Early Cinema and Post-WWI Developments

Early Cinema: The Birth of a Moviegoer and Technical Advancements

• The Nickelodeon boom from 1905-1912 transformed cinema into a regular habit for audiences
• The 1915 film "The Birth of a Nation" was considered "epoch-making" and a significant artistic achievement
• The year before World War I marked a turning point in cinema history, with filmmakers experimenting with storytelling techniques during the Nickelodeon era
• The rise of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1910s led to the formation of major studios
• Notable advancements in filmmaking during this period included artificial lighting techniques, silhouette effects, animation techniques, parallel actions, cross cuts, advanced point-of-view shots, and reverse-angle cuts
• Film is considered a visual language, a universal form of communication

Post-World War I European Cinema

• Avant-garde film movements began after World War I in France and Germany
• The Soviet Montage movement emerged in the 1920s in the USSR
• Germany's government-subsidized conglomerate Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA) was created in 1917, merging production, distribution, and exhibition companies
• The Weimar Republic era (1919–33) is considered the “golden age” of German cinema
• A notable German Expressionist film is "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1919)

The Soviet Cinema

• Soviet leaders, particularly Vladimir Lenin, saw film as a tool for unifying the vast and diverse nation

The Soviet Cinema in the 1920s

• The Soviet government heavily invested in cinema, using it as a propaganda tool
• Soviet cinema evolved from the pre-revolutionary period, adopting a new aesthetic approach

Key Persons in Soviet Cinema

• Key individuals who shaped the Soviet cinema included:
  • Sergei Eisenstein, a prominent filmmaker noted for his influential works like "Battleship Potemkin" (1925) and "October" (1928)
  • Dziga Vertov, a documentary filmmaker known for "Man With a Movie Camera" (1929)
  • Vsevolod Pudovkin, another key figure in Soviet cinema, was known for his social realist films

The Kuleshov Group and the Kuleshov Effect

• The Kuleshov Group was a collective of Soviet filmmakers who conducted film experiments in 1921, known as the "Kuleshov Experiments"
• The Kuleshov effect was a groundbreaking principle in filmmaking, demonstrating how juxtaposing shots can create entirely new meanings and emotional reactions
• Lev Kuleshov, a Soviet filmmaker and educator, is credited with developing the Kuleshov effect.