Early Cinema and Post-WWI Developments

Study Notes

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

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)

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

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 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 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.