Film - CLEP Humanities

A "tracking shot" gets its name from the track set up to move the camera, attached to a dolly, throughout a set. This allows the camera to follow a character or an object across a scene, or between multiple locations. Tracking shots are used to move between locations in films.

"Film noir" was an appellation given to certain Hollywood films of the 1940s and 50s by French critics at the time, only being used in America by critics decades laters. Called "melodramas" in their own publicity, these films grew out of hardboiled detective fiction, and featured an element of mystery, a detective character, criminal elements, and, usually, a femme fatale as the lead female character. The films were usually quite small, with storylines that took place in one city over a few days or weeks.

A "voiceover" generally refers to the spoken part in a film that is not said by a character on screen or a by any character seen in the film. Usually, voiceover is used as a form of narration, to explain or comment on the action of the film in a way the characters cannot. Voiceover is commonly found in documentaries as a way to tie the film's story together in absence of a traditional narrative.

A film reel is actually a series of photographs, called frames, with the time between them being much less than one second. A typical frame rate for a film is 24 frames per second, a rate which makes the many different images appear to the human eye as one continuous, moving image. A typical human eye can process 10 separate images per second, and a frame rate must exceed this by enough to look like a constant shot of action.

Alfred Hitchcock frequently featured characters pursuing a simple goal or object relentlessly in his films. However, what they were after was usually not important in the film's larger story by the time the film reached its conclusion. Hitchcock called such a device the "MacGuffin," a term he invented as well as helped to popularize.

A "wipe" transition occurs when a visible line moves across the screen to provide the cut between two different scenes. A director can have a number of reasons for using a wipe to edit a film. In particular, it creates movement inside of a shot, and can show the continuity or a contrast between two scenes.

After moving picture film was possible, the film still had to be shot in black and white. Fairly early on in movie history, many different companies tried to create a color film process. While many were made, by far the most successful, to the point of being a near monopoly from the 1920s to the 1950s, was the Technicolor process used by the company of the same name.

A cinematographer on a film shoot can be thought of as the head camera operator. On a large film, this means the cinematographer is in charge of placing all cameras, setting lighting appropriately, and physically filming the scenes. A cinematographer is as key to the look of a film as anyone else involved in the filmaking process.

Casablanca, made in 1942, features a plot based around the intersection of various people who have found themselves in the eponymous Moroccan city thanks to the upheavals of World War II. Primarily focused on a romance between Humphrey Bogart's Rick and Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa, the story includes many other storylines that touch the main plot. Casablanca is often listed as among the greatest films in polls of both critics and audiences.

Alfred Hitchcock was a British director who began directing films in America in the late 1930s and became one of the most well known and popular filmakers in Hollywood for the next two decades. Among his works were Psycho, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, and Vertigo. Raging Bull was a 1980 film directed by Martin Scorsese.

Sergio Leone was an Italian filmmaker who made his name by directing Westerns, which were originally called "Spaghetti Westerns" due to being made, performed, and produced by Italians. Leone eventually made Westerns in America, notable working with Clint Eastwood on the films A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More,and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Leone helped revitalize the Western as a genre and move it into the realm of modern cinema.

The film Birth of a Nation was a massive success, becoming the first film ever shown at the White House. However, its heroic depiction of the Ku Klux Klan and virulent depiction of African-Americans caused criticism to be launched at its director, D.W. Griffith. In response, Griffith's next film, Intolerance, told the story of five civilizations who were ruined by their various forms of intolerance.

The Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini was one of the most important filmmakers of the twentieth century, and his work proved highly influential around the world. Beginning in the Italian Neo-realist genre, Fellini began moving into a more surrealist and fantastical mode with his 1954 film La Strada. With 1960's La Dolce Vita, Fellini explored non-linear narrative, and with 1964's 8 1/2, Fellini began exploring dreams and fantasies in his work more explicitly.

The French New Wave was a label applied to a group of French filmmakers in the 1960s who all sought to create narrative ambiguity, a realistic shooting style, and modern stories. Among the New Wave directors were figures such as Éric Rohmer, André Bazin, François Truffaut, and Jean Luc Godard. One of their chief influences was the earlier filmmaker Jean Renoir.

The Marx Brothers, Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo, began their career in the vaudeville era, and translated their success there into Broadway success as zany comedians. As soon as sound entered pictures, the Marx Brothers started making films, which were among the first commercially successful comedies, including 1930's Animal Crackers, 1932's Horse Feathers, and 1933's Duck Soup.

Martin Scorsese is considered one of the key figures of the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s, which broke from the conventions of the studio system from the 1930s-1940s. Unlike his contemporaries, Scorsese's films, including Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, and Raging Bull, were usually set in his native New York, with characters similar to the Italian and Irish working class people he grew up around.

The Godfather, based on a book by Mario Puzo, was released to great acclaim in 1972, and propelled its director Francis Ford Coppola and its stars Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, and Robert Duvall to fame. The Godfather films were all influential in moving the "gangster film" out of B-movie limbo into being considered a type of great film. The first two parts of the trilogy are considered among the greatest films of all time.

Luis Buñuel was a Spanish-born director who was an important early Surrealist painter and filmmaker. He had to leave Spain when Francisco Franco took control of the government in 1938. Buñuel eventually moved to Hollywood, and then to Mexico, and afterward, to France. In 1972, he made his most well-known and landmark film, Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie. Covering the attempts of upper-middle-class people trying to get dinner together, the surrealist film is one of the classic surrealist and inventive films.

Charlie Chaplin was perhaps the biggest star of the silent film era, writing, directing, and starring in films starring his character of "The Tramp." Featuring Chaplin's trademark bowler hat, cane, and toothbrush mustache, films like The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), and City Lights (1931) helped pioneer comedic tropes and gags in film. Chaplin adapted poorly to using sound in film and also had a controversial personal life which saw his star diminish in the 1930s.