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Monday, March 4, 2013

Film The Meaning of Cinema

Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 8:26 AM

It's all here, packed in a minute and a half of King Vidor's The Crowd...

Cinema 1: The Movement Image, the great post-structuralist philosopher Gilles Deleuze writes:

Take, for example, the famous shot in King Vidor’s The Crowd, what Mitry called ‘one of the most beautiful tracking shots in the whole silent cinema’: the camera advances into the crowd, against the flow, makes its way towards a skyscraper, climbs up to the twentieth floor, frames one of the windows, discovers a hall full of desks, goes in to arrive at a desk where the hero is sitting.

As Walter Benjamin pointed out, cinema's real subject is the city. When not filming the city, the life of the city, the citizens of the city, cinema is on vacation.

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Seems like an inspiration for Brazil.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on March 4, 2013 at 8:37 AM

Now do one on "I Am Cuba"!

Posted by --MC on March 4, 2013 at 8:41 AM

Charles,
What a great tracking shot. Extraordinary that it is done in early cinema history. Speaking of King Vidor, check out "Hallelujah!" (1929). Great movie.

Posted by lark on March 4, 2013 at 8:54 AM

@ 3, actually filmmaking was already very mature in 1928. Keep in mind that this follows some very technically adept films like Potempkin, Faust and Metropolis.

Posted by Matt from Denver on March 4, 2013 at 9:07 AM

Mike Nichols often gets questions about his tracking shots (personally, if I had a chance to ask Mike Nichols a few questions, questions about tracking shots might not make the cut). Still, he's done some very clever work in that regard - and even more intriguing, he doesn't tell how he does it.

Check out the opening sequence to Birdcage where the camera - almost at sea level - tracks in over the Atlantic Ocean, into South Beach, onto Ocean Drive and the crowds, into the club, and up on stage.

I'm pretty familiar with King Vidor's work in talkies, but my cinematic education is severely lacking with regard to most silent pictures. Some, you'll have to admit, require a good deal of patience, and some are so brilliant, they're out on Blu-Ray (see City Girl). Thanks for turning me on to this one, Cholly. Pretty democratic of you to share this considering Vidor was a rather rabid anti-communist.

Walter Benjamin didn't live long enough to see Days of Heaven or Walkabout.

Posted by Bauhaus I on March 4, 2013 at 9:11 AM

@4 Indeed, you have a point. I've viewed "Battleship Potemkin" and "Metropolis". Both outstanding. I've yet to see Abel Gance's "Napoleon". I understand that to be ahead of the curve technically as well.

Posted by lark on March 4, 2013 at 10:42 AM

@ 6, I haven't seen that one, either. Must get around to it.

It's interesting - the wikipedia entry on "The Crowd" claims that the arrival of sound had an unintended consequence: "Due to the limitations imposed by early sound filming techniques, the film's moving camera innovations would not be equaled for another decade."

Posted by Matt from Denver on March 4, 2013 at 11:34 AM