defining characteristics and major films; a chronology; key debates surrounding the filmmaker, movement or genre; and pivotal scenes, focusing on narrative structure, camera work and production quality. James Cameron Westerns Alexandra Keller John White Jane Campion Fantasy Deb Verhoeven Jacqueline Furby and Claire Hines Horror Crime Brigid Cherry Sarah Casey Benyahia Science Fiction Film Noir Mark Bould Justus Nieland and Jennifer Fay Bollywood: a Guidebook to Popular Documentary Hindi Cinema, 2nd Edition Dave Saunders Tejaswini Ganti Romantic Comedy European Art Cinema Claire Mortimer John White iii EUROPEAN ART CINEMA JOHN WHITE iv v First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 John White The right of John White to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Names: White, John, 1956– author. Title: European art cinema / John White. Description: London; New York : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge film guidebooks | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016019409| ISBN 9781138829176 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138829183 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315737898 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Motion pictures–Europe–History. Classification: LCC PN1993.5.E8 W48 2017 | DDC 791.43094–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019409 ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 82917- 6 (hbk) ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 82918- 3 (pbk) ISBN: 978- 1- 315- 73789- 8 (ebk) Typeset in Joanna by Out of House Publishing v CONTENTS List of figures vii 1 Introduction 1 2 Outlining the theoretical landscape 6 3 A brief historical overview of European art cinema 16 4 Key critical approaches to European art cinema 80 5 Key thematic approaches to European art cinema 110 6 Political aspects of European art cinema 130 7 European art cinema and experimental film 154 8 European art cinema and Hollywood 163 vi vii vi CONTENTS 9 Case studies 170 10 Conclusions 220 Notes 224 Bibliography 251 Suggestions for further reading 272 Index 274 vii LIST OF FIGURES 3.1 Expressionist sets (Der Student von Prag/The Student of Prague, 1913). 21 3.2 Use of abstract images (Stachka/ Strike, 1925). 25 3.3 Maria enters the elite pleasure gardens (Metropolis, 1926). 30 3.4 Poeticizing the ordinary (Fievre/ Fever, 1921). 35 3.5 A gun dominates the city skyline (Entr’Acte, 1924). 41 3.6 Surreal, dream-like anarchy (Zéro de conduit/ Zero for Conduct, 1933). 43 3.7 The maturation of Renoir’s auteur signature (La Bête Humaine/ The Human Beast, 1938). 48 3.8 The camera tilts up from Edmund’s body (Germania anno zero/ Germany Year Zero, 1948). 54 3.9 The final freeze- frame of Antoine staring into the camera (Les Quatre Cents Coups/ The 400 Blows, 1959). 59 3.10 The singing of Jerusalem/ ‘And did those feet in ancient time’ (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, 1962). 65 viii ix viii LIST OF FIGURES 3.11 Isolation (Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter/ The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty, 1972). 71 3.12 Different, unsettling uses of screen space (Trouble Every Day, 2001). 78 4.1 The symbol of the only official political organization in Spain under Franco (El espíritu de la colmena/ The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973). 84 4.2 The divide between Bruno and Robert (Im Lauf der Zeit/ Kings of the Road, 1976). 93 4.3 The impossibility of shutting out the world (Persona, 1966). 100 4.4 Tomas between Christ and the world (Winter Light, 1962). 101 5.1 Inger asking Mikkel if he has faith (Ordet, 1955). 113 5.2 Joan boxed and constrained within a close-up (La passion de Jeanne d’Arc/ The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1928). 115 5.3 Existentialist discussion (À bout de soufflé/ Breathless, 1959). 119 5.4 The intensity of life/love in the face of Fate (Mirror, 1975). 122 5.5 Count Orlok with a miniature of Ellen (Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens/Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror, 1922). 126 5.6 The anguish of women (M, 1930). 128 6.1 Patriotism and nationalism rather than internationalism? (La Grande Illusion, 1937). 133 6.2 A photographic negative of contemporary German chancellor, Helmut Schmidt (Die Ehe der Maria Braun/The Marriage of Maria Braun, 1979). 136 6.3 Debating political ideas (Land and Freedom, 1995). 141 ix newgenprepdf 6.4 Social comment within a single shot (Ladri di biciclette/Bicycle Thieves, 1948). 142 6.5 The shadow of the threatening father falls across the home (Mat/ Mother, 1926). 147 6.6 Eduard Tisse’s painterly compositions (Bronenosets Potyomkin/ Battleship Potemkin, 1925). 149 6.7 Who is the woman who enters to remove the coffee cups? (Tout va bien, 1972). 153 7.1 Movement and architectural space dividing up screen space (Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt/Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis, 1927). 156 7.2 Féral Benga as ‘exotic spectacle’ (Le Sang d’un Poète/ The Blood of a Poet, 1930). 160 8.1 Distorted, angular set design (Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 1927). 167 9.1 The attempt at something other than photographic representation (Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari/ The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, 1920). 172 9.2 Admiration for the physical labour of generations (Zemlya/ Earth, 1930). 180 9.3 Fontaine boxed and trapped within the frame (Un condamné à mort s’est échappé/ A Man Escaped, 1956). 185 9.4 The poetry of Marguerite Duras’s language (Hiroshima mon amour, 1959). 190 9.5 Aguirre scrutinizing Pizarro (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes/ Aguirre, Wrath of God, 1972). 197 9.6 Direct address to the audience (Comrades, 1986). 206 9.7 A repeated cinematic pattern of descending darkness (Le Quattro Volte, 2010). 211 9.8 A small figure within a vast landscape (Silence, 2012). 217 LIST OF FIGURES ix x 1 This page intentionally left blank 1 1 INTRODUCTION There was a period around the 1970s when the term ‘European art cinema’ was generally understood to refer to the films of a pretty defi- nite group of Continental filmmaking auteurs working at the time. In his essay, ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Practice’, published at the end of that decade, David Bordwell argued that you could consider this body of work, what he called ‘the “art cinema” ’, as a distinct mode of film practice, possessing a definite historical existence, a set of formal conventions, and implicit viewing procedures. (1979, 56) The aim of this book is to consider the same term, ‘European art cinema’, but within a much wider historical context, to argue in fact that there has always been in some guise or other the very definite pres- ence within European cinema of filmmakers who have seen their work as offering, or whose work has been seen by others to offer, an enhanced artistic experience when set against mainstream cinema of the time. The exact relationship of these various ‘art cinemas’ to mainstream 2 3 2 INTRODUCTION cinema has been defined differently by different groups of filmmakers at different historical moments according to their agreed and, just as often argued over, aims. Much of what will be considered as ‘European art cinema’, in addi- tion to being part of a somewhat vague catch- all grouping, could per- fectly justifiably be seen as elitist and complicit in a rather Eurocentric perspective on cinema. Even so, it remains the case that awareness of the body of work seen to fall beneath the umbrella concept employed here is important to anyone who may wish to study film.