Since the invention of film and film projectors, film has changed in many drastic and exciting ways. From the humble beginnings of simple films such as five-minute home movies, film expanded to exist through styles such as Classical Hollywood, French Impressionism, German Expressionism, Soviet formalism, and the French New Wave. With the introduction of sound came a variety of new genres and styles. Throughout the invention of film in the late 1800s to the French New Wave in the 1960s, European cinema has developed greatly. In his article Crofts states “some sectors of some national cinemas have sought to beat Hollywood at its own game – and overwhelmingly failed” (50). Yet despite this, cinema as we know it today would not exist if not for the movements in European cinema.
In 1895, the invention of film projectors made it possible to exhibit films to audiences around the world. The Lumiere brothers took advantage of this opportunity, creating short films that depicted snapshots of real life from a home movie of their brother and his wife feeding their child (Repas de bébé to L’Arroseur arrosé) to a short film (credited as the first comedy) depicting a boy stepping on the hose of a gardener, only to remove his foot when the gardener looked into the hose to see what was blocking the flow. Their film L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat frightened audiences, leading them to believe they were literally about to get run over by a train. Georges Méliès, knows as a “cinemagician”, was inspired by the Lumiere brothers and began producing his own films, leading to the creation of the horror and science fiction genres and innovations such as the jump cut.
As filmmakers such as the Lumiere’s and Méliès inspired the spread of film to audiences around the world, other filmmakers began to emerge, with genres beginning to develop and expand. By the start of World War I, Classical Hollywood Cinema style had been established, with Hollywood filling the vacuum left by European producers in the wake of the war. Hollywood established itself as the international leader in film production. Despite the dominance of Hollywood, however, three avant-garde movements became prominent; French Impressionism, German Expressionism, and Soviet formalism. French Impressionism emphasized film as art, calling to attention its pictorial beauty. It encouraged intense psychological exploration, with experimentation in film being made possible due to crisis in the French film industry. After World War I, the German film industry was only second to Hollywood. From 1916-1920 the government banned imports, using hyperinflation to discourage it while encouraging export. German Expressionist films were typically set in the past or in exotic locations, involving elements of fantasy and/or horror. Stylistically, elements such as lights, sets, and figures blended together while both distortion and exaggeration were prominent. With Fritz Lang’s Metropolis being the last of expressionist films, changes came in the form of Hollywood influence and the end of government protection and inflation. International style eventually came to be, blending traits of Impressionism, Expressionism, and Soviet Montage.
In the late 1920s, a transition to sound began. The United States, Germany, and the USSR began to develop sound, with the two main problems being the synchronization and amplification of sound. Japan was one of the last major film industries to make the transition into sound, with major studios eventually adopting American sound systems. New genres, most notably musicals, began to emerge with the allowance of sound in films. With the transition to sound, however, language barriers became an increasing issue. Subtitles, dubbing and multilingual films were techniques used to assist in said barriers.
In the 1930s the Great Depression struck, and a fascist government ruled Italy from 1922-1943. Mussolini actively supported the production of films, giving special funding to Italian films. During World War II Cinecitta, a large Roman film studio, produced over 200 films per year. Most films were white telephone films made purely for entertainment value, with a very small percentage of these films produced actually supporting the values and policies of the government. In the late 1940s, postwar Italy imported 600 Hollywood films. Italian Neorealism rose from 1945-1955. Qualities of this moment included looser narrative/lack of closure, location shooting, nonprofessional actors, minimal shifts through editing, and loose framing with the plot subordinate to character and theme. Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio DeSica became the most influential film of postwar Italy. Despite being a box office failure and falling under the attacked of Andreotti as “slander”, it was nominated and won the New York Film Critics Best Foreign Film.
In the late 1950s, the French New Wave emerged. As Thompson and Bordwell explain, “The rising generation was dubbed the Nouvelle Vague, the ‘New Wave’ that would soon govern France. Many of these young people read film journals and attended screenings at cine-clubs and art et essai cinemas. They were ready for more offbeat films than those of the Cinema of Quality” (407). In order to satisfy financial demands, films were shot on location with small crews, portable equipment, and little-known actors. Films of the French New Wave shared themes such as the distrust of authority. The films often centered on femme fatale’s, with plots built around digressive episodes and chance events.
Throughout the invention of film in the late 1800s to the French New Wave in the 1960s, European cinema has developed greatly. With each movement throughout time (whether or not the movement was a success in its time), cinema as we know it today has been shaped through trials and experimentation. Despite the dominance of Hollywood, European Cinema will always be of great significance to filmmakers and film viewers alike.
Works Cited
Crofts, Stephen. “Reconceptualising National Cinemas.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 14.3 (1993): 49-67. Print.
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History: An Introduction. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2010. Print.
Alex Keathley 