Table Of Content

A H I S T O R Y O F N A R R AT I V E F I L M FFIIFFTTHH EEDDIITTIIOONN David A. Cook The University of North Carolina at Greensboro n W.W. NORTON & COMPANY NEW YORK • LONDON HHIISSTTNNAARRRR55__FFMM__ii--xxvviiii..iinndddd ii 1100//1122//1155 55::0000 ppmm W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expand- ed its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By midcentury, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program—trade books and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees. The publisher dedicates this edition to the memory of Jamie Vuignier (1967–2015) Copyright © 2016, 2004, 1996, 1990, 1981 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Editor: Peter Simon Assistant Editors: Gerra Goff and Connor Sullivan Project Editor: Sujin Hong Associate Director of Production, College: Benjamin Reynolds Managing Editor, College Digital Media: Kim Yi Media Editor: Carly Fraser Doria Associate Media Editor: Cara Folkman Media Project Editor: Jesse Newkirk Media Editorial Assistant: Ava Bramson Marketing Manager, Film: Kimberly Bowers Design Director: Rubina Yeh Book Design: Lissi Sigillo Photo Editor: Stephanie Romeo Permissions Manager: Megan Jackson Composition: MPS North America LLC MPS Project Manager: Jackie Strohl Digital File Management: Jay’s Publishers Services Illustrations: Imagineering Manufacturing: R. R. Donnelley—Kendallville, IN Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Names: Cook, David A., author. Title: A history of narrative film / David A. Cook. Other titles: Narrative film Description: Fifth Edition. | New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015044580 | ISBN 9780393920093 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Motion pictures--History. Classification: LCC PN1993.5.A1 C65 2016 | DDC 791.4309--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044580 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110-0017 wwnorton.com W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 HHIISSTTNNAARRRR55__FFMM__ii--xxvviiii..iinndddd iiii 1100//1122//1155 55::0000 ppmm For Diane, always And for our children, Lindsay, Gregory, and Jessica HHIISSTTNNAARRRR55__FFMM__ii--xxvviiii..iinndddd iiiiii 1100//1122//1155 55::0000 ppmm Contents Preface xiii • The Rise of Hollywood to International Dominance 33 Preface to the Fifth Edition xv Expansion on the Continent 34 • The Empire of Pathé Frères 34 01 • Louis Feuillade and the Rise of Gaumont 35 • The Société Film d’Art 39 • The Italian Superspectacle 40 ORIGINS 3 Optical Principles 3 03 Series Photography 5 Motion Pictures 7 Projection: Europe and America 9 D. W. GRIFFITH AND The Evolution of Narrative: Georges Méliès 13 THE DEVELOPMENT OF Edwin S. Porter: Developing a Concept of NARRATIVE FORM 45 Continuity Editing 17 Formative Influences 46 The Beginning at Biograph 46 02 Innovation, 1908–1909: Interframe Narrative 47 Innovation, 1909–1911: Intraframe Narrative 49 Griffith’s Drive for Increased Film Length 51 Judith of Bethulia and the Move to Mutual 51 INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION, The Birth of a Nation 53 1907–1918 25 • Production 53 The United States 25 • Structure 56 • The Early Industrial Production Process 25 • Impact 59 • The Motion Picture Patents Company 26 Intolerance 60 • The Advent of the Feature Film 28 • Production 60 • The Rise of the Star System 29 • Structure 61 • The Move to Hollywood 30 • Influence and Defects 63 • The New Studio Chiefs and Industry Griffith after Intolerance 64 Realignment 30 Decline 67 • The “Block Booking” Dispute and the Acquisition of Theaters 32 The Importance of Griffith 69 iv HHIISSTTNNAARRRR55__FFMM__ii--xxvviiii..iinndddd iivv 1100//1122//1155 55::0000 ppmm 04 GERMAN CINEMA OF THE WEIMAR PERIOD, 1919–1929 71 The Prewar Period 71 The Founding of UFA 72 Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari 74 Fritz Lang 76 F. W. Murnau and the Kammerspielfilm 78 The Parufamet Agreement and the Migration to Hollywood 81 G. W. Pabst and “Street” Realism 82 Down and Out 87 05 SOVIET SILENT CINEMA AND THE THEORY OF MONTAGE, 1917–1931 89 Prerevolutionary Cinema 89 The Origins of Soviet Cinema 90 Dziga Vertov and the Kino-Eye 92 Lev Kuleshov and the Kuleshov Workshop 94 Sergei Eisenstein 99 • The Formative Years 99 • From Theater to Film 102 • The Production of Battleship Potemkin 103 • The Structure of Potemkin 103 • Eisenstein’s Theory of Dialectical Montage 104 • October (Ten Days That Shook the World, 1928): A Laboratory for Intellectual Montage 109 CCOONNTTEENNTTSS vv HHIISSTTNNAARRRR55__FFMM__ii--xxvviiii..iinndddd vv 1100//1122//1155 55::0000 ppmm • Eisenstein after October 111 Vsevolod Pudovkin 112 Alexander Dovzhenko 114 Socialist Realism and the Decline of Soviet Cinema 115 06 HHHHHHOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYWOOD IN TTTTTHHHHHHEEEE TTTTWENTIES 119 TThhoooommmaaaassssInce, Mack Sennett, and the SSSSSttttuuuddddiiiiiooooo System of Production 120 CCCChhhhaaaarrlllliiiieee CCChaplin 123 BBuuussstttteeeerrrKKKKKKKKeaton 127 HHHaroooolllllllldddddddd Lloyd and Others 131 HHHHHHHHoooooooolllywood Scandals and the Creation of the MPPDA 134 Cecil B. DeMille 136 The “Continental Touch”: Lubitsch and Others 138 In the American Grain 139 Erich von Stroheim 142 07 THE COMING OF SOUND AND COLOR, 1926–1935 151 Sound-on-Disc 151 Sound-on-Film 153 Vitaphone 154 Fox Movietone 157 The Process of Conversion 158 The Introduction of Color 161 Problems of Early Sound Recording 169 The Theoretical Debate over Sound 172 The Adjustment to Sound 174 vvii CCOONNTTTEEENNNTTTSSS HHIISSTTNNAARRRR55__FFMM__ii--xxvviiii..iinndddd vvii 1100//1122//1155 55::0000 ppmm 08 • Sound, 1929–1934 240 • Poetic Realism, 1934–1940 242 • Jean Renoir 245 THE SOUND FILM AND THE AMERICAN STUDIO SYSTEM 179 10 New Genres and Old 179 Studio Politics and the Production Code 182 ORSON WELLES AND THE The Structure of the Studio System 185 MODERN SOUND FILM 251 • MGM 185 Citizen Kane 252 • Paramount 187 • Production 252 • Warner Bros. 187 • Structure 258 • 20th Century–Fox 187 • Influence 267 • RKO 189 • The Minors 190 Welles after Citizen Kane 267 • “Poverty Row” 192 • Ethnic Cinema 193 11 Major Figures of the Studio Era 197 • Josef von Sternberg 197 • John Ford 199 WARTIME AND POSTWAR CINEMA: • Howard Hawks 203 ITALY AND THE UNITED STATES, • Alfred Hitchcock 205 1940–1951 275 • George Cukor, William Wyler, and Frank Capra 217 The Effects of War 275 Italy 276 The Heritage of the Studio System 221 • The Italian Cinema before Neorealism 276 • The Foundations of Neorealism 278 09 • Neorealism: Major Figures and Films 280 • The Decline of Neorealism 283 • The Impact of Neorealism 285 EUROPE IN THE THIRTIES 223 The United States 285 The International Diffusion of Sound 223 • Hollywood at War 285 Britain 224 • The Postwar Boom 288 Germany 225 Postwar Genres in the United States 290 Italy 228 • “Social Consciousness” Films and The Soviet Union 229 Semi-Documentary Melodramas 290 France 233 • Film Noir 293 • Avant-Garde Impressionism, 1921–1929 233 • The Witch Hunt and the Blacklist 296 • The “Second” Avant-Garde 236 • The Arrival of Television 300 CONTENTS vii HHIISSTTNNAARRRR55__FFMM__ii--xxvviiii..iinndddd vviiii 1100//1122//1155 55::0000 ppmm 12 • Influence of the Fifties Documentary Movement and Independent Production 347 Theory: Astruc, Bazin, Auteurism, and Cahiers du cinéma 350 HOLLYWOOD, 1952–1965 303 The New Wave (Nouvelle Vague): The Conversion to Color 303 First Films 351 Widescreen and 3-D 305 The New Wave: Origins of Style 354 • Multiple-Camera/Projector Widescreen: Major New Wave Figures 356 Cinerama 305 • François Truffaut 357 • Depth: Stereoscopic 3-D 308 • Jean-Luc Godard 360 • The Anamorphic Widescreen Processes 310 • Alain Resnais 364 • The Non-Anamorphic, or Wide-Film, • Claude Chabrol 365 Widescreen Processes 312 • Louis Malle 367 • Adjusting to Widescreen 315 • Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette 369 • The Widescreen “Blockbuster” 317 • Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy, and Others 370 • American Directors in the Early Widescreen Age 317 After the Wave 372 French Cinema in the 1980s and the 1990s 376 1950s Genres 321 The Significance of the New Wave 382 • The Musical 323 • Comedy 323 14 • The Western 324 • The Gangster Film and the Anticommunist Film 326 • Science Fiction 328 NEW CINEMAS IN BRITAIN • The “Small Film”: American AND THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING Kammerspielfilm 331 COMMONWEALTH 385 Independent Production and the Decline Great Britain 385 of the Studio System 333 • Postwar British Cinema and Its Context 385 The Scrapping of the Production Code 335 • The Free Cinema Movement 387 • British “New Cinema,” or Social Realism 389 13 • The End of Social Realism and Beyond 392 Australia and New Zealand 404 • Australia 404 THE FRENCH NEW WAVE, OR • New Zealand 411 NOUVELLE VAGUE, AND Canada 415 ITS NATIVE CONTEXT 339 The Occupation and Postwar Cinema 339 • Robert Bresson and Jacques Tati 343 • Max Ophüls 345 viii CONTENTS HHIISSTTNNAARRRR55__FFMM__ii--xxvviiii..iinndddd vviiiiii 1100//1122//1155 55::0000 ppmm 15 EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE: WEST 425 The Second Italian Film Renaissance 425 • Federico Fellini 425 • Michelangelo Antonioni 428 • Ermanno Olmi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bernardo Bertolucci 433 • Other Italian Auteurs 435 Popular Cinema in Italy 441 Contemporary Widescreen Technologies and Styles 444 Scandinavian or Nordic Cinema 448 • Ingmar Bergman and Others 448 • Sweden 451 • Finland 451 • Denmark and Dogme95 452 • Norway and Iceland 455 Spain 456 • Luis Buñuel 456 • New Spanish Cinema 460 Germany: Das neue Kino 463 • Postwar Origins 463 • Young German Cinema 463 • The New German Cinema 464 International Stature: Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, and Others 467 • Rainer Werner Fassbinder 467 • Werner Herzog 470 • Wim Wenders 473 • Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Others 475 • Jean-Marie Straub and Marxist Aesthetics 475 CCOOONNTTTTEEEEENNNTTSSS iixx HHIISSTTNNAARRRR55__FFMM__ii--xxvviiii..iinndddd iixx 1100//1122//1155 55::0000 ppmm