|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
The Projector Fall 2003 EditionVolume 4, Issue 1 Cinema began with Quentin Tarantino. What's that? You don't agree? You
think that Tarantino's style is more an extension of previous cinematic
techniques rather than completely a new one? Well, it seems today that many young people
feel that contemporary film-makers have completely invented their own
cinema, but instead the reality is that they have built this cinema on
the shoulders of directors of the past.
So if Tarantino didn't invent cinema, who did? Or perhaps a better question might be: how did cinema get to
where it is today? In the early days of film, directors in
all parts of the world were creating the structures and styles of cinema
as they went along. This
issue of The Projector aims to examine some of these visionaries and how
they played a part in shaping the styles and techniques common in modern
cinema. Each paper focuses on a particular director
and the ways that one or more of their films affected the ways movies
could be made. The first two essays focus on different
films of the German director Fritz Lang.
The former, written by Sarah Okapal, examines the philosophy behind
the style and presentation of Lang's Metropolis.
Next Kari Hazlett discusses how Lang helped to ease the transition
between silent and sound cinema with his film M.
From there we move to America where Stephen Boston discusses the
way D.W. Griffith took two steps forward and one step back with Birth
of a Nation. Jon Wagner takes us to France where he
looks at the ideas and methods that shaped Henri-Georges Clouzot's Wages
of Fear. Our final stop is in Russia where I look
at the studies on cinematic structure done by visionary director Sergei
Eisenstein. Special thanks goes out to all who contributed
to this issue of The Projector, their help is greatly appreciated.
Enjoy the trip, Steven Pustay Editor Sarah
Okapal Metropolis: A Filmic Masterpiece Kari
Hazlett M's Sound Aspects Stephen
Boston Birth of a Nation Jon
Wagner The Wages of Fear: Anti-American or Anti-Human Nature? Steven Pustay Psychology of the Aesthetic:
Eisenstein as a Silent Auteur
|
