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At the end of the 1800s a new artform
flickered into live.
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It looked like our dreams.
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00:00:05,436 --> 00:00:08,870
Movies are multi-billion dollar
global entertainment industry now.
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00:00:08,871 --> 00:00:12,068
But what drives them
isn't box-office or showbiz.
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00:00:12,069 --> 00:00:13,667
It's passion, innovation!
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00:00:13,668 --> 00:00:17,824
So let's travel the world
to find this innovation for ourselves.
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00:00:17,825 --> 00:00:20,089
To discover it in this man,
Stanley Donen,
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who made Singing in the Rain.
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00:00:21,946 --> 00:00:24,056
And in Jane Campion in Australia.
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00:00:24,057 --> 00:00:25,556
And in the films of Kyôko Kagawa
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00:00:25,557 --> 00:00:28,691
who was in perhaps
the greatest movie ever made.
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00:00:28,692 --> 00:00:32,072
And Amitabh Bachchan,
the most famous actor in the world.
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00:00:32,073 --> 00:00:34,660
And in the movies of Martin Scorcese
and Spike Lee,
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00:00:34,661 --> 00:00:36,898
Lars Von Trier and
Akira Kurosawa.
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00:00:36,899 --> 00:00:39,584
Welcome to the story of film,
an odyssey.
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00:00:39,585 --> 00:00:42,667
An epic tale of innovation
across twelve decades,
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00:00:42,668 --> 00:00:45,034
six continents
and a thousand films.
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00:00:48,016 --> 00:00:52,173
1944, World War II,
the Normandy beaches.
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A bunch of allied troops
have just plunged under water
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to stop being shot by German machine guns.
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Above the water is hell.
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Bullets tinkle on iron.
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The camera's all over the place.
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This scene was actually shot
on a peaceful beach in Ireland.
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But director Steven Spielberg
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brought bullets and blood
and bombs to that beach.
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A lie to tell truth.
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This is filmmaking.
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The art of making us
feel that we're there.
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00:02:00,204 --> 00:02:03,024
A young woman in Paris has
her eyes closed
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to feel the warmth of the sun on her face.
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00:02:11,986 --> 00:02:17,227
At the same time unseen by her
this little street drama takes place.
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00:02:22,463 --> 00:02:27,512
White light floods the screen,
links the young and old woman.
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00:02:28,083 --> 00:02:31,041
We want to reach into the screen
to help the old lady.
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00:02:36,397 --> 00:02:38,051
This is filmmaking.
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Cinema as an empathy machine.
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00:02:49,692 --> 00:02:52,071
The Normandy beach scene
and the French lady
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show that, in its use
of sound and light and truth,
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cinema can be great.
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00:02:59,841 --> 00:03:03,285
The story of film is the story
of that greatness.
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00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:06,619
It's a story full of surprises.
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00:03:10,357 --> 00:03:13,352
At first thought you'd guess
that the story of film would be
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00:03:13,378 --> 00:03:16,156
about scenes like this one
from Casablanca,
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00:03:16,182 --> 00:03:19,110
full of yearning,
story and stardom,
45
00:03:19,136 --> 00:03:21,432
because Casablanca is a Hollywood classic.
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00:03:21,845 --> 00:03:24,402
Ingrid Bergman is lit
like a movie star.
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00:03:24,821 --> 00:03:26,254
Highlights in her eyes.
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00:03:26,572 --> 00:03:28,587
It's all filmed on a studio set.
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00:03:34,374 --> 00:03:35,625
But films like Casablanca are
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00:03:35,627 --> 00:03:38,867
too romantic to be classical
in the true sense.
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00:03:40,282 --> 00:03:45,585
Instead, Japanese films, like this
are the real classical movies.
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00:03:47,244 --> 00:03:51,175
Romantic films are always in a rush
but this moment
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00:03:51,197 --> 00:03:55,242
in Record of a Tenement Gentleman
there's a pause in the story.
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A cat, a chiming clock, a kettle,
quietly coming to the boil.
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00:04:09,134 --> 00:04:14,126
The almost square frame filled
with smaller squares and rectangles.
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00:04:14,755 --> 00:04:19,745
Calm, emotionally restrained
like a little classical Greek temple.
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00:04:22,305 --> 00:04:25,915
So Hollywood's not classical,
Japan is.
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00:04:33,703 --> 00:04:35,501
With all its talk of box office,
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00:04:35,503 --> 00:04:39,834
the film business would have us
believe that money drives movies.
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00:04:45,457 --> 00:04:46,435
Ticket sales.
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00:04:48,275 --> 00:04:49,033
Marketing.
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00:04:49,210 --> 00:04:49,827
Glamor.
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00:04:49,925 --> 00:04:50,595
Premiers.
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Red carpets.
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But it doesn't.
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Money doesn't drive cinema.
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The money men don't know
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00:04:58,946 --> 00:05:02,075
the secrets of the human heart
or the brilliance of the medium of film.
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00:05:03,726 --> 00:05:06,686
But if money doesn't drive movies,
what does?
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00:05:07,496 --> 00:05:10,012
Here's the answer: ideas.
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00:05:10,465 --> 00:05:14,431
Watch how a shot of bubbles
becomes an idea in movie history.
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00:05:18,059 --> 00:05:19,716
This is a scene from the British director
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00:05:19,742 --> 00:05:23,446
Carol Reed's 1946 movie
Odd Man Out.
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00:05:24,269 --> 00:05:25,585
A guy is in a mess.
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He sees his troubles reflected
in the bubbles of a spilled drink.
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00:05:31,393 --> 00:05:34,107
Now look at another close-up
of bubbles in a drink.
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00:05:34,335 --> 00:05:37,911
Again a character is in trouble,
self-absorbed.
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This film's director, Jean-Luc Godard,
knew and admired Carol Reed's work,
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00:05:46,250 --> 00:05:49,562
so he was probably thinking of
Odd Man Out when,
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20 years later, he filmed this moment.
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00:05:55,780 --> 00:06:00,254
Now look at Martin Scorsese's
film ‘taxi driver’ of 1976.
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00:06:05,144 --> 00:06:09,650
Scorsese loves the films of
Carol Reed and Jean-Luc Godard
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00:06:09,676 --> 00:06:13,981
and so used the same idea,
that a character looking into bubbles
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00:06:14,007 --> 00:06:18,428
can see their own troubles,
and also, somehow, the cosmos.
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00:06:22,598 --> 00:06:24,623
Visual ideas, more than money or marketing,
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are the real things that drive cinema.
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Innovating with those ideas.
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00:06:36,850 --> 00:06:40,575
It doesn't always seem like it,
but, sitting in the dark,
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00:06:40,601 --> 00:06:45,395
it's images and ideas that excite us,
not money or showbiz.
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00:06:46,577 --> 00:06:49,937
But if the business people don't
control film, who does?
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00:06:50,559 --> 00:06:52,865
Who knows how to get inside your head?
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00:06:53,273 --> 00:06:54,451
David Lynch does.
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00:06:55,705 --> 00:06:57,501
And Baz Luhrmann does.
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00:06:58,299 --> 00:07:02,425
And, in a different way,
Samira Makhmalbaf does.
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00:07:03,930 --> 00:07:07,959
The story of film: An odyssey
is a global road movie
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00:07:07,985 --> 00:07:11,224
to find the innovators,
the people and films
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00:07:11,250 --> 00:07:16,231
that give life to this sublime,
ineffable art form:
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00:07:16,238 --> 00:07:18,253
Cinema!
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00:07:20,762 --> 00:07:22,481
And here's a third surprise.
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00:07:23,295 --> 00:07:26,693
In the 70s you'd guess that
moments like this -
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00:07:28,731 --> 00:07:32,374
the camera racing through space
like a bullet, the scream of tires
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00:07:32,381 --> 00:07:36,945
on the road as a car chases a train -
will be the big story.
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00:07:41,099 --> 00:07:45,905
New American cinema was wonderful
but Dakar in Senegal
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00:07:45,931 --> 00:07:49,326
was as exciting as Los Angeles
in the 70s movie-wise.
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00:07:52,167 --> 00:07:53,648
A surprise indeed.
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00:07:54,774 --> 00:07:57,671
Much of what we assume
about the movies is off the mark.
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00:08:00,375 --> 00:08:02,391
It's time to redraw
the map of movie history
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00:08:02,393 --> 00:08:05,148
that we have in our heads.
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00:08:06,843 --> 00:08:10,759
It's factually inaccurate
and racist by omission.
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00:08:15,419 --> 00:08:17,345
The story of film: An odyssey
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could be an exciting,
unpredictable one.
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Fasten your seatbelts.
It's going to be a bumpy ride.
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00:08:49,365 --> 00:08:51,414
New Jersey, East Coast, America.
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A mum and two daughters are
going to the movies.
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00:08:58,450 --> 00:08:59,407
Why are we here?
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00:09:00,181 --> 00:09:02,768
Because something extraordinary
happened here.
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In the 1890s movies were born here.
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00:09:10,351 --> 00:09:11,886
Lyon, France.
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00:09:14,075 --> 00:09:16,032
Two college friends are going
to the movies.
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00:09:19,471 --> 00:09:23,725
Movies were born here too.
Maybe even more so than in New Jersey.
121
00:09:27,793 --> 00:09:30,718
So what's there to discover
about movies in New Jersey?
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00:09:32,680 --> 00:09:39,286
We find this man, Thomas Edison.
Edison was a manic, passionate inventor.
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00:09:40,624 --> 00:09:44,056
Here's his office where he
invented the light bulb
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00:09:44,082 --> 00:09:45,631
and the phonograph.
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00:09:46,744 --> 00:09:49,994
Here's his desk,
full of compartments, full of detail.
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00:09:50,450 --> 00:09:52,451
Obsessive, like he was.
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00:09:54,086 --> 00:09:55,865
Here is Edison's factory.
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00:09:57,977 --> 00:10:01,790
The beauty of Victorian engineering,
the care and detail.
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00:10:06,819 --> 00:10:09,115
Look at this quotation
on the wall of the factory
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00:10:09,141 --> 00:10:10,992
from the painter Joshua Reynolds.
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00:10:11,304 --> 00:10:14,189
'There is no expedient
to which a man will not resort
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00:10:14,215 --> 00:10:17,449
to avoid the real labor of thinking.'
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00:10:18,451 --> 00:10:21,179
Edison loved it and moved
it around the factory
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00:10:21,205 --> 00:10:25,256
so that his colleagues wouldn't get used
to seeing it in one place.
135
00:10:26,498 --> 00:10:29,265
So Edison's factory was an ideas factory.
136
00:10:34,578 --> 00:10:36,233
Before Edison, there had been
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00:10:36,259 --> 00:10:41,923
funfairs, circuses,
magic lantern shows, magicians acts.
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00:10:48,798 --> 00:10:53,227
Still images were reflected on
mirrors or spun in a box.
139
00:11:07,985 --> 00:11:10,918
This happened not in fancy cities
in the world,
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00:11:12,465 --> 00:11:17,222
but places like this:
Leeds in England.
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00:11:20,631 --> 00:11:24,664
The American George Eastman
came up with the idea of film on a roll.
142
00:11:28,575 --> 00:11:31,647
Edison and his colleague W.K.L. Dickson
egged each other on
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00:11:31,673 --> 00:11:37,352
to find that if you spin
these images in a box,
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00:11:37,379 --> 00:11:39,860
they give the illusion of movement.
145
00:11:41,603 --> 00:11:46,925
And then look at this, invented by Edison.
It's called the black Maria.
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00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:55,762
Edison and many of the other
manic, ideasy inventors of cinema,
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00:11:55,788 --> 00:12:00,004
realized that beyond
the equipment and machines,
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00:12:00,030 --> 00:12:03,613
what you needed most
for movies was light.
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00:12:05,467 --> 00:12:09,258
It probably didn't occur to them that
cinema would become the art of light.
150
00:12:12,086 --> 00:12:15,224
But, somehow, in building
this box on wheels
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00:12:15,250 --> 00:12:17,076
that turned to follow the sun,
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00:12:17,987 --> 00:12:21,154
whose roof opened by turning this wheel,
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00:12:21,180 --> 00:12:24,406
Edison took the first steps
in that direction.
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00:12:25,692 --> 00:12:30,549
He had a hunch that cinema was a
dark room, where light mattered.
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He shot little movies here.
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00:12:35,851 --> 00:12:37,735
This couple kissing, for example.
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00:12:38,174 --> 00:12:40,826
A little moment that everyone
could understand.
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00:12:45,381 --> 00:12:47,254
But to see these films you had
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00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:51,439
to look inside something like this.
That wasn't enough.
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00:12:51,658 --> 00:12:55,774
It was too private and small.
Cinema had to be bigger.
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00:12:56,376 --> 00:12:57,461
And it became so.
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00:12:58,762 --> 00:13:00,400
Here in Lyon.
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00:13:01,265 --> 00:13:02,386
In this house.
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00:13:03,209 --> 00:13:08,332
In the minds of these passionate men:
Louis Lumière and his brother Auguste.
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00:13:10,153 --> 00:13:12,417
The brothers were as ideasy as Edison.
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00:13:12,982 --> 00:13:15,713
Louis in particular was
technically brilliant.
167
00:13:16,262 --> 00:13:20,311
He realized that the grab-advance
mechanism of a sewing machine
168
00:13:20,337 --> 00:13:24,727
would allow the strip of film
to be advanced, paused, exposed,
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00:13:24,753 --> 00:13:27,208
advanced, paused, exposed.
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00:13:29,064 --> 00:13:31,632
This is one of the very first
Lumière cameras.
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00:13:32,188 --> 00:13:36,053
Open its back, shine a light
through it and it becomes a projector.
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00:13:36,948 --> 00:13:38,846
Count Leo Tolstoy called the result
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00:13:38,848 --> 00:13:43,098
'the clicking machine,
like a human hurricane.'
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00:13:45,082 --> 00:13:48,547
One of the first films the
Lumières shot was this one.
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00:13:55,283 --> 00:13:57,534
A short documentary
of everyday life.
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Their workers leaving a factory.
The Lumière factory.
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00:14:02,742 --> 00:14:07,091
This is the factory today.
The place of the first movie.
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00:14:07,093 --> 00:14:08,564
The Source of the Nile.
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00:14:17,081 --> 00:14:20,737
But it wasn't enough for the
Lumière's to make such home movies.
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00:14:21,052 --> 00:14:22,879
They wanted to show them,
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00:14:22,906 --> 00:14:27,855
not just in a box to one person
at a time like Edison, but to groups.
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00:14:32,619 --> 00:14:35,319
On the 28th of December 1895,
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00:14:35,345 --> 00:14:38,934
in this building on the Boulevard Capucines
in Paris,
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00:14:38,960 --> 00:14:41,263
the Lumière brothers projected film.
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00:14:44,120 --> 00:14:49,214
Light shone through it, onto a screen,
bigger than life.
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00:14:52,631 --> 00:14:56,229
It's hard for us today
to picture how enchanting it was.
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00:15:02,665 --> 00:15:06,334
This is one of the very first films
the Lumière's shot and showed
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00:15:06,405 --> 00:15:08,039
on the Boulevard Capucines.
189
00:15:09,660 --> 00:15:11,768
It's said to have
unnerved the audience.
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00:15:11,794 --> 00:15:14,024
They thought the train
was coming at them.
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00:15:14,529 --> 00:15:17,439
This is laughable today.
But look at this...
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Light projected on a building
in 21st century Lyon.
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00:15:25,899 --> 00:15:27,465
The effect is startling.
194
00:15:27,872 --> 00:15:30,798
Digital imagery of a type
we haven't seen before.
195
00:15:31,270 --> 00:15:34,822
The shock of the new
just like the Lumière train.
196
00:15:36,076 --> 00:15:40,377
Something that had already happened,
light from a distant star
197
00:15:40,403 --> 00:15:43,640
came back to life for
the very first time.
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00:15:56,258 --> 00:15:58,021
Neither the Lumière brothers, nor Edison,
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00:15:58,048 --> 00:16:01,017
nor the other inventors of cinema,
200
00:16:01,043 --> 00:16:03,905
could have known how big
the movies would become.
201
00:16:05,382 --> 00:16:12,088
How they'd make us want to escape,
play with our erotic imaginations,
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00:16:12,114 --> 00:16:14,854
failed to film the Nazi gas chambers.
203
00:16:15,302 --> 00:16:18,585
Make us want to be a Princess or
a hero or a cowboy.
204
00:16:23,143 --> 00:16:26,012
Neither the Lumière's nor Edison
could foresee that the movies
205
00:16:26,038 --> 00:16:27,495
would invent flashbacks.
206
00:16:27,725 --> 00:16:29,778
There are no flashbacks
in Shakespeare.
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00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:32,855
That they'd glamorize war.
208
00:16:34,988 --> 00:16:37,364
Capture the horror of the D-day landings.
209
00:16:43,179 --> 00:16:45,990
Give us an image bank
to flick through in our heads,
210
00:16:46,016 --> 00:16:48,659
when we're bored, or happy, or sad.
211
00:16:53,048 --> 00:16:57,468
Movies would become the world's
greatest mirror and, sometimes,
212
00:16:57,494 --> 00:17:01,037
a hammer too, that
would bash reality into shape.
213
00:17:05,826 --> 00:17:08,754
By the end of 1896,
much of the globe
214
00:17:08,780 --> 00:17:11,428
knew about this new invention:
movies.
215
00:17:13,037 --> 00:17:17,128
But almost at once it was seen
as lowbrow for the working classes.
216
00:17:17,674 --> 00:17:23,974
Its jokes and jolts were unsophisticated
and soon became boring.
217
00:17:24,882 --> 00:17:29,096
So, from about 1898
the earliest filmmaker inventors
218
00:17:29,122 --> 00:17:33,873
turned their minds from the machinery
of cinema to shots and cuts.
219
00:17:34,370 --> 00:17:36,287
Things started to get exciting.
220
00:17:39,214 --> 00:17:43,682
In Paris, for example,
a theatre illusionist called George Mélies,
221
00:17:43,708 --> 00:17:49,056
who'd been at the Boulevard Capucines
that first night, filmed on a street.
222
00:17:49,874 --> 00:17:52,666
The film's now lost but here's
what happened.
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00:17:54,531 --> 00:17:57,211
His camera jammed, than started again.
224
00:17:57,741 --> 00:18:01,917
When he looked at the results,
streetcars seemed to disappear.
225
00:18:02,944 --> 00:18:05,034
Just like these people seem to disappear.
226
00:18:08,647 --> 00:18:10,833
Cinema's first magic trick.
227
00:18:14,475 --> 00:18:17,877
In this scene he used the same technique
to make a man appear,
228
00:18:17,903 --> 00:18:19,905
rather than a streetcar, disappear.
229
00:18:24,009 --> 00:18:30,460
Innovation by accident, you could say,
but it drove the medium forward.
230
00:18:33,991 --> 00:18:37,220
Where the Lumière's
were cinema's first documentarists,
231
00:18:37,246 --> 00:18:40,802
Mélies was its first special
effects director.
232
00:18:41,983 --> 00:18:45,504
His film The moon at one Meter,
astonished people too.
233
00:18:46,005 --> 00:18:50,837
In Lyon today, in the festival of lights,
a moon rises over the city
234
00:18:50,863 --> 00:18:52,948
as if in tribute to Mélies.
235
00:18:57,517 --> 00:19:00,556
Lumiere, the name of the brothers,
means ‘light’ of course.
236
00:19:02,644 --> 00:19:06,580
And where other countries saw movies
as a sideshow in these years,
237
00:19:06,606 --> 00:19:08,313
France took them seriously.
238
00:19:08,751 --> 00:19:10,811
Film historian Jean-Michel Frodon:
239
00:19:10,941 --> 00:19:13,692
'France had been doing
something completely different
240
00:19:13,718 --> 00:19:17,080
with cinema because
of the French revolution
241
00:19:17,106 --> 00:19:21,030
and because of this dream
to project something
242
00:19:21,056 --> 00:19:24,778
to the world and to itself.
243
00:19:24,804 --> 00:19:27,237
Like what we call "le Lumière"
244
00:19:27,263 --> 00:19:31,571
and this is Lumière invents cinema
but before they were ‘le Lumière’
245
00:19:31,574 --> 00:19:35,202
in the sense of the
French revolution,
246
00:19:35,228 --> 00:19:38,906
of the encyclopédie, of Kant, et cetera.'
247
00:19:39,870 --> 00:19:42,944
In the decades to come,
France believed that cinema
248
00:19:42,970 --> 00:19:46,059
was such a beacon, almost an element
of foreign policy,
249
00:19:46,085 --> 00:19:51,153
that it funded French filmmaking like
no other country in the world.
250
00:19:54,087 --> 00:19:57,381
Also in France, the world's first female director,
251
00:19:57,407 --> 00:20:01,908
Alice Guy Blaché, became
as interested in magic as Mélies.
252
00:20:07,145 --> 00:20:11,131
And Brighton in England was
a buzzing place in Victorian times too.
253
00:20:13,086 --> 00:20:16,681
Maybe the buzz and the light
explains why local photographer
254
00:20:16,707 --> 00:20:21,074
George Albert Smith became
one of the movies' early innovators.
255
00:20:27,574 --> 00:20:30,725
He was one of the first to film
from the front of a train,
256
00:20:30,751 --> 00:20:33,959
creating a ghostly tracking shot,
which became known
257
00:20:33,985 --> 00:20:35,490
as the ‘phantom ride.’
258
00:20:36,210 --> 00:20:38,444
As if a ghost was
floating through the air.
259
00:20:47,887 --> 00:20:49,950
There was a magic in such shots.
260
00:20:51,111 --> 00:20:55,237
In this great documentary
about the holocaust, Claude Lanzmann,
261
00:20:55,264 --> 00:21:00,164
filmed shots on the same train lines
that took the Jews to the gas chambers.
262
00:21:00,639 --> 00:21:04,011
The ‘phantom ride’ at
its most morally serious.
263
00:21:07,740 --> 00:21:11,257
And, in a completely different way,
director Stanley Kubrick
264
00:21:11,257 --> 00:21:15,489
used a ‘phantom ride’ scene near the end
of 2001: A space odyssey.
265
00:21:16,074 --> 00:21:19,553
The camera seems to zoom
through the coloured light of the cosmos,
266
00:21:19,553 --> 00:21:23,228
as if the main character,
or the film itself,
267
00:21:23,254 --> 00:21:27,190
is tripping or having
an out of body experience.
268
00:21:30,075 --> 00:21:34,478
In 1900, Smith used one
of the first close-ups in cinema.
269
00:21:36,970 --> 00:21:39,364
Filmmakers usually kept their camera wide
270
00:21:39,364 --> 00:21:41,548
because they hadn't considered other options,
271
00:21:41,548 --> 00:21:43,813
or assuming that if they went close
272
00:21:43,839 --> 00:21:46,757
it would confuse or disrupt the audience.
273
00:21:47,742 --> 00:21:51,000
But then G.A. Smith did this:
274
00:21:51,027 --> 00:21:54,665
he wanted to show us
the cat eating in more detail.
275
00:21:54,666 --> 00:21:59,498
The cut between wide and close
not only worked, it seemed natural.
276
00:22:00,050 --> 00:22:02,033
And so close-ups were born.
277
00:22:05,318 --> 00:22:06,974
The films of some of the greatest directors
278
00:22:06,974 --> 00:22:09,087
are hard to imagine without them.
279
00:22:10,245 --> 00:22:13,460
In this incredible moment
in Sergei Eisenstein's film,
280
00:22:13,487 --> 00:22:16,687
October, the government
raises a bridge to stop
281
00:22:16,713 --> 00:22:19,164
revolutionary workers storming a city.
282
00:22:19,576 --> 00:22:22,891
But it's the close-ups
of a dead woman's hand and hair
283
00:22:22,891 --> 00:22:24,919
being pulled off the raising bridge
284
00:22:24,945 --> 00:22:28,586
that give the real sense
of movement and tragedy.
285
00:22:34,070 --> 00:22:36,768
In Sergio Leone's
Once upon a Time in the West,
286
00:22:36,768 --> 00:22:41,698
it's only when Charles Bronson looks,
in big close-up, into the eyes
287
00:22:41,724 --> 00:22:46,093
of Henry Fonda, that he realizes
that Fonda is the murderer
288
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:48,631
he's been searching for all his life.
289
00:23:12,898 --> 00:23:17,516
Back in America, Enoch J. Rector
extended film in another way.
290
00:23:18,060 --> 00:23:21,808
He filmed a boxing match,
not with the standard size of film,
291
00:23:21,808 --> 00:23:26,954
35 millimeters, but with a negative
that was 63 millimeters wide.
292
00:23:27,732 --> 00:23:30,632
The broader image showed
more of the action.
293
00:23:31,407 --> 00:23:33,680
Widescreen cinema was born.
294
00:23:34,376 --> 00:23:39,467
It's the norm now but it would
not become commercially so until 1953.
295
00:23:42,004 --> 00:23:44,216
Film had already come far.
296
00:23:44,586 --> 00:23:46,948
It was born as a sideshow.
A novelty.
297
00:23:46,974 --> 00:23:49,442
Quick fun, like fast-food.
298
00:23:51,445 --> 00:23:55,374
But almost at once it became
clear that it was also a language.
299
00:23:59,570 --> 00:24:01,085
A new language.
300
00:24:01,111 --> 00:24:03,241
A language of ideas.
301
00:24:22,068 --> 00:24:25,571
The early 1900s were
a remarkable time to be alive.
302
00:24:26,583 --> 00:24:28,223
The first airplane flight.
303
00:24:28,746 --> 00:24:32,798
Albert Einstein announced that light,
the flickering stuff of cinema,
304
00:24:32,824 --> 00:24:35,377
is the only constant in the universe.
305
00:24:36,372 --> 00:24:40,567
Here in Copenhagen,
other physicists expanded his ideas.
306
00:24:41,784 --> 00:24:43,308
The Titanic sank.
307
00:24:44,417 --> 00:24:45,995
World War I began.
308
00:24:47,579 --> 00:24:50,787
Compared to all this,
the changes in movies might seem tiny.
309
00:24:51,461 --> 00:24:52,501
But they aren't.
310
00:24:54,236 --> 00:24:58,729
By 1903, filmmakers had developed
many of the key elements of the shot,
311
00:25:02,168 --> 00:25:07,236
but they still had to learn
how to do this: CUT!
312
00:25:08,043 --> 00:25:09,711
Editing made cinema.
313
00:25:13,271 --> 00:25:16,373
To see how, look at
The Life of an American Fireman,
314
00:25:16,399 --> 00:25:22,227
made in 1903 by a Pennsylvanian dynamo
of a man, called Edwin Stanton Porter.
315
00:25:26,252 --> 00:25:31,292
A fireman arrives outside a blazing house
to rescue a mother and her child.
316
00:25:33,812 --> 00:25:35,668
We see the street action first.
317
00:25:52,911 --> 00:25:56,506
Then the same action again from inside.
318
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:11,639
Some years later, Porter recut the film.
319
00:26:12,253 --> 00:26:15,082
This time, after the fireman arrives,
320
00:26:15,108 --> 00:26:18,385
we cut inside the house
to see the first rescue,
321
00:26:18,411 --> 00:26:22,111
then outside again to
see her being brought down the ladder,
322
00:26:22,137 --> 00:26:25,815
then inside again,
to see him rescuing the child,
323
00:26:25,815 --> 00:26:27,836
then back outside again.
324
00:26:28,460 --> 00:26:31,654
The audience follows the story
of the rescue despite the fact
325
00:26:31,654 --> 00:26:36,035
that one space, the street,
suddenly disappears
326
00:26:36,035 --> 00:26:40,942
from the screen and is magically replaced
by another space, the room.
327
00:26:42,011 --> 00:26:44,015
This could never happen in theatre.
328
00:26:45,565 --> 00:26:49,275
The earlier version of the film,
which you could call the theatrical version,
329
00:26:49,275 --> 00:26:54,774
doesn't fragment the space,
but repeats the time like an action replay.
330
00:26:55,229 --> 00:26:58,827
The intercut version
has a continuous time line.
331
00:26:59,005 --> 00:27:01,554
We see everything in the order
in which it was done,
332
00:27:01,580 --> 00:27:03,980
but the space is fragmented.
333
00:27:04,469 --> 00:27:08,802
Cinema was learning,
experimenting, thinking even.
334
00:27:10,164 --> 00:27:14,576
It can now show the flow
of the action from one space to another.
335
00:27:16,029 --> 00:27:18,311
This made chase sequences possible.
336
00:27:18,995 --> 00:27:20,637
It liberated movies.
337
00:27:20,833 --> 00:27:22,552
It emphasized movement.
338
00:27:23,138 --> 00:27:27,199
Nearly every scene in the story
of film will in some way use
339
00:27:27,199 --> 00:27:31,676
this most basic of storytelling devices:
continuity cutting.
340
00:27:32,099 --> 00:27:35,283
The editing equivalent of the word ‘then.’
341
00:27:36,082 --> 00:27:37,572
This was a landmark.
342
00:27:38,259 --> 00:27:42,148
Theatrical cinema was giving way
to action cinema.
343
00:27:42,829 --> 00:27:45,070
And Porter? He lost everything
344
00:27:45,046 --> 00:27:49,812
in the Wall Street crash of the 20s
and died, forgotten, in 1941.
345
00:27:55,091 --> 00:27:58,931
It's easy to forget
what a conceptual jump editing was,
346
00:27:58,931 --> 00:28:02,314
but 21 years after
The Life of an American Fireman
347
00:28:02,314 --> 00:28:07,292
the comic genius Buster Keaton
shot a scene using double exposure
348
00:28:07,292 --> 00:28:09,070
which reminds us.
349
00:28:09,704 --> 00:28:11,616
Keaton plays a film projectionist.
350
00:28:11,923 --> 00:28:12,988
He falls asleep.
351
00:28:13,525 --> 00:28:15,129
Dreams of the cinema.
352
00:28:15,663 --> 00:28:16,969
Climbs into a film.
353
00:28:26,290 --> 00:28:27,702
And then, bam!
354
00:28:27,930 --> 00:28:28,793
A cut.
355
00:28:29,145 --> 00:28:32,250
The world around him is suddenly
replaced by another world.
356
00:28:32,577 --> 00:28:33,507
Instantly.
357
00:28:33,915 --> 00:28:34,626
Magically.
358
00:28:59,063 --> 00:29:02,551
In 1907, cinematic innovation
went up a gear.
359
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:08,306
Look at The Horse that Bolted,
by Frenchman Charles Pathé.
360
00:29:08,679 --> 00:29:11,265
A man leaves his horse
on the street
361
00:29:11,299 --> 00:29:14,176
as he delivers food
to an upstairs customer.
362
00:29:14,515 --> 00:29:17,155
The horse spies something
to eat, and tucks in.
363
00:29:19,287 --> 00:29:21,554
Cut to the man climbing the stairs.
364
00:29:24,635 --> 00:29:28,551
Then cut back to the horse,
which isn't doing a new thing.
365
00:29:29,261 --> 00:29:30,295
It's still eating.
366
00:29:31,418 --> 00:29:34,050
Then back to the man
just a second later.
367
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,136
Then back to the horse.
368
00:29:46,198 --> 00:29:50,463
In The Life of an American Fireman,
the cuts showed what happened next.
369
00:29:51,254 --> 00:29:54,817
Here, they're showing what
is happening at the same time.
370
00:29:55,475 --> 00:29:57,302
This isn't continuity editing.
371
00:29:57,508 --> 00:29:59,272
It's parallel editing.
372
00:29:59,729 --> 00:30:02,745
It doesn't say ‘then’,
it says ‘meanwhile.’
373
00:30:04,672 --> 00:30:08,173
Great filmmakers have used
this ‘meanwhile’ editing ever since
374
00:30:08,173 --> 00:30:13,763
to contrast events, build tension
or advance two storylines at once.
375
00:30:15,888 --> 00:30:19,441
And soon after continuity
and parallel editing were invented,
376
00:30:19,441 --> 00:30:22,727
another remarkable editing technique was born.
377
00:30:23,384 --> 00:30:26,856
This woman is looking towards us,
as if she's on a stage
378
00:30:26,858 --> 00:30:28,197
and we are in the audience.
379
00:30:28,596 --> 00:30:30,334
But what if she does this?
380
00:30:31,105 --> 00:30:34,380
In the earliest movies,
people seldom turned their backs
381
00:30:34,380 --> 00:30:35,657
to the camera like this.
382
00:30:36,734 --> 00:30:40,731
This film, made in 1908, was one of
the first in which this was done.
383
00:30:42,291 --> 00:30:44,546
But if directors were
to give actors the freedom
384
00:30:44,572 --> 00:30:46,927
to turn their backs to the camera like this...
385
00:30:47,655 --> 00:30:51,027
Then, it occurred to them,
they could point the camera
386
00:30:51,027 --> 00:30:54,604
in the opposite direction
to see what would eventually
387
00:30:54,604 --> 00:30:56,770
be called the ‘reverse angle shot’.
388
00:30:57,785 --> 00:31:00,564
Directors were putting
their cameras into the action,
389
00:31:00,564 --> 00:31:03,943
freeing themselves to film from any angle.
390
00:31:05,864 --> 00:31:09,476
This new freedom was
an exhilarating break with theatre,
391
00:31:09,502 --> 00:31:11,630
and seemed entirely natural to cinema.
392
00:31:12,001 --> 00:31:13,147
Central to it.
393
00:31:13,922 --> 00:31:17,052
So, in the 60s in France,
when Jean-Luc Godard
394
00:31:17,078 --> 00:31:21,606
refused to bring his camera round
to show the face of Anna Karina
395
00:31:21,632 --> 00:31:26,205
at the start of Vivre sa Vie,
the effect was shocking.
396
00:31:34,766 --> 00:31:38,748
Combine this with this,
G.A. Smith's close-up,
397
00:31:38,774 --> 00:31:43,771
and the actor, rather than the set,
began to be the thing that was filmed.
398
00:31:49,344 --> 00:31:52,820
And just as the movie buildings
were changing, the movies themselves
399
00:31:52,822 --> 00:31:55,197
took another leap forward.
400
00:31:56,363 --> 00:31:57,015
A look back at
401
00:31:57,041 --> 00:31:59,784
The Life of an American Fireman
shows why.
402
00:32:00,381 --> 00:32:04,421
Audiences watching this film felt
concern for the safety of this woman.
403
00:32:07,260 --> 00:32:09,887
But they knew nothing
about the actress who played her,
404
00:32:09,887 --> 00:32:11,119
not even her name.
405
00:32:12,271 --> 00:32:15,680
If they'd known about her life
or recognized her from other films,
406
00:32:15,706 --> 00:32:17,347
they'd care even more.
407
00:32:19,473 --> 00:32:23,457
Then, enter into the movies,
this actress dressed in white,
408
00:32:23,457 --> 00:32:24,632
wearing a hat.
409
00:32:26,178 --> 00:32:30,638
She was known,
semi-anonymously, as the imp girl,
410
00:32:30,664 --> 00:32:35,980
but in 1910 her producer, Carl Laemmle,
announced in the press that she had died.
411
00:32:36,541 --> 00:32:37,505
She hadn't.
412
00:32:38,208 --> 00:32:41,601
And when she miraculously
showed up in a scene like this,
413
00:32:41,601 --> 00:32:44,692
very much alive, anxious
and looking around,
414
00:32:44,692 --> 00:32:49,460
Laemmle then told the newspapers
that the crowds were so hysterical
415
00:32:49,460 --> 00:32:51,077
that they tore her clothes off.
416
00:32:52,779 --> 00:32:56,586
This wasn't true either,
but the furore burnt her name
417
00:32:56,586 --> 00:32:58,837
into the public consciousness:
418
00:32:58,863 --> 00:33:00,748
Florence Lawrence.
419
00:33:01,271 --> 00:33:02,893
Lawrence became famous.
420
00:33:03,150 --> 00:33:08,745
She earned $80,000 in 1912.
Then her career fizzled out.
421
00:33:09,138 --> 00:33:15,835
In 1938, aged 48, she committed
suicide by eating ant poison.
422
00:33:17,496 --> 00:33:21,812
Florence Lawrence was the first movie star,
and set a pattern for stardom.
423
00:33:22,134 --> 00:33:24,633
Hype, fame, tragedy.
424
00:33:26,048 --> 00:33:31,191
Here in Denmark this actress,
Asta Nielsen, became even more famous.
425
00:33:32,436 --> 00:33:36,438
There was less censorship in Europe.
Actors could be more sexual.
426
00:33:39,444 --> 00:33:40,655
He's tied up.
427
00:33:40,832 --> 00:33:43,832
She's hip grinding
in her slinky black dress.
428
00:33:46,691 --> 00:33:53,247
Hollywood learnt from Nielson's fame
and, instead of sex,
429
00:33:53,273 --> 00:33:59,915
as this reveal of Gloria Swanson shows,
it trowelled on the luxury and costuming.
430
00:34:01,177 --> 00:34:04,484
Hollywood was adding an element
of sublime to stardom.
431
00:34:07,619 --> 00:34:11,469
Almost every aspect of cinema
was affected by the star system.
432
00:34:12,041 --> 00:34:14,613
As the adoring public
became more and more interested
433
00:34:14,613 --> 00:34:17,506
in Lawrence, Nielsen or Swanson,
434
00:34:17,532 --> 00:34:21,363
so moviemakers started to show
their faces more clearly.
435
00:34:21,887 --> 00:34:25,332
Except it wasn't really their faces,
it was their thoughts
436
00:34:25,332 --> 00:34:27,724
that audiences became interested in.
437
00:34:29,947 --> 00:34:34,712
The star system meant that psychology
became the driving force of films,
438
00:34:34,712 --> 00:34:37,090
especially American ones.
439
00:34:38,722 --> 00:34:43,114
And through these years,
1907, 8, 9 and 10
440
00:34:43,114 --> 00:34:47,130
small movie theatres,
places for working class people emerged.
441
00:34:48,059 --> 00:34:50,564
In America they were called nickelodeons.
442
00:34:51,458 --> 00:34:55,425
This one, Tally's,
was on Spring Street in L.A.
443
00:34:55,451 --> 00:34:57,421
This is the same spot now.
444
00:34:59,763 --> 00:35:03,763
This little cinema, built in 1914,
is in Leeds in England.
445
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:11,942
And on this famous corner,
the first nickelodeon in New York was built.
446
00:35:41,116 --> 00:35:44,866
In the early 1910s,
the best filmmaking in the world
447
00:35:44,866 --> 00:35:47,263
was taking place here, in Scandinavia.
448
00:35:48,186 --> 00:35:50,987
Maybe it was the northern light,
how it changed.
449
00:35:51,522 --> 00:35:54,346
Or maybe it was the sense
of destiny and mortality
450
00:35:54,346 --> 00:35:58,625
in Scandinavian literature
that made Danish and Swedish movies
451
00:35:58,625 --> 00:36:00,851
more graceful and honest.
452
00:36:03,589 --> 00:36:07,901
By 1912, for example,
the most innovative use of film light
453
00:36:07,901 --> 00:36:11,174
in the world was in the work
of Benjamin Christensen.
454
00:36:17,598 --> 00:36:20,913
Christensen studied
at this theatre in Copenhagen.
455
00:36:20,939 --> 00:36:25,691
Then made this film,
The Mysterious X, in 1913.
456
00:36:34,867 --> 00:36:39,447
Gorgeous photography, cross cutting
and a dream drawn on film.
457
00:36:39,855 --> 00:36:42,776
One of the most daring debuts
in film history.
458
00:36:50,076 --> 00:36:54,986
Later he built a vast studio
here in Hellerup, in the suburbs of Copenhagen.
459
00:36:55,167 --> 00:37:00,260
To make Häxan, a masterpiece
about witchcraft through the ages.
460
00:37:03,707 --> 00:37:07,004
The light sources were multiple,
the effects complex.
461
00:37:07,151 --> 00:37:09,775
Christensen himself
played the naked devil.
462
00:37:23,117 --> 00:37:26,027
This telegram in the Danish film archive says:
463
00:37:26,053 --> 00:37:30,754
‘your masterful film, Häxan,
had its first screening to a full house,
464
00:37:30,780 --> 00:37:32,521
with a standing ovation.’
465
00:37:34,067 --> 00:37:38,833
In Sweden, director Victor Sjöström
was just as great an early director,
466
00:37:38,833 --> 00:37:41,377
and was more influential than Christensen.
467
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:48,669
Sjöström started by selling donuts
but soon found himself here:
468
00:37:48,695 --> 00:37:52,247
Svenska Bio,
Sweden's first major film studio.
469
00:37:53,613 --> 00:37:58,545
His 1913 film Ingeborg Holm
had naturalism and grace.
470
00:37:59,062 --> 00:38:02,071
But, seven years later, still at Svenska,
471
00:38:02,097 --> 00:38:05,518
Sjöström made one
of the great multilayered films
472
00:38:05,544 --> 00:38:08,888
of the silent era, The Phantom Carriage.
473
00:38:10,991 --> 00:38:14,868
It had stories within stories,
moods within moods.
474
00:38:15,250 --> 00:38:19,084
In tinted blue evening light,
an alcoholic, David Holm,
475
00:38:19,111 --> 00:38:22,001
tells a drunken story
about a phantom carriage
476
00:38:22,027 --> 00:38:25,915
which arrives at New Year,
to collect the souls of the dead.
477
00:38:27,918 --> 00:38:30,970
Here on the right, Sjöström
plays Holm himself.
478
00:38:32,678 --> 00:38:35,354
Later in the story David dies.
479
00:38:35,591 --> 00:38:40,865
Sjöström re-exposes the film to show
the separation of his body and soul.
480
00:38:43,028 --> 00:38:47,465
The carriage driver arrives and shows
him how horrible his life has been.
481
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,657
A wasted life wrapped
in a haunted myth.
482
00:38:53,735 --> 00:38:56,229
And Sjöström was brilliant at women.
483
00:38:58,415 --> 00:39:00,818
His strong mother died when he was young.
484
00:39:01,494 --> 00:39:06,564
Sjöström ended his days in this
cottage by the sea, west of Stockholm.
485
00:39:10,946 --> 00:39:12,416
Christensen and Sjöström
486
00:39:12,442 --> 00:39:17,614
became star directors and, as was to become
the pattern for European talents,
487
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:20,809
they were seduced by what would be,
in the years to come,
488
00:39:20,835 --> 00:39:25,009
the center of the movie world.
A place called Hollywood.
489
00:39:26,429 --> 00:39:30,895
They sailed there, as a certain Swedish
movie star, called Greta Garbo, did.
490
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,545
And, later, another,
called Ingrid Bergman did.
491
00:39:36,798 --> 00:39:40,795
As a result of their departures,
Scandinavia would not be central
492
00:39:40,795 --> 00:39:44,043
to the story of film again until the 1950s.
493
00:40:58,394 --> 00:41:03,636
A long time ago in a galaxy
far, far away from Scandinavia,
494
00:41:03,662 --> 00:41:07,590
there was a garden that didn't know
what was about to hit it.
495
00:41:08,373 --> 00:41:10,323
Sagebrush in the rain.
496
00:41:10,753 --> 00:41:12,868
The eucalyptus in the rain.
497
00:41:14,203 --> 00:41:17,981
You see, the spring was such
a marvellous thing there.
498
00:41:30,412 --> 00:41:33,718
The garden was about to be invaded.
Built upon.
499
00:41:34,513 --> 00:41:37,064
It was about to bring in
artists and business people
500
00:41:37,090 --> 00:41:41,854
from around the world to paint clouds
to look like real clouds.
501
00:41:45,822 --> 00:41:48,512
To create people to
look like real people.
502
00:41:57,749 --> 00:42:01,065
The sort of place you'd wear costume
and jewellery in the daytime.
503
00:42:01,549 --> 00:42:04,820
The sort of place
that invented youth and glamor.
504
00:42:06,171 --> 00:42:08,515
Where Marlena Dietrich
could wear black feathers
505
00:42:08,515 --> 00:42:13,148
and be framed in a train window
and be lit in a lattice of shadows.
506
00:42:13,874 --> 00:42:15,754
And, somehow, look believable.
507
00:42:17,973 --> 00:42:21,188
Youth and glamour came out
of its test tubes.
508
00:42:21,809 --> 00:42:23,956
No one was supposed
to be plain here
509
00:42:23,982 --> 00:42:28,844
or sad or old or racially equal
or sexually different.
510
00:42:29,316 --> 00:42:30,529
What denial.
511
00:42:30,924 --> 00:42:32,327
What eugenics.
512
00:42:34,477 --> 00:42:41,669
And yet it attracted: people, selves,
ideas, styles, shape shifters.
513
00:42:42,377 --> 00:42:47,113
It became a bauble this place:
shiny, perfect, brittle.
514
00:42:47,476 --> 00:42:49,435
Something you could see yourself in.
515
00:42:53,281 --> 00:42:56,154
Movies started to be in the air here.
516
00:43:04,096 --> 00:43:06,689
Of course this place is called Hollywood.
517
00:43:08,366 --> 00:43:13,648
A fantasy name because one of the things
that won't grow here is this: holly.
518
00:43:19,184 --> 00:43:23,651
Why did the movie people come here?
Because of the weather, sunlight.
519
00:43:25,762 --> 00:43:29,460
And because, on the East Coast,
New Jersey and New York.
520
00:43:30,182 --> 00:43:33,744
The film process had been patented, copyrighted.
521
00:43:35,326 --> 00:43:37,298
Take this example of copyright.
522
00:43:38,337 --> 00:43:41,365
For years, film running through
viewing machines
523
00:43:41,392 --> 00:43:44,425
had snapped because
of the tension in the spool.
524
00:43:44,995 --> 00:43:48,195
Then the Latham brothers
and people around Thomas Edison
525
00:43:48,195 --> 00:43:51,119
had the brain wave
of creating this simple loop,
526
00:43:51,119 --> 00:43:55,130
which created a bit of slack,
which would allow the machine to stop,
527
00:43:55,161 --> 00:43:59,177
project an image, then move on again
without tearing the film.
528
00:44:00,016 --> 00:44:04,664
This so called ‘Latham loop’ was
patented by its East Coast inventors.
529
00:44:05,221 --> 00:44:08,336
You had to pay people to use it
and other discoveries.
530
00:44:08,746 --> 00:44:12,778
But California was very far away
from those rights owners.
531
00:44:13,033 --> 00:44:14,772
So, you could break the law there.
532
00:44:25,092 --> 00:44:28,191
This is South Spring Street in 1897.
533
00:44:30,044 --> 00:44:31,787
Here is the same spot today.
534
00:44:32,980 --> 00:44:34,390
Things moved quickly.
535
00:44:34,781 --> 00:44:40,342
The first studio was built in 1911,
it was like an outdoor tent.
536
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:43,338
It was built here.
537
00:44:48,262 --> 00:44:51,925
The first feature length movie ever made,
The Story of the Kelly Gang,
538
00:44:51,925 --> 00:44:53,280
had been filmed in Australia.
539
00:44:53,637 --> 00:44:56,736
Outdoors, available light,
head-on framing.
540
00:45:00,925 --> 00:45:05,681
Seven years later, Cecil B. Demille
shot the first Hollywood feature here.
541
00:45:08,616 --> 00:45:10,609
Here it is: The squaw Man.
542
00:45:11,126 --> 00:45:14,053
In it we can see another
crucial element of filmmaking
543
00:45:14,079 --> 00:45:16,215
that fell into place in these years.
544
00:45:17,643 --> 00:45:21,098
A decent man is trying to decide
whether to do a good deed.
545
00:45:21,642 --> 00:45:24,609
He looks right, through a window
and sees a young woman
546
00:45:24,626 --> 00:45:25,979
who'll benefit from the deed.
547
00:45:35,125 --> 00:45:37,104
Their eyes meet for a second.
548
00:45:37,347 --> 00:45:41,559
He feels her pain,
and decides to do the good deed.
549
00:45:43,222 --> 00:45:45,691
But imagine if Demille
and his camera person
550
00:45:45,717 --> 00:45:47,866
had lifted their camera from here,
551
00:45:47,892 --> 00:45:49,792
brought it around
to the far side of this room
552
00:45:49,818 --> 00:45:52,300
and filmed the young woman
from over there?
553
00:45:55,699 --> 00:45:58,122
The shot of her would
have looked something like this...
554
00:46:01,623 --> 00:46:04,930
As if she was looking away
from the man, rather than towards him.
555
00:46:06,114 --> 00:46:09,167
And the scene wouldn't
have the same power.
556
00:46:09,194 --> 00:46:12,479
It's because their eyes match,
across the cut,
557
00:46:12,505 --> 00:46:16,863
Him looking right, her looking left,
that they connect emotionally.
558
00:46:19,413 --> 00:46:21,916
Filmmakers in these years
were discovering
559
00:46:21,968 --> 00:46:24,635
that to make it look like people
in different shots
560
00:46:24,661 --> 00:46:28,128
were looking at each other,
or that armies were marching
561
00:46:28,154 --> 00:46:32,819
towards each other,
the camera had to stay on the same side
562
00:46:32,845 --> 00:46:37,567
of an invisible 180 degree line,
drawn between the two people,
563
00:46:37,593 --> 00:46:40,241
looking at or talking to each other.
564
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:46,462
Because this rule was new,
filmmakers in the late 1910s
565
00:46:46,488 --> 00:46:48,357
sometimes broke it by mistake.
566
00:46:50,570 --> 00:46:54,007
Later in The squaw Man,
Demille made such a mistake.
567
00:46:54,731 --> 00:46:56,412
A man is dangling from a cliff.
568
00:46:56,841 --> 00:46:58,012
He's looking right.
569
00:46:58,201 --> 00:46:59,784
The cliff is on the right.
570
00:47:00,439 --> 00:47:02,789
But then Demille goes
to the bottom of the cliff
571
00:47:02,789 --> 00:47:04,375
to show the man's fall.
572
00:47:08,150 --> 00:47:09,575
But he films from the wrong side
573
00:47:09,575 --> 00:47:11,803
of the man, so it looks
like the cliff has switched
574
00:47:11,803 --> 00:47:13,257
to the left of the screen.
575
00:47:14,185 --> 00:47:17,695
The shot would have been
more spatially clear if it was like this...
576
00:47:24,184 --> 00:47:28,893
And to make matters worse, his friends
come to the rescue, leaving screen left
577
00:47:28,919 --> 00:47:34,118
but entering the next shot screen right,
as if they'd taken a detour to the pub.
578
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:41,597
Once this discovery was made,
it was used throughout mainstream cinema.
579
00:47:42,446 --> 00:47:48,015
This scene from The Empire strikes back,
an old style movie made 60 years later,
580
00:47:48,041 --> 00:47:50,732
shows how enduring the discovery was.
581
00:47:51,330 --> 00:47:54,306
Darth Vader is on the left
of the screen looking right.
582
00:47:54,623 --> 00:47:59,714
His underling, to whom he's speaking,
is in a separate shot looking left.
583
00:48:00,066 --> 00:48:03,737
Because of the 180-degree rule
we completely believe that
584
00:48:03,737 --> 00:48:05,169
they're looking at each other.
585
00:48:13,113 --> 00:48:17,253
Crucial to the inventiveness
of American cinema before the 1920s
586
00:48:17,253 --> 00:48:19,200
was how female it was.
587
00:48:19,690 --> 00:48:22,098
Film historian Cari Beauchamp:
588
00:48:22,098 --> 00:48:26,600
'Hollywood was built
by women, immigrants and Jews.
589
00:48:26,938 --> 00:48:30,935
People who would not be accepted
in any other profession at the time.
590
00:48:31,282 --> 00:48:36,362
So Hollywood became this magnet
for people who wanted to work,
591
00:48:36,388 --> 00:48:40,818
who were incredibly creative, but
wouldn't be accepted in other professions.
592
00:48:41,028 --> 00:48:44,738
Well half of all films written
before 1925 were written by women.
593
00:48:45,300 --> 00:48:49,438
So that shows you how, just, comfortable,
women were in the business then.
594
00:48:51,376 --> 00:48:55,847
Perhaps the first woman to direct a film,
and the first female studio boss
595
00:48:55,847 --> 00:48:57,530
was Alice Guy Blaché.
596
00:48:58,621 --> 00:49:01,686
Most of the film companies
focused on the machinery
597
00:49:01,686 --> 00:49:04,947
and Gaumont started to make actual films.
598
00:49:04,947 --> 00:49:06,992
And Alice Guy was a secretary there.
599
00:49:07,018 --> 00:49:09,756
And they let her play
with the cameras after hours
600
00:49:09,756 --> 00:49:11,844
as long as she'd gotten
her secretarial work done.
601
00:49:12,237 --> 00:49:15,127
And Alice Guy was not only
one of the first female directors,
602
00:49:15,153 --> 00:49:16,836
she was one of the first directors.
603
00:49:17,075 --> 00:49:22,696
She was one of the first to actually put
film together into a story with an arc.
604
00:49:23,094 --> 00:49:26,486
Up until then we'd had
‘the sneeze,’ ‘the wave.’
605
00:49:27,819 --> 00:49:29,450
Individual actions.
606
00:49:29,614 --> 00:49:33,818
But Alice created some dramatic arc films,
for the very first time.
607
00:49:34,119 --> 00:49:37,454
Here's an example
of Guy Blaché's touching poetics.
608
00:49:37,842 --> 00:49:41,489
A little girl overhears a doctor say
that her sister will die
609
00:49:41,515 --> 00:49:44,082
before the leaves fall from the trees.
610
00:49:44,701 --> 00:49:48,274
So she goes outside and starts
to tie them back on.
611
00:50:00,402 --> 00:50:03,755
One of the most innovative directors
of the time was Lois Weber.
612
00:50:04,519 --> 00:50:08,002
Here she also plays the lead
in her film, Suspense.
613
00:50:08,790 --> 00:50:10,728
A woman is at home with her child.
614
00:50:11,192 --> 00:50:12,769
She hears an intruder.
615
00:50:13,216 --> 00:50:15,972
Looks out the window, sees him
616
00:50:15,998 --> 00:50:18,169
in this remarkable sideways
pov (Point Of View) shot.
617
00:50:18,916 --> 00:50:20,102
She calls her husband.
618
00:50:20,967 --> 00:50:22,639
Weber uses a split screen
619
00:50:22,639 --> 00:50:26,913
to show the husband, the intruder
and herself, all in the same moment.
620
00:50:27,905 --> 00:50:31,303
The husband jumps in a car
and tries to race to save his wife.
621
00:50:39,353 --> 00:50:40,968
He's chased by the police,
622
00:50:40,968 --> 00:50:44,704
who Weber shows in this inventive shot
of the wing mirror.
623
00:50:45,933 --> 00:50:48,078
The intruder climbs the stair.
624
00:50:52,241 --> 00:50:56,846
And again Weber's camera position
emphasizes the approach, the threat.
625
00:50:57,749 --> 00:51:01,432
In the end, the police
and husband arrive and save the day.
626
00:51:06,500 --> 00:51:10,310
The film was, for years,
credited to a male director,
627
00:51:10,336 --> 00:51:11,430
D.W. Griffith.
628
00:51:12,897 --> 00:51:16,080
Frances Marion was
an even more significant figure.
629
00:51:16,435 --> 00:51:19,166
'Well, Frances Marion
was the highest paid screenwriter,
630
00:51:19,192 --> 00:51:23,072
male or female, from 1915 to 1935.
631
00:51:23,417 --> 00:51:25,534
That's an incredible accomplishment
right there.
632
00:51:25,674 --> 00:51:28,887
She also is the only woman ever
to win two Oscars for writing.
633
00:51:29,364 --> 00:51:32,664
And she won her Oscars
for The big House,
634
00:51:32,649 --> 00:51:34,706
the seminal prison film,
635
00:51:34,732 --> 00:51:37,930
and The Champ ,
the classic boxing film.
636
00:51:38,114 --> 00:51:40,674
And what I love about that
is that it just right there
637
00:51:40,674 --> 00:51:44,256
puts the lie to the idea that
these women writers were writing
638
00:51:44,256 --> 00:51:47,398
the "matinee weepies" or the "women's films",
639
00:51:47,398 --> 00:51:48,169
quote/unquote.
640
00:51:48,416 --> 00:51:52,087
No. They were writing
every conceivable genre of film.
641
00:51:52,413 --> 00:51:57,438
Women like Frances, Adela Rogers St. Johns,
Bess Meredyth, Anita Loos.
642
00:51:57,438 --> 00:52:01,567
I mean, these were the créme de la créme
of the writers.
643
00:52:01,593 --> 00:52:05,004
The ones that the Thalberg’s
and the Mayer’s went to
644
00:52:05,004 --> 00:52:08,141
when they had big productions
they knew they needed to count on.'
645
00:52:08,656 --> 00:52:11,070
Marion's screenplay for the film
The Wind
646
00:52:11,096 --> 00:52:13,121
was about a woman living in a shack.
647
00:52:13,147 --> 00:52:16,225
The wind is incessant.
Sand's everywhere.
648
00:52:17,002 --> 00:52:19,295
It seems to blast the visual image.
649
00:52:21,373 --> 00:52:23,869
An aggressive man forces himself on her.
650
00:52:24,372 --> 00:52:27,505
She shoots him,
then buries him in the sand.
651
00:52:28,249 --> 00:52:32,645
But the wind blows the sand away,
the corpse is exposed.
652
00:52:33,049 --> 00:52:34,399
Just like her fear.
653
00:52:34,730 --> 00:52:37,225
Just like her unconscious mind.
654
00:52:38,169 --> 00:52:40,579
The wind was an epic tone poem.
655
00:52:40,980 --> 00:52:43,693
Cut like a thriller,
but filmed like a dream.
656
00:52:45,907 --> 00:52:47,609
Hollywood films like it,
657
00:52:47,609 --> 00:52:52,439
showed female audiences things
they'd probably felt but never seen.
658
00:52:58,211 --> 00:53:01,559
'Most people in America did not go further
than 20 miles from their home
659
00:53:01,559 --> 00:53:04,181
from when they were born
until they died.
660
00:53:04,538 --> 00:53:09,266
So you have this incredible
country that really only lives
661
00:53:09,266 --> 00:53:11,491
in this bell-jar of their own community.
662
00:53:11,987 --> 00:53:15,983
And as films start coming out,
as movie theatres are being built,
663
00:53:16,029 --> 00:53:20,014
by 1920, there's over
15,000 theatres in this country.
664
00:53:20,795 --> 00:53:23,635
So all of a sudden you can go
around the corner,
665
00:53:23,661 --> 00:53:26,140
put down your nickel or your dime
or your quarter
666
00:53:26,140 --> 00:53:29,054
and have this entire world open up to you.
667
00:53:29,673 --> 00:53:32,720
And it's not just
they're seeing Paris for the first time.
668
00:53:32,720 --> 00:53:34,997
They're seeing New York City
or San Francisco.
669
00:53:35,310 --> 00:53:36,641
They are seeing women's fashions.
670
00:53:36,667 --> 00:53:41,906
They are seeing women acting
in ways that nobody would dare do.
671
00:53:41,992 --> 00:53:46,573
With talking films, the price
of making movies skyrocketed
672
00:53:46,599 --> 00:53:49,426
and so with talking films
Wall Street really entered
673
00:53:49,426 --> 00:53:50,986
the business for the first time.
674
00:53:51,368 --> 00:53:55,158
And when money entered into it
the jobs starting paying more...
675
00:53:55,183 --> 00:54:00,190
It was taken seriously as a business
and men wanted those jobs.
676
00:54:03,711 --> 00:54:08,011
If the great women filmmakers
of the 1910s are under-remembered,
677
00:54:08,011 --> 00:54:12,291
you could say that this man, Lanky,
here in a stagy family scene
678
00:54:12,291 --> 00:54:15,625
with a painted skyline, is over-remembered.
679
00:54:16,038 --> 00:54:21,152
People say that D.W. Griffith invented
close-ups or editing, which isn't true.
680
00:54:23,118 --> 00:54:26,436
But he did something far more valuable
for the art of cinema.
681
00:54:26,522 --> 00:54:31,227
He said it needs to show this:
the wind in the trees.
682
00:54:46,350 --> 00:54:52,585
Before Griffith, film had a tendency
to be stagey like this: airless.
683
00:54:52,611 --> 00:54:55,114
He brought the wind in
the trees to cinema.
684
00:54:58,674 --> 00:55:00,733
A sense of the outside world.
685
00:55:01,934 --> 00:55:04,618
The delicacy of Lillian Gish's
performance here matches
686
00:55:04,618 --> 00:55:06,278
the delicacy of the light.
687
00:55:07,185 --> 00:55:08,579
The visual softness.
688
00:55:13,953 --> 00:55:17,115
Decades later, the critic,
Roland Barthes,
689
00:55:17,141 --> 00:55:22,497
said that some images have unplanned,
natural details in them that move us.
690
00:55:23,241 --> 00:55:27,963
Barthes called this the ‘punctum’.
The thing that pricks our feelings.
691
00:55:28,204 --> 00:55:32,000
Griffith's work is full of the ‘punctum’,
the wind in the trees.
692
00:55:38,801 --> 00:55:43,198
This scene from Way Down East,
is set on a treacherous thawing river.
693
00:55:43,442 --> 00:55:46,782
Griffith could never have planned
that Lillian Gish's right arm
694
00:55:46,782 --> 00:55:50,167
would push ice off the adjacent ice flow.
695
00:55:51,193 --> 00:55:53,099
But we notice the realness of the moment.
696
00:55:56,079 --> 00:55:58,698
Griffith worked with
one of the best cinematographers
697
00:55:58,698 --> 00:56:00,628
in the business, Billy Bitzer.
698
00:56:00,863 --> 00:56:03,528
Bitzer disliked the hard edge
of the film image,
699
00:56:03,554 --> 00:56:06,371
so put a collar around
the lens hood
700
00:56:06,371 --> 00:56:08,559
to make the edge of the image
go slighter darker.
701
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:12,654
‘Adding class to the picture,’
as Bitzer himself put it
702
00:56:12,680 --> 00:56:16,781
and influencing the look of film
in America for a generation.
703
00:56:17,553 --> 00:56:21,689
Griffith and Bitzer understood
the psychological intensity of a lens.
704
00:56:21,971 --> 00:56:25,680
They used visual softness
and back lighting, which gave
705
00:56:25,706 --> 00:56:30,055
a halo to hair and made actors
stand out against backgrounds.
706
00:56:34,163 --> 00:56:37,794
What Griffith and Bitzer
did in 1914 and 1915,
707
00:56:37,820 --> 00:56:40,392
with all their talents, their haloed imagery,
708
00:56:40,392 --> 00:56:43,914
their splendid tracking shots
and feel for the outdoors,
709
00:56:43,914 --> 00:56:47,097
is one of the great shocks
in the story of film.
710
00:56:47,526 --> 00:56:50,771
They made this deceitfull
state of the nation movie,
711
00:56:50,797 --> 00:56:57,000
that raised a racist flag which showed
the power of cinema and its danger.
712
00:56:58,393 --> 00:57:00,100
The birth of a nation
713
00:57:00,100 --> 00:57:03,473
looks like it was shot
in Griffith's native Kentucky.
714
00:57:04,706 --> 00:57:07,976
But it was actually filmed here,
near Los Angeles.
715
00:57:12,428 --> 00:57:14,290
It showed the American civil war.
716
00:57:15,517 --> 00:57:18,220
Griffith mixed the epic with the intimate.
717
00:57:19,247 --> 00:57:23,067
A Southern officer returns home.
He goes to his mother.
718
00:57:23,261 --> 00:57:26,400
Her arms come out of the doorway
to enfold him.
719
00:57:34,340 --> 00:57:35,691
We don't see the rest of her.
720
00:57:37,371 --> 00:57:40,942
Such subtlety made the racism
all the more dangerous.
721
00:57:41,748 --> 00:57:45,239
Black senators were shown
as drunk and unclean.
722
00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:49,682
In this scene Griffith
used Wagner music.
723
00:57:50,260 --> 00:57:53,557
The Cameron family are being
attacked by black soldiers.
724
00:57:54,018 --> 00:57:55,941
They're rescued by the Klan.
725
00:57:55,968 --> 00:57:57,809
Heroic and thrilling.
726
00:58:06,168 --> 00:58:10,785
After some screenings, black audience
members were attacked with clubs.
727
00:58:11,749 --> 00:58:15,356
The Ku Klux Klan
had been disbanded in 1869,
728
00:58:15,356 --> 00:58:20,410
but by the mid-1920s,
its membership was back up to 4 million.
729
00:58:21,746 --> 00:58:23,985
Talk about the wind in the trees.
730
00:58:24,855 --> 00:58:28,790
More than 80 years later,
D.J. Spooky sampled and played
731
00:58:28,816 --> 00:58:31,331
with the toxic scenes
from The Birth of a Nation,
732
00:58:31,357 --> 00:58:33,509
almost as if he was scribbling on them.
733
00:58:40,092 --> 00:58:42,164
The year after The Birth of a Nation
734
00:58:42,164 --> 00:58:46,087
Griffith saw this,
the epic Italian film Cabiria.
735
00:58:46,354 --> 00:58:50,285
He was stunned,
particularly by these moving Dolly shots.
736
00:58:51,153 --> 00:58:54,798
Inspired by these moves
and production design such as this,
737
00:58:54,824 --> 00:58:58,085
using elephants to suggest scale
738
00:58:58,111 --> 00:59:00,997
and also by the novels
of Charles Dickens,
739
00:59:00,997 --> 00:59:04,893
he made a three and a half hour film,
Intolerance
740
00:59:04,893 --> 00:59:07,422
about ‘love's struggle through history.’
741
00:59:12,177 --> 00:59:14,606
The film showed human intolerance
in Babylon,
742
00:59:16,674 --> 00:59:20,787
in the life of Jesus Christ,
tinted in sepia.
743
00:59:21,614 --> 00:59:23,875
In the massacre of Saint Bartholomew
744
00:59:24,012 --> 00:59:28,017
in medieval ages, violent scenes,
tinted blue.
745
00:59:29,675 --> 00:59:34,197
And in modern gangsterism,
all shiny cars and jazz outfits.
746
00:59:36,344 --> 00:59:38,556
And then inter-cut these.
747
00:59:39,816 --> 00:59:43,360
Griffith said:
‘Dickens inter-cuts, so, so will I’.
748
00:59:44,204 --> 00:59:49,113
He took storyline A so far,
then jumped to storyline B,
749
00:59:49,139 --> 00:59:53,251
advanced it a certain amount,
then went back again to A
750
00:59:53,251 --> 00:59:55,195
and picked up where he had left off.
751
00:59:56,576 --> 00:59:59,262
Previously, a cut
from one shot to the next
752
00:59:59,288 --> 01:00:03,190
meant, as we've seen:
‘Then’ or ‘meanwhile.’
753
01:00:06,484 --> 01:00:09,870
Griffith's cutting between time periods
wasn't saying either.
754
01:00:11,192 --> 01:00:14,103
It was saying: ‘look, these very
different events,
755
01:00:14,129 --> 01:00:17,609
from different eras,
all show the same human trait.’
756
01:00:18,575 --> 01:00:21,401
Intolerance, or the failure of love.
757
01:00:22,154 --> 01:00:24,912
Editing as an intellectual signpost.
758
01:00:25,747 --> 01:00:27,356
Asking people to notice
759
01:00:27,356 --> 01:00:29,737
not something about action or story
760
01:00:29,763 --> 01:00:32,341
but about the meaning of the sequence.
761
01:00:34,347 --> 01:00:37,610
Soviets such as Eisenstein,
wrote about this editing.
762
01:00:38,086 --> 01:00:41,435
And as far away as Japan in 1921,
763
01:00:41,461 --> 01:00:45,614
Minoru Murata made this film,
Souls on the Road.
764
01:00:46,236 --> 01:00:48,523
Two storylines intertwine.
765
01:00:48,549 --> 01:00:50,724
In the end of the film,
they come together.
766
01:00:51,105 --> 01:00:53,807
Two ex-convicts from one storyline
767
01:00:53,833 --> 01:00:57,672
here find a son from the other storyline,
in the snow.
768
01:00:59,601 --> 01:01:03,448
Their story has been one of hope
but the son has died.
769
01:01:03,896 --> 01:01:07,217
A pioneering use
of parallel editing in Asia.
770
01:01:08,587 --> 01:01:12,457
This made Souls on the Road
the first great Japanese film.
771
01:01:20,329 --> 01:01:23,446
In L.A. today, a shopping mall
on Hollywood boulevard,
772
01:01:23,446 --> 01:01:25,144
where the Oscars take place,
773
01:01:25,144 --> 01:01:29,607
has partially rebuilt the massive
Babylonian gate from Intolerance.
774
01:01:33,015 --> 01:01:36,489
The original was here,
a mile away from the shopping mall.
775
01:01:40,187 --> 01:01:44,667
It was demolished when Hollywood
didn't care much about its own history.
776
01:01:46,822 --> 01:01:48,503
But what history!
777
01:01:48,529 --> 01:01:49,852
What ideas!
778
01:01:49,955 --> 01:01:52,897
Filmed with a Dolly on a crane,
and even on a balloon,
779
01:01:52,923 --> 01:01:57,637
to get high enough, up into the wind,
that flaps these vast hangings.
780
01:02:01,190 --> 01:02:04,823
Cinema was just 20 years old
when this shot was filmed.
781
01:02:06,406 --> 01:02:08,457
A new art form had been born.
782
01:02:08,818 --> 01:02:11,921
Scandinavian directors
had made it an art of light.
783
01:02:18,639 --> 01:02:21,603
Nickelodeons had given way
to movie palaces.
784
01:02:22,529 --> 01:02:29,736
Places built like cathedrals
785
01:02:29,762 --> 01:02:36,149
or Egyptian temples
or Chinese pavilions.
786
01:02:43,877 --> 01:02:49,581
A garden called Hollywood started
to pump fantasies out into the world.
787
01:02:52,393 --> 01:02:56,720
Film editing captured
the fragmented experiences of modern life.
788
01:03:00,232 --> 01:03:04,601
New creatures, called movie stars,
became the most famous people in the world.
789
01:03:05,986 --> 01:03:08,850
They lived in places of rapture and escape.
790
01:03:11,630 --> 01:03:15,242
The story of film seemed
to have reached its climax.
791
01:03:22,440 --> 01:03:25,501
But, in fact, it was only just beginning.
69277
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