Mobilier Fidèle (The Automatic Moving Company)

Mobilier Fidèle (The Automatic Moving Company)
Directed by Emile Cohl, France, 1910, 4 minutes.

This film is about furniture that moves on its own, and therefore, makes moving into a new home quick and easy because everything knows where it needs to go--pictures go on the wall, mattresses go onto the already assembled bed frames and a broom and dust pan clean up broken dishes. There is arguably no story, but the furniture is given life with its ability to move and arrange itself. We can associate the film with a stage production--the actors and dancers know their places, props and scenes. We view a stage performance when the piano is getting up the stairs when boxes are coming down the stairs, and the boxes immediately go back up the stairs to allow the piano a place to move. I relate this scene to dancers bustling down stairs to get off stage but need to move in order for another actor to enter the next scene.

Emile Cohl is known as one of the first animators. When this film was released, it was a big deal because it used the new concept of stop-motion animation--moving inanimate objects slightly during each frame in order to give them the appearance of moving. This film is remarkable because moving the furniture up and down in place must have been heavy and taken a while. Also, as a new technique, the stop-motion is seamless. There are no unusual jerks in the movement of the furniture--the furniture does not start on the left side of the frame and then cut to the right side of the frame. Furthermore, this film can be argued as a test, not a short film, because it is lacking the narrator we often expect from short films. This film argues that story is not necessary and that testing a technique, in its own right, also creates a short. Or, because I can associate the film to real life, does that mean there is a story? It just may always be different depending on the viewer.

TELL YOUR CHILDREN ( REEFER MADNESS,1938)

This short educational movie runs for 66 minutes. I really enjoyed the movie and found it funny. Although mostly none of the facts from the movie are based in legitimate the effects of the movie are far reaching. I am impressed with the movies cinematic qualities. One of the opening scenes of the movie depicts blocks of herion being burned in a fire as the narrator reminds the audience that marijuana is more dangerous than heroin...Wait what? This movie is more than the first stoner flick, it actually influenced America so much that to this day its still Reefer Madness in America. Under the controlled substances act Marijuana is schedule 1.

Schedule I is the only category of controlled substances that may not be prescribed by a physician. Drugs must meet three criteria in order to be placed in Schedule I:

• The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
• The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
• There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.-(wiki)
  
  
  Heroin, LSD , and ecstasy are in the same categorization as marijuana. Never mind the fact that in 2009 there were more Medical marijuana dispensaries in L.A than Starbucks and McDonalds combined. Reality Check: Marijuana is de facto legal in California and many other states for medical use.Back to the story though...
  
  This is what I got from the plot. Smoking weed will make you hit people with your car and leave them dead in the street. It can also make you hallucinate your girlfriend is cheating on you, when she is really being sexually assaulted , then when you try to serve justice and save your girlfriend ( unaware of this maybe, but the intentions are good), drug dealers will accidentally shoot your girlfriend then swiftly frame you for it.
  And then when your life is in danger and you kill in self defense you will be labeled as a murderous villan. So even though this story acknowledges that the innocent stoner is unjustly jailed , this still parallels for how marijuana is treated today. And dont forget you there is a high probability you will end up in an insane asylum for the " rest of your natural life" if you smoke weed. SO TELL YOUR CHILDREN : AMERICA IS STILL MAD ABOUT REEFER.
  
  
  
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITYCb08olzg&feature=related
• 
  
• Start watching at 4:20 to see the scene I "reefer" to.

RED HOT RIDING HOOD

Red Hot Riding Hood - The most popular videos are a click away

Red Hot Riding Hood
Tex Avery, USA, 1943, approx. 7 mins.

Red Hot Riding Hood is a cartoon that begins as a staid retelling of Little Red Riding Hood before becoming a completely insane version of the same story. The wolf is a lecherous would-be playboy, Red is a nightclub dancer, and Red's grandmother spends most of the short trying to jump the wolf's bones. The wolf successfully fights off Red's grandmother but never gets Red. At the end of the film he swears off dames and then, when Red shows up at the nightclub, he commits suicide by shooting himself in the head with two guns.

This short has aged as well as anything could hope to; the animation is still sharp and the jokes still hit. Episodes of Saturday Night Live feel sluggish and boring, but a cartoon from the early 1940s can make me laugh. This is because Tex Avery invented his own language and logic based on the foundations set by his cartoonist peers.

I've read arguments that cartoons follow dream logic, and that may be true for some cartoons, but this one doesn't subscribe to dream logic. In dreams, characters are faced with strange circumstances, but they generally accept those circumstances as their new reality (somebody tells you people only eat tires and you ask where the closest tire is). In Red Hot Riding Hood, the wolf is faced with strange circumstances, but he fights against them. He knows that he's living in a world where 40% of the doors lead to steep drop-offs, 40% lead to brick walls and 20% lead to new rooms, and he hates it. On top of this, the world mocks him. He opens a door and slams into a brick wall adorned with an "Imagine that NO DOOR!" sign. He falls from a skyscraper's penthouse and the building calls him a "sucker."

I love Looney Tunes shorts, but you generally walk in knowing exactly what you're going to get. It isn't surprising when Sylvester gets screwed over by Tweety. Even when Daffy is at his most unhinged, his world has rules. The rules of Red Hot Riding Hood change on the fly, with the only constant being how the wolf reacts to those changes. As a result, when you watch this short, you can't really predict what's coming, and that makes every second fun. In the end, this isn't even a riff on Little Red Riding Hood. It's just a very good time and an exercise in breaking and reforming the rules every thirty seconds.

The Great Train Robbery

THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY

Directed by Edwin S. Porter, USA, 1903, 10 minutes

Source: YouTube

“The Great Train Robbery” is probably one of the best known classical cinema shorts of the early nineteen hundreds. Directed by Edwin S. Porter this film depicts a daring train robbery by a group of bandits and the ordeal that follows. While this doesn’t sound like much of a story compared to most modern shorts, the ironic thing is that I chose this film because of its story. This film in my opinion is one of the best classical pieces of story telling out there.

“The Great Train Robbery” is able to tell a story in ten minutes that while simplistic follows my one major rule in film. This rule is that the film should to immerse the audience in a universe without them questioning it or trying to figure it out. For a film that was made in 1903, it does a spectacular job of creating a universe that is believable. Ironically the ability to immerse someone into another universe is one of my biggest complaints against many short films. While some do a great job at doing this, those who simply plop a audience someplace irritate me. Why should the audience have to think about what is going on, that’s the directors job!

Beyond that, for it’s time the movie is fairly typical when it comes to the over exaggerated acting and it’s piano soundtrack. The only really big complaint that I had is when one of the engineer’s attacks a bandit with a shovel and the bandit kills him, they jump cut from the same angle. While I know it’s so they can put the sack man in and try to disguise the switch, they really should have switched camera angles for a better effect. Finally, there were some scenes that really should have been cut out such as the engineer filling up the train with more water. It was unnecessary and removing it would speed things along a bit more. Overall, for its time “The Great Train Robbery” is a solid short film even if it was a feature film in 1903.

Le ballon rouge

Le ballon rougue (The Red Balloon)
dir. Albert Lamorisse
1956

While Le ballon rougue (The Red Balloon), was officially a foreign film, because it was made in France and all of the dialogue is in French, there was so little dialogue it may as well have been a silent film. Words were not necessary to advance the plot. Pascal, a young French child finds a red balloon. He immediately bonds with the inanimate object. Pascal gave the balloon to someone to hold while he was at school, and retrieved it at the end of the day. At home, his mother released the balloon, but it hovered by a window, which allowed Pascal the opportunity to go onto the porch to retrieve it.

The viewer realized it is no ordinary balloon when it obeyed his command to come down from the porch, when Pascal was near the door to his building. The balloon, which clearly had a mind of its own, followed him to school, but did not let him hold onto the string, until the balloon relented. At school, all of the boys tried to grab the balloon, but it escaped capture.

The balloon demonstrated its loyalty to Pascal when it tormented the school official who locked him in a room as punishment. When the man let Pascal out of the room and exclaimed, “Get out of here you little pest,” the viewer was not sure whether he was referring to Pascal or the balloon. Later, a group of boys ambushed Pascal, who escaped unharmed with his balloon. However, when he left the balloon alone for a moment to buy a pastry, the other boys stole the balloon. Pascal rescued the balloon, and a chase ensued, ending with the capture of Pascal and the balloon. The boys destroyed the balloon by stepping on it. However, as if by magic, balloons from all over the city flew out of people’s hands, out of windows, and out of stores. The balloons flew to Pascal, who grabbed all of the strings and in the final shot of the movie flew over the city.

While the story was incredibly simple, it was one that many people can relate to. It is clear that Pascal is an outsider, and that the balloon was his only friend. As someone with few close friends growing up, I spent many hours playing with my stuffed animals, pretending they were real, and having adventures with them.

The viewer completely believed that the balloon has feelings, desires, and loyalty. When the balloon was following Pascal down the street, it ducked into a doorway, and proceeded to play a quick game of hide and seek with him before school. Towards the end of the film, when one of the boys had a slingshot aimed at the balloon, the balloon went down, as if begging for mercy. This sense of impending doom was heightened by the gray wall behind the balloon, which gave it the ambiance of a prisoner about to be executed by a firing squad.

One of my favorite moments in the film contained a hint of romance. Pascal and his balloon walked by a girl holding a blue balloon. The red balloon began to follow the blue balloon. I was worried, due to my knowledge of the conventions of film noir, and buddy movies in general. Women present a threat to strong male relationships. In film noir, the protagonist’s downfall is often the result of his involvement with the femme fatale. Pascal grabbed his balloon, only to be followed by the blue balloon. The blue balloon was grabbed her owner, and the character was never seen again. It was not until the end of the film, I realized how important the love scene was. The interaction between the red balloon and the blue balloon demonstrated that the red balloon was not the only one with feelings, thus setting up the mass balloon migration at the end of the film.

Antoine et Colette

ANTOINE ET COLETTE
Dir: François Truffaut
30 minutes, 1962

Source: The Adventures of Antoine Doinel (Criterion Box Set)
Original Source: L'amour a vingt ans

This sequel to Truffaut's classic 400 Blows originally appeared in an anthology of shorts titled Love at Twenty, which also included works by Shintao Ishihara, Marcel Ophuls, Renzo Rossellini, and Andrzej Wajda.

In this 30 minute examination of young, awkward, unrequited love, we catch up with Antoine Doinel 3 years after The 400 Blows. He is now 17 and completely separated from his parents. He lives alone in an apt in Paris and works at a record production factory. Nothing glamorous, Antoine lives a simple yet oddly romantic life. He's still only 17 though, and playing adult isn't as easy as he might want it to be.

The opening suckers me in, regardless of my affection for Tuffaut's work. If I could be anywhere it'd likely be Paris and if I could be anywhen, I'd probably pick Paris in the 60s. It's the morning and Antoine rolls out of bed and in true French New Wave fashion fishes a half smoked cigarette out of an ashtray and stands on his balcony overlooking a busy Parisian street. Bring on the romantic troubles of our 1960s anti-hero.

He falls for a girl he sees at a concert and immediately begins trying to run into her constantly. They become friends. Her parents like Antoine. She treats him like a friend. Antoine grows a little impulsive brought on by her 'mixed signals' and even takes up residence in the hotel across the street from her family's residence. While at first this seems a little much, it occurs to me that with enough freedom, my 17 yr old crushes could have taken me to such levels. Awkward homeroom exchanges and half assed phone calls made under the auspices of missing homework assignments come from the same place that Antoine's decisions come from.
I'll leave you with these essential pieces of the plot and not ruin the end. Though I'm sure you can infer whether or not boy gets girl.

From a filmmaking point of view, Truffaut constructed this film in his usual Nouvelle Vague fashion... fast and loose and vibrant and full of affection for the characters and the medium.
The editing is logical, but sometimes rough around the edges, the sound goes away and allows the soundtrack to let us get the 'feel' of a conversation. We really don't need to hear what is being said, we get the point without words. A song at a concert informs the editing of Antoine and Colette stealing glances at each other. A newsreel of a downhill skiier taking a header while racing is juxtaposed against Antoine's sexual advances.

My favorite filmmaking choice is during scenes with the couple in concerts - the frame shrinks to isolate them. Almost like irising in, but not quite. The frame itself reduces and encompasses Antoine and Colette. There is no practical reason for this, as closer shots are in the same sequence. Seems to this viewer that it's to make us aware of the large negative space around them. They are alone in a crowd, they are the most important people in their little world, in our little world, in the 30 minutes of excitement, frustration and disappointment we live through with Antoine.

Sometimes I miss being a teenager. Thanks to Antoine, this week I don't.

Though this was originally intended to be my Classic post, i'd argue that Jean Pierre Leaud is a star, portraying Antoine in 4 features and this short (talk about sequels and franchises), not to mention appearing in about 30 films with directors such as Godard, Bertolucci, Breillat, and Assayas.

James Dean/Paul Newman Screen Test

Screen Test with James Dean and Paul Newman for "East of Eden"



When I woke up on Saturday, my roommate informed me that Paul Newman had died. The news rattled me quite a bit. My room is decorated with pictures of Steve McQueen, James Dean, and Paul Newman. While James Dean is my favorite actor, Paul Newman comes in a close second. I first saw Cool Hand Luke when I was in eighth grade, and was mesmerized by those blue eyes and that attitude, like millions of women before me. I saw many of his other films over the years.

In this rare screen test from East of Eden James Dean had already been cast as Cal Trask, but Warner Brothers was still searching for someone to play Aaron (Cal’s brother) opposite Dean. Dean and Newman are asked to look at the camera, as well in other directions, in order for the casting director to obtain a better sense of how they look together. The most notable moment in the screen test is when Dean asks Newman to kiss him. Newman’s response can be interpreted in two ways. One is “can’t here,” as in Newman would be willing to kiss Dean, but not in front of studio executives, or “can’t hear,” as in Newman could not understand what Dean was asking.

Dean and Newman had known each other at the Actor’s Studio in New York, and when both of them were at Warner Brothers, they resumed their friendship. The situation became a bit complicated when Dean, who was bisexual, indicated that he wanted his relationship with Newman to be more than a friendship, at which point Newman, who was heterosexual and hated the idea that anyone would think he was homosexual, put on the brakes. I do not know at one point during the relationship the screen test was conducted.

To me, the screen test represents a classic James Dean moment. He was always pushing people, and trying to get a reaction. Dean delighted in shocking people, and in 1954 there was few things more shocking then the idea of a homosexual couple. Even the slightest hint of a same-sex relationship in scripts made studios nervous, and openly gay actors did not exist.

The screen test represents two young actors, at their physical prime. It is a feast for the eyes, and provides a host of what-ifs. What if Dean and Newman had co-stared in East of Eden? What if Dean had survived the car crash and Newman had not received his big break replacing Dean in Somebody Up There Likes Me? However when all of the speculation about what might have been is done, what we are left with is the history. One young man was a shooting star, seen only briefly but talked about for decades after. The other was a steady presence, a star that was always visible in the night sky, and then suddenly disappeared. Newman left behind a body of work that will be remembered for decades, and a legacy of charity work that will provide an inspiration for many.

RIP: Paul Leonard Newman 1925-2008

Day of the Fight

Day of the Fight
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Released: April 26, 1951
Running Time: 16 minutes.
RKO-Pathe Pictures.


I love Stanley Kubrick. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Full Metal Jacket to Dr. Strangelove, I admire his work as a future filmmaker and screenwriter. (Yes, I even stomached Eyes Wide Shut, which I do not like whatsoever.) His emphasis on the theme of the duality of man and his strong, dark comedic dialogue strikes a chord in me and draws me to his style, his way of working the camera in his favor.

So it's because of my undying admiration and love for Kubrick that I chose a short film of his to analyze. With this week's theme of "star-driven" short films, either in front of or behind the camera, I figured Kubrick would be an entertaining, intriguing choice. But this film is not Kubrick-styled. For those who are fans of Kubrick or die-hard followers of him, this short will frankly be a disappointment, if you tried to be like me and find his trademark shots, dialogue, wit and style.

Day of the Fight was a short documentary Kubrick made in 1951. It tells the story about a boxer's life getting ready for his fight in the evening. Kubrick follows this man named Walter Cartier throughout the day as he prepares for the bout. He goes to Mass with him, his meals, and his grooming.

Kubrick had done a photo feature of Walter earlier for Look Magazine in 1949, and he asked the boxer if he could document his life. Financing it himself, Kubrick learned how to operate the camera by the man who was loaning the cameras to him. He eventually sold the film to RKO Pictures, and it was released in theaters in the "This is America" series (you can see the RKO slide right in the beginning of the short). CBS Anchor Douglas Edwards provides the news-like narration used throughout the movie.

What's interesting about this short film is that it's not particularly "star-driven." This was made when Kubrick was not a household name. Before the major malfunctions and war rooms, before the drill sergeants and the space odysseys, Kubrick was a man trying to make his first film ever. It's a movie documenting a man's life. The only reason this short is "star-driven" is because of the work Kubrick did after this film. It's because of his name now that people go back to see how he was then, when he was first starting out. It's why I chose this film in the first place. (Consequently, his film Killer's Kiss, which came out four years later, references this film.)

But what is interesting is watching this film and seeing the potential Kubrick had when he was first starting out. The familiar theme of the duality of man is seen here in this short, quite obviously too. The five minute introduction to the history of boxing, how some men make a good living and some men don't ("one out of ten men" as the narrator grimly puts it) provides a dark, grim outlook onto the boxing world -- that those who are good enough succeed. This segues into our introduction of Walter. Through Kubrick's lens we watch Walter's actions through the day -- going to Mass, playing with his dog, hanging out with his twin brother. He shows Walter as a decent, loving human being that has compassion. But in a dramatic turn, through the usage of the narrator, Kubrick demonstrates this duality of man, how Walter, the compassionate person, will turn into a killing machine, "slowly becoming another man." A man "who cannot lose, who must not lose."

Transformation of man and the duality of man, how he can be so loving and so destructive, trickles down through Kubrick's films for the rest of his career. In addition we can see through the shots of the bout itself Kubrick's beginnings as a director. There are dramatic shots done at a low straight-on angle of the boxers coming together, medium shots of the men punching each other straight in the face. These are shots that Kubrick will favor later on down the line when he creates war-films like Full Metal Jacket.

Day of the Fight still isn't the classic Kubrick film that fans like myself would go crazy over. But it is still fascinating to watch this short and see where Kubrick was when he was just starting out, and how his style transformed from that to what we see in Path of Glory, or Dr. Strangelove, or Full Metal Jacket.

BULLY FOR BUGS

BULLY FOR BUGS
Directed by Chuck Jones, United States, 1952, running time 7:12
Warner Brothers


This short happens to be one of my favorites. Looney Tunes strikes again with this Bugs Bunny classic. In this installment Bugs is trying to get to a big carrot festival but got lost and accidentally surfaces in a bull fight ring. As the matador exits the ring, the bull charges Bugs from behind and launches him out of the stadium. We get the now famous, “Of course you realize, this means war.” Bugs reenters the ring and uses several tactics in attempt to beat the bull. Some go well, some bad, but in the end Bugs out smarts the bull with an elaborate setup that uses axel grease, glue, sandpaper a match and TNT to ultimately blow the bull up.

This is a prime example of why Looney Tunes has stood the test of time. It is remarkably written, really funny, and universally appealing. This came out in 1952 and still feels remarkably current. Any number of Warner Brothers’ cartoons could have been posted but this one stood out from the rest of my cartoon watching as a kid. These tunes were edgy, innovative, and way ahead of their time. There isn’t much more to say except ENJOY!!

What to Do on a Date

What to Do on a Date - 1950

The National Council on Family Relations

“What to Do on a Date” is a 1950s educational short film. It chronicles a boy who is trying to figure out how to plan an appropriate date for the girl he likes, Kay. The script is a mix of voiceover and action/dialogue, teaching the basics of asking a girl out and how to perform on a date.

What is most interesting about this short is the fact that it is educational. Educational shorts were frequently used in schools, especially to discuss topics deemed important but not easily broached by the teacher (I definitely had my fair share of short film viewing experiences in elementary school about “inappropriate touching” and “female development.”

If you take away the narration, this short can be analyzed like any other narrative. Boy asks girl out but is unsure if she will like where he is taking her. Boy and girl both have fun at scavenger sale. Girl agrees to go out with boy again; simple short narrative structure.

There are interesting sex roles that come out of the short that speak a lot to the times. In the first sequence, Kay is carrying groceries into the house. Then when she is at the rummage sale she makes the lunch. When her date asks her "You make the sandwiches?" she replies, "Gladly!" Personally, I've never heard someone so excited about making sandwiches before. As for the men, they are seen first playing catch and then doing manly tasks at the scavenger sale, such as installing fixtures and doing heavy lifting.

The reason that these are important is because this short is meant as in instruction manual for young people. It was made by The National Council on Family Relations, in conjunction with RCA. This illustrates an interesting change from the conservatism of the studios in the 50s, compared with studios’ need today to push society’s limits.

It is interesting that the educational aim of this is expressed in narrative, short film form. One of the reasons why I chose to analyze this piece was because it challenges our notions of what defines a short film. You could argue that because it is somewhat instructional that it falls outside the category of a film and into some amorphous sector of video without narrative structure. However, because the film uses the idea of the classic narrative to illustrate the “proper” way to date, it then comes back to fitting exactly into the traditional short film category. Again this argument is circular and exactly why I chose this short.


Christine Barndt

What's Up Doc?

What's Up Doc?

Directed by Robert McKimson, United States, 1950, 7 Minutes.

What's Up Doc is Bugs Bunny's life story. The short opens up with Bugs by a pool, receiving a call from the Disassociated Press. They want his story, which he recounts for them. He knew he was different from the start, being a rabbit naturally. He turns out to be a precocious piano player and dancer, which lands him a job in the chorus on Broadway. After the star goes sick, Bugs tries to fill in and ends up getting booted off the stage. He quits but ends up being seen by Elmer Fudd who brings him into his act as a sidekick. They move up from Peoria to Buffalo to New York and Bugs decides to reverse the act. Elmer is not happy and brings out his familiar shotgun and Bugs utters his familiar lines, "What's up doc?" This gets a laugh and they move up to doing movies. The short then cuts to Bugs talking on the phone who has to get to filming for his new movie, where he is part of the chorus again.

This isn't my favorite Looney Tunes short but this is definitely a good one. It also shows the level of consistent quality output from the Warner Brothers cartoon division, despite it being from a lesser known director. The music, as usual, is great and has a really catchy song. The jokes aren't as good as some of the other cartoons, but it is still pretty funny. I also liked how this movie focusses less on one big joke at the end in favor of more of a plot. There are some allusions that would slip by most people of any age, like Bugs rejecting a script for a play on Broadway that ran from 1939-47. Besides that, I thought it was a unique and fun short.

NIGHT MAIL

NIGHT MAIL
Directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, England, 1936, 25 mins.

Night Mail is an unusual piece of filmmaking. Made in 1936, it’s a documentary following the life and times of a mail train that runs between England and Scotland. In many ways, it seems entirely unremarkable: the film is interspersed with scenes of the train on its route while the employees of both railway stations perform their daily tasks. In fact, I was bored out of my mind until the last 5 minutes of the film, when its relevance finally becomes clear. As it turns out, poet W.H. Auden wrote a poem specifically for the documentary, and renowned composer Benjamin Britten composed the score. Neither of these elements comes into play until the end of the film, but talk about a crescendo. As the train picks up speed, so does the narrator’s recitation of Auden’s poem, as does Britten’s music. In fact, I found Auden’s poem, or at least the way it was delivered, to be a bit creepy; in a weird, sing-song voice, we hear lines like “In the farm she passes/ no one wakes/ but a jug in the bedroom/ gently shakes."

The film is a rare glimpse into the daily lives of the 1930s working class. Today, nearly all of the screen representations of people from this era are from the glitzy films of Hollywood’s golden age, few of which portrayed everyday people. In one particularly poignant scene, we see the workers at a London station chatting with the barmaids at a local pub after a long day of work.

After watching Night Mail, I wondered whether or not a similar documentary could be made today. Though there is certainly a market for “slice of life” shorts and features, a freight train is a difficult subject to examine; I doubt many filmmakers would be willing to study the daily trials and tribulations of a Red Line train. Then again, modern technology is absent of the human element that makes a film like Night Mail so compelling. But stylistically, it represents one of the earliest efforts to blend artistic content with the documentary format, which we almost expect in modern docs, from exercise in anthropomorphis March of the Penguins to the animated sequences of Bowling for Columbine.

Sherlock, Jr.

SHERLOCK, JR.
Directed by Buster Keaton, United States, 1924, approx. 44 minutes
Our Hospitality and Sherlock, Jr. - Kino Video, 1999

The comedic film has hardly been more fun and funny than in the hands on the great “stone face”, Buster Keaton. His 1924 four reel short Sherlock, Jr. is a surreal, special effects laden gemstone that conjures up the magic of the movies and draws guffaws and dropped jaws. Keaton’s short comments on the ethereal, shadow world of the silver screen through gorgeous and ghostly effects and registers richters in laughter.

Keaton plays a bumbling movie theatre projectionist, caught up in a dream of becoming a detective just like Sherlock Holmes. He daydreams and wishes, simpering in the booth. But ‘detectivity’ isn’t the only thing Keaton pines for: he is also quite madly in love with The Girl (no, but really, that’s the character’s name). She’s capitalized: The Girl. The One. Unfortunately for our hero, The Girl is also the object of The Sheik’s (a bad guy) affection. After an unfortunate mystery develops leaving Keaton all but hopeless, he falls asleep and transcends into the world of the motion picture, becoming a real life detective.

Sherlock, Jr. is entirely tongue in cheek; at a pivotal moment Keaton literally leaves his body and jumps right into a motion picture, leaving our real life audience watching a movie audience watching a movie (and to add to the fun, when this was filmed, the movie audience was really watching live actors in a carefully designed set made to look just like a screen). The escapist qualities of the cinema become absolute for Keaton, and his other worldly self becomes caught up in the projected movie. This is when the literal film transitions from being a movie about a movie to being the movie. Keaton frames the real point of the movie with the real world, but the reason Sherlock, Jr. exists is the story of the detective. The Projectionist is not the projectionist, he is Sherlock, Jr.

The trick photography in Sherlock, Jr. is still pretty mind blowing in contemporary context. The moments after Keaton enters the on-screen movie are particularly exciting. Keaton is thrown into a variety of situations: stuck on a cliff, in the middle of a bust intersection, through a series of cuts. The reality of the scene is never questioned though, as each segment is shot so precisely and proportionally well. Keaton reportedly shot this footage with the aid of surveyor's equipment. His ingenuity worked.

This series of misadventures is not unlike Duck Amuck, which Prof. Middents posted earlier. The notion of the screen is questioned, as well as the idea of who is making the movie. The scenes which Keaton is tossed around in are entirely disparate and random, and have nothing to do with the the movie that follows. Keaton is being toyed with, much like Daffy by his animator - but who is playing with Keaton? The Projectionist Keaton? The inside-movie-filmmakers their selves? The audience? The perception of the spectacle of the cinema is what is questioned here, but it’s done so in a laugh-a-minute riot house.

I think this is an essential question for any examination of cinema, regardless of length, and it’s one that we come back to often in class, as it is more visible through the short lens. What makes a movie? Is it literally the material matter, the film or video, that constitutes the motion picture? Is it less than that, just a series of photos, the motion that makes the movie? This of course, does not allow for a film like La Jetée to be considered a motion picture -- so is it the audience that believes in the idea that it is a movie that makes it a movie? Any audience member seeing a feature in a theatre today will agree it is a movie, and most audience members watching short films in a theatre or at a festival will argue for the validity of the presentations as movies. As a class I believe we agree that La Jetée was a movie; would another audience consider it one, though?

Keaton is arguing through stone-faced comedy in Sherlock, Jr. The duality of The Projectionist’s realities calls into question the legitimacy of our reality. Do we perceive things to be real, therefore making them real? Or are we all just part of a bigger picture, a bigger movie; are we all just sleeping projectionists in some cinema somewhere?

L'Arrivée d'un Train a la Ciotat (The Arrival of a train a la Ciotat)

Directed by Auguste and Louis Lumière
1985

Watch this film. Now tell me with an honest face that was not the most pointless film you ever saw. That's right, it is a pointless film for those of us that lived in the 21st century. Now imagine yourself in a theater in France, December 28th, 1895. And all of a sudden a huge train come flying towards you. You'd run in terror right? Well that's what happened when this film first debuted in a cafe in Paris.
This is considered to be one of the first films ever made and shown to an audience. They showcased it along with 9 of their other films. All of these films were stationary cameras setup in a certain spot capturing simple, everyday things. But for their time they were revolutionary. One can watch these films and be baffled on how anyone enjoyed it. A contemporary comparison can be made, people go all the time to I-MAX and 3-d films and they can watch something a simple as fish swimming around and they are amazed. It's all about the technological advancements of that time. Eventually the French moved on to bigger and better things like narrative films and actually plot lines. Unlike Edison who remained in marvel with the spectacle of film.

Steamboat Willie

Directed By: Walt Disney & U.B. Iwerks. United States. 1928. 7 min. (one reel).

With the recent wave of Pixar shorts that precede each one of their films and the Walt Disney Company’s enormous reach over the entertainment industry, it’s easy to overlook the early days when Walt Disney, the man, was an up and coming animator. While trying to establish his career, Disney created shorts for other producers and characters that he didn’t own until he developed the lovable mouse that would become the mascot for one of the largest corporations today. But looking back at the humble beginnings of Disney’s career and more specifically the original Mickey Mouse cartoons, it’s hard to use phrase such as “humble beginnings” or “lovable mouse.”

The release of the second Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie (1928) is possibly the most iconic piece from Disney’s early days. It’s been referenced, parodied and saluted cultural impact with the introduction of such a darling character. However, most of those tributes and even parodies overlook the entire cartoon. Typically, there’s just a clip of Mickey steering the ship and some cases will even extend to the moment when the bigger (whatever that animal is, possibly a giant cat) bullies Mickey out of the driver’s seat. Steamboat Willie is so much more as it could easily be an icon for the early days of cartoon violence.

After Mickey’s overthrown from driving the steamboat, he helps a frantic Minnie board the ship and in celebrating they decide to play music but there’s a lack of instruments. This doesn’t stop Mickey as he goes on to use the animals aboard for musical means. Mickey grabs a cat and yanks on it’s tail to play music with its meow before he swings it around his head and tosses it away; he pulls on a ducks head, plays drums with a pig’s feeding babies as well as on a cows teeth.

While he maintains a seemingly lovable smile the entire, Mickey’s sadistic side shows with Itchy-esque enjoyment. It’s somewhat off-putting to see the world’s most benevolent mouse with such a mischievous demeanor only to be aided by Minnie as the cartoon world’s original Bonnie and Clyde. However, this shouldn’t be too surprising considering the history of subliminal messages and drawings put into Disney cartoon over the years but let’s just hope that Walt Disney never actually condoned animal abuse.

NOTE: Due to uncertainty over it’s copyright law I chose not to attach it on the blog, but take a look on YouTube anyways.

Un Chien Andalou

Part 1
Part 2


UN CHIEN ANDALOU
Directed by Luis Buñuel. Written by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali. France, 1928, 16min.
Source: Avant garde and experimental films – VHS 5278 and YouTube.com

Trying to find rational meaning in a short film that was not supposed to have any is a ludicrous idea, but, so is to dismiss it because it “doesn’t have any” or because we can’t understand it. Whether we understand it or not, like it or hate it, Un Chien Andalou is, for various reasons, one of those must- see classic shorts. It has its place in film history as one of the first movies without a coherent narrative, hence, the perceived lack of “meaning¨. It was also one of the first non-studio shorts to (unintentionally) make money, using shock value as means to make the audience not only uncomfortable but also unhappy with the film itself.

One of the “explanations” of the film goes as follows: the two unnamed characters are lovers who are discovered by her husband and her dad and then face the consequences. Sounds simple, but now, imagine the following series of dream-like events, so things don’t really make sense. They’ll be out order, you’ll leave a room just to enter the same room again, ants will come out people hands, a severed hand will lay on the side walk, an androgynous boy will get run over which in turn will cause the male lover to be aroused, he will be turned down by his lover and will then pull on two pianos with two priests, the 10 commandments and two dead donkeys; books turn into pistols and the male lover shoots his lover’s father; to then “in (the) spring” on a beach where the lover and her husband are buried up to their chest dead. But before it all began, you read a title card that said “once upon a time” and then saw the woman’s eye slid with a razor.

Dali and Buñuel wanted to shock their audience so they opened their film with the razor/eye-slid sequence. They expected the 1928 Parisian audience to be shocked, to start riots, but, to Buñuel’s disappointment, they didn’t. The surrealist movement was in its beginning and this short granted the entrance into it. Today’s audience would probably have a different opinion; one can just look at the boards in IMDB to get an idea. Perhaps, the 1920s audience was more familiar with Freud and more willing to accept dreams for what they were.

But, the lessons of the film go beyond the unexpected reaction of the audience; its 8-month run enabled the duo to pay Buñuel’s mom back. We can be melodramatic and say that dreams can take you as far a you want, aka two young men literally sharing a dream and two weeks of filming turned into a classic. But, there is more. Aesthetically, Un Chien editing work is great not just visually but also musically. In the scene were the androgynous boy gets run over, we anticipate it happening but the music and the intercutting to the lovers watching from the window keeps the tension. The famous thin cloud covering the full moon for a few second then cut to the woman’s eye being slid makes the audiences gasp every time and no matter how many times you watch it there will always be a chill going down your spine.

At the end, that chill is left unresolved. After the bizarre sequences, our minds could try to extract some structured narrative from the title cards “once upon a time”, “eight years later”, “about three in the morning” and “sixteen years before”. But, as in dreams, the timeline does not make sense, and perhaps some things are better taken as what they are, dreams.

Big Business

Big Business

Directed by James W. Horne, United States, 1929, 19 minutes
Source: Big Business, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; Hal Roach Studios (VHS 3981)

The comic duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy did wonders for the popularity of the short film in the 1920’s and 30’s. In all, the pair appeared in over 70 shorts (silent and talkie). Of these, the silent Big Business and talkie The Music Box received the most official recognition (see final paragraph for more details). To watch Big Business (with Christmas-themed music), go here.

Big Business sets its comic tone early. A title card announces that the film is “A story of a man who turned the other cheek - and got punched in the nose.” We then get our first view of the back of (Stan) Laurel and (Oliver) Hardy’s car, packed with several Christmas trees, and after this, a face shot of the two in the front seat, in thick wintertime coats, looking about for customers in sunny California. Already, we know they’re facing an uphill battle.

This tightly-structured film takes us to three houses. At the first house, Stan aggravates an unmarried female customer by asking her “if you had a husband, would he buy a Christmas tree?” At the second house, Oliver pushes Stan aside, ignores a sign that says “no solicitors” by declaring “it’s personality that wins!” and then gets promptly whacked on the head with a hammer. The two will obviously have to combine their efforts.

At the third house, they try their luck with a particularly grumpy homeowner (common Laurel and Hardy foil James Finlayson) and end up getting into more trouble than they bargained for. Here, the movie switches into high gear “escalation and retaliation” comedy. Finlayson gets annoyed with Laurel after he appears for the umpteenth time at the door and lops off pieces of the Christmas tree. The pair retaliates by hacking off the numbers on his house, and the war is on. The rest of the film then becomes a tit for tat “You did what? Well, what if I do this?” raising-of-the-stakes between the two sides, which results in the total destruction of both Finlayson’s house and Laurel and Hardy’s car. Neighbors come to watch the battle, and bemused policeman sits and writes out a ticket before interrupting things.

In the end, Laurel and Hardy persuade everyone that they’re sorry when they break down crying. Finlayson starts to weep and Laurel hands him a cigar, saying “Merry Christmas.” When the policeman steps away, thinking all is done, he glances back and sees Laurel and Hardy laughing, knows they were not serious in their contriteness, and chases them down the street. Finlayson, who “turned the other cheek” at first, sits back to light up his victory cigar, only to have it blow up in his face (which takes us back to the beginning title card).

The film feels structurally perfect (with its three-house format) and is still very funny despite the passage of time (and has probably inspired more than a few imitators). The juxtaposition of these disparate elements (Christmas trees and California, good will and property destruction) works perfectly as a short comedy, and the deliberate manner in which both sides go about their childish war of one-upmanship is well-orchestrated and fascinating for the level of property destruction achieved (there were even rumors going around for some time that the crew destroyed the wrong house in the process of filming).

And the official recognition? Big Business was the first of only two Laurel and Hardy films (the other being the Oscar-winning The Music Box) to be selected for the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry (which recognizes films that are culturally, historically, and/or aesthetically significant). Not bad for 19 minutes of film.

Le Voyage Dans la Lune (A Trip To The Moon)

A Trip to The Moon(1902) France
Directed by Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès's "A Trip to The Moon" is an epic sci-fi fantasy condensed into eight flickering minutes. The film depicts a team of scientists led by Méliès himself who take a rocket ship to the moon and encounter surprises, danger, and malevolent moonmen called Selenites. The short was Méliès's 400th film, by far his most expensive and popular, and the best example of his combined strengths as a writer, director, actor, editor, and special effects man who drew heavily from his background as a magician. Méliès is largely creating and defining film language as he goes along and intuitively grasps many of the fundamentals that would remain staples of cinematic grammar for the following century.

Motion is ever-present despite the static camera set-ups necessitated by the technology of the day. The scientist adventurers scurry throughout, the rocket makes two explosive voyages, and Méliès hired French acrobats and circus performers to play the Selenites who move like they're spring-loaded. The frame (all of them wide shots) is filled with dynamic movement throughout that keeps our attention. Inventive editing is utilized in early examples of things as simple as fades to masking special effects via double exposure and quick cutting that makes moonmen appear to vanish into puffs of smoke or, in the film's most memorable and iconic moment, the rocket to crash into the eyeball of the grimacing face of the moon.

The fantastic voyage and its strange and captivating sights was a big hit in its day and has become one of the staples of early silent cinema. Many of the moments have been aped and homaged over the years, perhaps most memorably by Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris whose Tonight, Tonight video for the Smashing Pumpkins is a beautiful, direct remake. The ambition and scope of Méliès's film, the story could hardly be called small, ignored the constraints many would assume of short films and ventured to use the film medium to tell the kind of sweeping story typical of a Jules Verne novel with great economy and strong visuals. The work influenced a generation of filmmakers and is a precursor to every director who has tried to cram a feature's worth of ideas and plot into a short, though few are as successful as Méliès. With such an abundance of style, dense plotting, and over-written characters resulting in thousands of shorts that amount to a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, it's refreshing to be able to return to a short that uses nothing but carefully arranged images to tap directly into our imagination, entertain and delight us even a century later.

The Girl and Her Trust

THE GIRL AND HER TRUST

Directed by D.W. Griffith, United States, 1912, approx. 15 minutes.

Source: The Movies Begin - A Treasury of Early Cinema 1894-1913

There really isn’t anywhere to begin but the beginning, so when examining any sort of film, short or otherwise, it’s probably a good idea to step back to one reelers, player pianos, and other silent shorts of the sort.  D.W. Griffith is always a name to look to, and his The Girl and Her Trust is quite unrelenting and narrative and temporal editing, creating a dazzling first-generation thriller.

Trust’s narrative is quite simple: $2000 is being transported on the No. 7 Train, and tramps are out to get it by any means, including assaulting Grace, the young telegraphist girl on duty at the local train station.  Clocking in right near 15 minutes, Trust even manages to garner the audience and love subplot, involving Grace and her beau.

As film is markedly concerned with time, being a medium where life is animated though reality suspended, it is impervious that shorts manage time with an absolute certainty, as an entire narrative must fit into the arc of only a few minutes.  Griffith manages to make Trust really spectacular in this case, giving us multiple plot points (Grace’s draw on the men around her, the infatuation her coworker has for her, the danger of railway work, the tramp business, etc) to mull around.  Griffith’s use of editing, particularly in the fireworks parade that is the train chase finale,  lend to the suspense.  The cuts are fast and move in and around the action, bringing the viewer from spectator to actor.  Close ups of Grace hammering bullets through the key-hole in the door and the terrified look in her bewildered eyes allow the audience to particpate in the action more directly, suspending the time and reality of the film.  

I think it would be safe to say that a good film is one that disregards reality yet initiates audiences in buying it.  Steven Spielberg is rumored to have said on the set of Jaws, during an argument with author Peter Benchley about the explosive ending of the film, “If I’ve held their attention for two hours, they’ll believe anything I tell them now.” (which, of course, is true.  Sharks don’t explode, but wow, what an ending!)  This is even more important when dealing with short films; viewers shouldn’t realize they are watching only a fifteen minute sprint, but the whole marathon from beginning to end should bleed reality.  

Griffith’s The Girl and Her Trust does this, for me at least.  I am drawn in from the first frame until the last.  Griffith’s use of a simple story (a ploy great directors like Hitchcock would use years later: Man thinks he sees murder.  Man investigates.  Man becomes entangled in a web of intrigue.  The catch?  He’s got a broken leg.  Or, men murder friend.  Men hold dinner party with the victims friends and family - and the body is in attendance as well!), along with his flair for editing action, immerse viewers into the stark black and white reality of the cinema, length remitted.  Griffith achieves the goal of narrative cinema, to tell a story wisely and well, and achieves a key goal in short cinema, to never let the audience realize they aren't watching a "movie".

Glen Gould Plays Bach

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This short film is a documentation of pianist Glen Gould. Gould (1932-1982) was a Canadian pianist who "disdained the early-Romantic and impressionistic works at the core of the standard piano repertoire" and " upset many pianistic conventions" by his interpretation of compositions performed by Bach, Beethoven, and other classical artists. (see http://www.glenngould.com/).

First and foremost, my appreciation of classical music was inspirational in choosing this short film. Radio and television are excellent mediums for classical music, so, often, when I need solace, or am studying for a class, or settling into my feather-soft bed I listen to classical compositions. However, to actually watch a composer practicing his talent is much more entertaining and makes me quiver with excitement. Glen Gould played the piano with such acceleration that his fingers seemed to be less of bone. Yet, he was candid and as graceful as the setting of the sun.

I must admit, however, the viability of my source for this film produced, within me, skepticism because, seemingly, the original source for this cinematic documentation is unknown. Thanks to vagifabilovor, who posted the documentation onto Youtube, sharing it was made possible. Nonetheless, there are several instances in this film when the camera becomes focused on objects of nature. It can be argued the film-director includes these objects because playing piano is natural to Glen Gould. Personally, I thought this association was successful -not original - but, successful. I further considered this film regarding its context and the source from which I obtained it. Possibly, anyone could have tampered with the original documentation of this film by simple use of a movie-maker (not certain if this is correct use of the terminology, but I have a movie-maker on my Toshiba laptop). Such tampering is referred to as plagarism and, as all college students know, plagarism is unacceptable. As a rule, if an original piece has been modified or utilized by another, its creator must acknowledge the original source. Subscribers to Youtube are at liberty to, basically, publish anything they desire. Though entertaining, this seems industrially unethical to the practice of creating short films. If feature film is the objective and, as some would argue, short film is the means to accomplishment it, would it be safe to assume that websites - notably, Youtube -are the drawing boards? Is this a safe practice for serious film-makers?