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21
00:00:11,084 --> 00:00:14,433
1918.
World war I had just ended.
22
00:00:19,960 --> 00:00:22,110
Much of Europe was
scorched earth.
23
00:00:23,118 --> 00:00:25,563
The seeds of nazism
had been planted.
24
00:00:26,211 --> 00:00:29,739
A few years later, the
surrealist manifesto said
25
00:00:29,741 --> 00:00:31,964
that art should record dreams.
26
00:00:32,518 --> 00:00:35,119
But what dreams?
27
00:00:40,728 --> 00:00:44,890
In the hills of Los Angeles, the myth
of Hollywood had just been born.
28
00:00:47,047 --> 00:00:49,294
The town had started
to burnish itself.
29
00:00:50,170 --> 00:00:54,688
Starlets with the especial slenderness
of youth were attracted
30
00:00:54,714 --> 00:00:58,480
by the bauble that is Hollywood:
shiny and romantic.
31
00:00:58,862 --> 00:01:01,920
With its escapism
and promise of perfection.
32
00:01:05,228 --> 00:01:07,613
This part of the story of film
is about the strengthening
33
00:01:07,616 --> 00:01:10,840
of Hollywood, how it becomes
an industry.
34
00:01:11,197 --> 00:01:14,739
A factory with which the world
would fall in love.
35
00:01:15,132 --> 00:01:19,339
But, as we'll see,
for all its strength and power,
36
00:01:19,438 --> 00:01:21,890
many inside the factory system
of Hollywood
37
00:01:21,916 --> 00:01:24,991
seemed not to notice
how fragile it was.
38
00:01:25,287 --> 00:01:26,491
How breakable.
39
00:01:29,988 --> 00:01:36,239
Before the 1920s were over, key filmmakers
were trying to break the bauble.
40
00:01:38,160 --> 00:01:42,956
Investment in cinema increased
10-fold in the late teens and 20s.
41
00:01:43,314 --> 00:01:45,506
Hollywood became an industry.
42
00:01:46,607 --> 00:01:49,542
The money often came from the
east coast bankers.
43
00:01:50,237 --> 00:01:53,665
On the west coast it was spent
by a series of production bosses
44
00:01:53,667 --> 00:01:56,892
working class, Jewish businessmen.
45
00:01:56,894 --> 00:02:00,588
Adolph Zukor, a Hungarian
immigrant and fur trader,
46
00:02:00,614 --> 00:02:04,162
set up famous players,
which would become Paramount.
47
00:02:07,011 --> 00:02:11,118
Four Canadian Polish brothers
set up Warner bros.
48
00:02:13,005 --> 00:02:17,330
A brash Russian called
Louis B. Mayer, ran MGM.
49
00:02:18,702 --> 00:02:22,541
They built big boring bunkers
called 'sound stages',
50
00:02:22,568 --> 00:02:27,507
so that filming could move indoors,
into the dark, to control this...
51
00:02:29,486 --> 00:02:30,279
Light!
52
00:02:33,755 --> 00:02:38,610
This scene in Citizen Kane shows
that Hollywood could work wonders with light.
53
00:02:42,445 --> 00:02:45,278
The beams make the library
look like a sepulcher.
54
00:02:45,611 --> 00:02:48,041
The documents gleam.
55
00:02:50,683 --> 00:02:53,554
Hollywood set up
a production line system
56
00:02:53,580 --> 00:02:56,583
the way that the 'Model T'
Ford motor car was assembled.
57
00:02:58,347 --> 00:03:03,033
In Japan, at the time,
directors led the production process,
58
00:03:03,059 --> 00:03:08,775
but in Hollywood it was production bosses
like Zukor and Mayer and Warner.
59
00:03:09,458 --> 00:03:14,303
Below them, in the movie barns,
writers would concoct stories.
60
00:03:14,743 --> 00:03:20,126
Talent scouts would find new starlets
in coffee shops or magazines.
61
00:03:20,567 --> 00:03:25,147
Set designers in the boring buildings
would invent magnificent buildings.
62
00:03:27,847 --> 00:03:31,265
This is what legendary Hollywood designer
William Cameron Menzies
63
00:03:31,291 --> 00:03:33,707
thought Baghdad might look like.
64
00:03:34,140 --> 00:03:38,281
Inhuman in scale.
Elegant and decorative.
65
00:03:44,327 --> 00:03:48,129
Costume designers conjured
lifestyles and selves.
66
00:03:48,561 --> 00:03:51,400
And got to know the bodies
of their stars.
67
00:03:53,155 --> 00:03:55,867
This is one of Marilyn Monroe's dresses.
68
00:03:57,540 --> 00:04:03,064
Make-up artists came up with new types
of foundation and eyelash and look.
69
00:04:03,635 --> 00:04:07,336
This is the room and table where
Marilyn Monroe went blonde.
70
00:04:09,610 --> 00:04:15,874
Engineers devised new technology.
Lights to illuminate hair.
71
00:04:16,221 --> 00:04:24,196
To make eye lashes cast shadows on the
face of Marlene Dietrich in Desire.
72
00:04:24,199 --> 00:04:28,528
Dollies on which to move the camera,
to make the image glide.
73
00:04:32,232 --> 00:04:36,926
The image glided in Gone with the Wind
as if blown by the wind,
74
00:04:36,952 --> 00:04:40,152
away from the lovers and the sunset.
75
00:04:45,040 --> 00:04:49,092
And new cameras themselves.
Beautiful objects.
76
00:04:49,732 --> 00:04:54,281
This one, used in World War II.
Half camera, half gun.
77
00:04:55,013 --> 00:04:59,486
This one, from the 1960s:
portable and nosey.
78
00:05:01,644 --> 00:05:03,647
And then the money-men thought:
'wait a minute!
79
00:05:03,673 --> 00:05:06,682
Why don't we buy the screens as well
so we can control
80
00:05:06,682 --> 00:05:09,384
where the films are shown and when?'
81
00:05:10,905 --> 00:05:14,137
And, so, things that were made
in boring buildings,
82
00:05:14,137 --> 00:05:16,715
were shown in grand ones.
83
00:05:22,268 --> 00:05:25,504
The whole point was to
standardize and control.
84
00:05:26,182 --> 00:05:30,586
Actress Joan Crawford's contract
specified when she should go to bed.
85
00:05:31,385 --> 00:05:34,603
Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan
contract fined him
86
00:05:34,603 --> 00:05:38,457
for every pound he weighed over 190 pounds.
87
00:05:39,698 --> 00:05:42,608
Novelist Henry Miller called
Hollywood's production line,
88
00:05:42,608 --> 00:05:46,654
'a dictatorship in which the artist
is silenced.'
89
00:05:47,802 --> 00:05:54,264
It was a dictatorship, and yet
some say there was genius in it.
90
00:05:54,290 --> 00:05:58,986
A genius of sorts, Busby Berkley,
choreographed this fantasy,
91
00:05:58,986 --> 00:06:02,636
Girls in the Snow making
patterns with their moves.
92
00:06:02,636 --> 00:06:05,482
Increasingly abstract.
Geometric.
93
00:06:15,233 --> 00:06:18,434
Stanley Donen, who made
Singin' in the Rain:
94
00:06:18,460 --> 00:06:25,873
The studio system, in my opinion,
didn't really get into the film.
95
00:06:25,873 --> 00:06:31,297
The "studio system" was the
garden, where we all worked.
96
00:06:31,297 --> 00:06:37,133
I mean, there I was at MGM
with a lot of enormously gifted people
97
00:06:37,159 --> 00:06:42,888
and I often think about that.
98
00:06:42,890 --> 00:06:48,450
That idea of having a company
which brought people together
99
00:06:48,450 --> 00:06:51,048
to make money, it's all they were doing.
100
00:06:51,202 --> 00:06:53,765
They weren't doing it
for any other reason.
101
00:06:53,765 --> 00:06:56,449
What was behind it was
an economic thing.
102
00:06:56,449 --> 00:07:00,625
They were a company making money.
Or hoping to make money.'
103
00:07:02,135 --> 00:07:05,485
So the industry was a bauble
but also a garden,
104
00:07:05,511 --> 00:07:08,873
which is what Agnes Demille
called Hollywood a decade earlier.
105
00:07:10,035 --> 00:07:13,060
And what varied flowers grew there!
106
00:07:14,336 --> 00:07:17,210
MGM, for example, which was so
proud of itself
107
00:07:17,210 --> 00:07:20,183
that it filmed
its own Neo-classical buildings,
108
00:07:20,209 --> 00:07:24,219
was said to have
"more stars than there are in heaven."
109
00:07:25,343 --> 00:07:28,394
Its movies had an opulence
and optimism.
110
00:07:29,268 --> 00:07:31,486
In this dance scene in
Singin' in the Rain,
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00:07:31,486 --> 00:07:34,094
even the shadows
have light in them.
112
00:07:42,639 --> 00:07:44,796
Warner brothers was
more streetwise.
113
00:07:45,596 --> 00:07:48,889
Its stars were angels
with dirty faces.
114
00:07:48,891 --> 00:07:51,504
Scenes like this one from
The Maltese Falcon"
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00:07:51,529 --> 00:07:53,194
had a downtrodden hero.
116
00:07:53,220 --> 00:07:54,318
Harder lighting.
117
00:07:54,534 --> 00:07:55,417
Sharper shadows.
118
00:07:55,780 --> 00:07:57,170
Gangster outfits.
119
00:07:57,196 --> 00:07:58,980
Night-time settings.
120
00:08:01,457 --> 00:08:02,020
Murder.
121
00:08:02,203 --> 00:08:03,056
Melodrama.
122
00:08:03,268 --> 00:08:04,452
Movie journalism.
123
00:08:05,536 --> 00:08:09,377
This scene from The Scarlet Empress
shows Paramount's style.
124
00:08:09,617 --> 00:08:10,599
Sparkling.
125
00:08:10,648 --> 00:08:11,644
Champagney.
126
00:08:11,934 --> 00:08:13,532
Costumes on display.
127
00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:14,605
Feminine.
128
00:08:14,792 --> 00:08:15,684
Romantic.
129
00:08:15,913 --> 00:08:16,609
Wry.
130
00:08:16,763 --> 00:08:19,214
More taken by the "veiled" and the east.
131
00:08:21,165 --> 00:08:25,411
Tell me, Alexei.
Are you still fond of me?
132
00:08:25,970 --> 00:08:28,114
Yes, your imperial majesty,
I love you.
133
00:08:29,043 --> 00:08:31,800
The "studio system" was a
capitalist production line.
134
00:08:31,964 --> 00:08:33,872
It was copied around the world.
135
00:08:34,027 --> 00:08:38,227
In India, Mexico, Italy,
Britain, China, Hong Kong,
136
00:08:38,253 --> 00:08:39,977
Korea, and France.
137
00:08:41,254 --> 00:08:45,490
Each of those industries made
formulaic, copycat movies.
138
00:08:46,395 --> 00:08:51,052
But the system also fostered
expertise and taste.
139
00:08:51,773 --> 00:08:54,105
Extravagance and brilliance.
140
00:08:54,833 --> 00:08:57,582
The ghost in the machine
was art.
141
00:09:51,943 --> 00:09:56,735
By the mid-'20s, the boring buildings
were making 700 films a year.
142
00:09:58,794 --> 00:10:01,532
This is one of them,
The Thief of Bagdad.
143
00:10:02,027 --> 00:10:04,026
It could stand for many of them.
144
00:10:08,111 --> 00:10:09,958
It states its theme up front.
145
00:10:10,464 --> 00:10:14,329
A holy man shows
that happiness must be earned.
146
00:10:14,331 --> 00:10:16,419
A tweak of the American dream.
147
00:10:17,389 --> 00:10:19,268
Then a wide shot
of a street scene.
148
00:10:19,775 --> 00:10:23,445
We hardly notice the man lying
at the head height of the merchants.
149
00:10:24,650 --> 00:10:26,937
But then we dissolve inwards
to see him.
150
00:10:27,435 --> 00:10:28,645
We recognize him.
151
00:10:28,885 --> 00:10:31,705
He's the movie's star,
Douglas Fairbanks.
152
00:10:32,364 --> 00:10:33,871
He's also its producer.
153
00:10:34,647 --> 00:10:37,201
He's asleep at the center
of the action.
154
00:10:37,227 --> 00:10:39,554
Unaware that we're looking
at him.
155
00:10:39,556 --> 00:10:41,263
And we dissolve in again.
156
00:10:42,244 --> 00:10:43,252
Soft lighting.
157
00:10:43,254 --> 00:10:44,405
Shallow focus.
158
00:10:44,478 --> 00:10:45,199
Make-up.
159
00:10:45,330 --> 00:10:46,747
A certain femininity.
160
00:10:47,858 --> 00:10:50,443
But then he steals
a man's wallet.
161
00:10:50,421 --> 00:10:53,312
Our beautiful, dreaming hero
is a thief.
162
00:10:53,338 --> 00:10:55,906
The passer-by exits screen right.
163
00:10:56,192 --> 00:10:57,967
Notices his wallet is missing.
164
00:10:58,179 --> 00:11:00,790
Cut to Doug, who looks
screen right.
165
00:11:01,222 --> 00:11:03,061
The camera doesn't
cross the line.
166
00:11:03,377 --> 00:11:06,512
We know he's looking at his victim.
Smiling.
167
00:11:07,416 --> 00:11:11,340
In just 90 seconds the film
has told us its theme:
168
00:11:11,592 --> 00:11:13,099
Romantic and American.
169
00:11:13,639 --> 00:11:15,561
Introduced us to a society.
170
00:11:16,824 --> 00:11:18,087
Then a scene.
171
00:11:21,783 --> 00:11:23,103
Then an individual.
172
00:11:23,535 --> 00:11:27,264
Seduced us with style:
The poetics of lighting.
173
00:11:27,736 --> 00:11:29,605
Amused us with character.
174
00:11:29,920 --> 00:11:31,397
A likable rogue.
175
00:11:31,423 --> 00:11:33,763
A human being like us,
but more glamorous
176
00:11:33,789 --> 00:11:35,213
and with more exciting life.
177
00:11:37,786 --> 00:11:40,204
It makes the space very clear.
178
00:11:41,094 --> 00:11:43,557
We're not confused
about where we are.
179
00:11:44,913 --> 00:11:46,581
The story kicks in, of course.
180
00:11:46,952 --> 00:11:49,039
The thief has broken
into a palace.
181
00:11:49,471 --> 00:11:51,276
He hears that a Princess
is there.
182
00:11:51,732 --> 00:11:53,890
Glimpses her fairytale bed.
183
00:11:54,603 --> 00:11:56,043
Will he go down to look at her?
184
00:11:56,295 --> 00:11:56,890
No.
185
00:11:57,546 --> 00:11:58,238
No.
186
00:11:58,902 --> 00:11:59,804
Maybe.
187
00:12:17,564 --> 00:12:18,325
No.
188
00:12:24,867 --> 00:12:25,897
Yes.
189
00:12:27,040 --> 00:12:29,266
We can't wait to see her either.
190
00:12:33,867 --> 00:12:35,952
The curl of the fantasy balcony.
191
00:12:36,792 --> 00:12:39,538
The elegant attenuation
of her mosquito net.
192
00:12:40,153 --> 00:12:42,183
His trousers are see through now.
193
00:12:46,588 --> 00:12:47,920
He looks through the net.
194
00:12:48,244 --> 00:12:49,208
His shadow.
195
00:12:49,852 --> 00:12:53,947
Hollywood cinema, the bauble,
is brilliant at the anticipation of seeing.
196
00:12:53,953 --> 00:12:55,430
The desire to see.
197
00:12:55,432 --> 00:12:56,829
The pleasure of seeing.
198
00:12:58,792 --> 00:13:00,803
The thief falls in love, of course.
199
00:13:01,113 --> 00:13:04,305
And his love sets in motion
the rest of the film.
200
00:13:05,742 --> 00:13:08,240
This sort of movie
is usually called classical,
201
00:13:08,240 --> 00:13:10,949
but really it's romantic.
202
00:13:15,833 --> 00:13:18,716
It became Hollywood's claim
to fame in the '20s.
203
00:13:19,979 --> 00:13:23,120
It's what most people mean
when they even say the word "movie."
204
00:13:23,638 --> 00:13:26,191
It's the mainstream, the bauble.
205
00:13:27,486 --> 00:13:29,211
So Hollywood mainstream films
in the '20s
206
00:13:29,237 --> 00:13:31,581
were entertaining and romantic,
207
00:13:31,587 --> 00:13:33,856
but our theme
is innovation in cinema.
208
00:13:34,295 --> 00:13:35,612
Were they innovative?
209
00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:39,707
Some of the most popular films
of the '20s, the comedies,
210
00:13:39,733 --> 00:13:41,270
most certainly were.
211
00:13:42,344 --> 00:13:46,230
Three filmmakers Buster Keaton,
Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd
212
00:13:46,230 --> 00:13:49,189
were the greatest of the
American comedy directors.
213
00:13:51,299 --> 00:13:53,351
Before them there
was mostly slapstick.
214
00:13:55,047 --> 00:13:57,889
This sight gag on a fast moving train
was typical.
215
00:13:58,075 --> 00:14:00,599
A good cheap laugh using a
bucket of water.
216
00:14:03,628 --> 00:14:06,543
But then came Keaton,
obsessed by the camera.
217
00:14:06,789 --> 00:14:08,795
In this scene from his
film The Cameraman,
218
00:14:08,795 --> 00:14:10,657
he shows that fascination.
219
00:14:15,496 --> 00:14:20,034
Keaton became the greatest comic
image-maker the cinema had yet seen.
220
00:14:27,476 --> 00:14:28,953
He thought like an architect.
221
00:14:29,255 --> 00:14:32,290
In this sequence in a short film
he made in 1920,
222
00:14:32,316 --> 00:14:35,117
th ehouse built becomes
a playpen.
223
00:14:37,138 --> 00:14:38,882
It falls around him.
224
00:14:44,422 --> 00:14:47,289
Keaton helped define
silent cinema.
225
00:14:47,524 --> 00:14:48,750
He just got it.
226
00:14:50,135 --> 00:14:52,693
We've already seen
that he got that in editing,
227
00:14:52,693 --> 00:14:55,627
a cut replaces
one space with another.
228
00:14:56,298 --> 00:15:00,152
Here he jokes about it, as if,
as he's walking down a street,
229
00:15:00,152 --> 00:15:02,053
he's suddenly on a cliff top.
230
00:15:03,851 --> 00:15:07,294
But as this scene shows,
he also got that movies
231
00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:08,617
are about looking.
232
00:15:14,632 --> 00:15:17,269
And he got that they're
brilliant at dare-devilling.
233
00:15:17,565 --> 00:15:20,399
He begins this sequence
with an overhead shot,
234
00:15:20,399 --> 00:15:22,464
to make the building
look really high.
235
00:15:25,874 --> 00:15:29,819
In the story, Buster must jump
between the tall buildings.
236
00:15:30,423 --> 00:15:33,613
He had a set built above
this third street tunnel in L.A.
237
00:15:34,909 --> 00:15:38,199
Right at the very top of this
old archive shot of the tunnel.
238
00:15:40,448 --> 00:15:44,499
Keaton's camera position makes him look
far higher up than he was.
239
00:15:45,296 --> 00:15:47,681
There was a net just below,
out of shot.
240
00:15:47,967 --> 00:15:50,605
Just as well because
Keaton didn't make it
241
00:15:50,605 --> 00:15:52,739
and was badly bruised.
242
00:15:55,832 --> 00:15:58,630
Keaton's inventiveness was
often highly planned,
243
00:15:58,630 --> 00:16:00,577
but sometimes spontaneous.
244
00:16:01,468 --> 00:16:05,130
Here, he saw a train arriving
and so improvised a gag
245
00:16:05,156 --> 00:16:07,386
to make it look like he himself
stopped it.
246
00:16:07,914 --> 00:16:09,591
Then started it again.
247
00:16:16,198 --> 00:16:18,369
One of his greatest
movies, The General,
248
00:16:18,369 --> 00:16:20,758
was a comedy epic about a train.
249
00:16:20,839 --> 00:16:22,973
It's set during
the American civil war.
250
00:16:23,366 --> 00:16:25,524
Buster's a Southern train driver.
251
00:16:25,744 --> 00:16:28,438
A bit eccentric,
obsessed by detail.
252
00:16:30,859 --> 00:16:33,340
In the first half of the film,
he travels north
253
00:16:33,340 --> 00:16:36,781
to the captive's lair,
and rescues his sweetheart.
254
00:16:41,779 --> 00:16:45,039
Every visual joke and
setup in the first half,
255
00:16:45,039 --> 00:16:47,328
is repeated and amplified
in the second,
256
00:16:47,328 --> 00:16:48,965
but in reverse order.
257
00:16:49,292 --> 00:16:50,768
We get the pattern.
258
00:16:50,770 --> 00:16:53,489
We see the next joke
coming and we're laughing
259
00:16:53,489 --> 00:16:55,090
before it even starts.
260
00:16:58,819 --> 00:17:02,574
The climax of the film has been called:
"The most stunning visual event
261
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:06,937
ever arranged for a comedy,
perhaps for any kind of film."
262
00:17:09,690 --> 00:17:15,046
The northern enemy's advancing,
so Keaton sets fire to a bridge.
263
00:17:15,304 --> 00:17:18,321
Their train crosses.
The bridge gives way.
264
00:17:19,266 --> 00:17:20,845
This is no trick shot.
265
00:17:21,136 --> 00:17:23,456
The locomotive and the bridge
were real.
266
00:17:25,796 --> 00:17:28,817
The wreck of the train
was visible for years to come.
267
00:17:30,522 --> 00:17:36,081
Such scale, such sublime, was a
key element of silent film.
268
00:17:36,889 --> 00:17:38,103
Labor was cheap.
269
00:17:38,395 --> 00:17:40,270
Wall street hadn't crashed.
270
00:17:41,097 --> 00:17:44,359
Imaginations were extravagant
and uncapped.
271
00:17:44,843 --> 00:17:48,991
Studios were not yet afraid of
the size of director's dreams.
272
00:17:50,912 --> 00:17:54,364
Keaton's dreams outstripped
his box office.
273
00:17:55,483 --> 00:17:58,145
He was eventually sacked by MGM.
274
00:18:00,703 --> 00:18:04,070
He hit the bottle and lived
in a trailer in a car park
275
00:18:04,070 --> 00:18:06,033
beside his former studio.
276
00:18:13,964 --> 00:18:16,576
He was forgotten for years,
277
00:18:16,602 --> 00:18:21,106
but as this rare archive
footage of him shows,
278
00:18:21,132 --> 00:18:22,781
Keaton was joking 'til the end.
279
00:18:23,113 --> 00:18:27,845
This little cigarette routine shows
he still had the urge to improvise.
280
00:18:28,798 --> 00:18:34,280
In 1965, at the Venice film festival,
he got a standing ovation.
281
00:18:34,622 --> 00:18:36,794
He died the next year.
282
00:18:39,999 --> 00:18:43,522
Amongst the scores of filmmakers
who were influenced by Keaton
283
00:18:43,522 --> 00:18:46,441
is Palestine's, Elia Suleiman.
284
00:18:50,823 --> 00:18:55,319
This scene shows that Sulieman,
like Keaton, filmed in deadpan.
285
00:18:55,832 --> 00:18:59,906
He keeps back from the action.
And finds grumpiness funny.
286
00:19:16,445 --> 00:19:19,358
Buster Keaton only
once shared the screen
287
00:19:19,384 --> 00:19:23,089
with our next great silent film
comedian, Charlie Chaplin.
288
00:19:23,563 --> 00:19:25,359
In this scene in Limelight,
289
00:19:25,385 --> 00:19:29,209
Chaplin shows that whilst he was
less into the camera than Keaton,
290
00:19:29,209 --> 00:19:32,026
he was far more into
body movement.
291
00:19:53,135 --> 00:19:55,813
Chaplin thought like a dancer
and a vaudevillian.
292
00:19:57,026 --> 00:20:01,748
Here he rehearses a comic movement
before filming it in costume.
293
00:20:26,795 --> 00:20:29,846
Actor and producer
Norman Lloyd knew Chaplin
294
00:20:29,846 --> 00:20:35,071
and, also, Alfred Hitchcock, who was born
not far from Chaplin in London.
295
00:20:37,416 --> 00:20:40,204
'Hitch came from
a middle class family.
296
00:20:40,204 --> 00:20:44,152
His father was a poultry
dealer, fish and poultry,
297
00:20:44,152 --> 00:20:50,926
and Hitch always had an aspiration
to be part of that world.
298
00:20:51,375 --> 00:20:55,629
Charlie came out of the direst
poverty that you can imagine.
299
00:20:55,753 --> 00:20:57,917
Unbelievable poverty.
300
00:20:58,708 --> 00:21:01,056
I mean, stuff like he
and his brother Sydney,
301
00:21:01,056 --> 00:21:04,805
who was his half-brother,
302
00:21:04,831 --> 00:21:08,525
stealing fruit, rotten fruit.
303
00:21:08,577 --> 00:21:10,824
They would know
where the wagon was
304
00:21:10,850 --> 00:21:12,858
with fruit that was going
to be dumped.
305
00:21:12,858 --> 00:21:15,486
They'd go and get that fruit.
Eat that fruit.
306
00:21:16,882 --> 00:21:22,539
His mother being put
into an asylum and out.
307
00:21:22,541 --> 00:21:23,837
In and out.
308
00:21:24,311 --> 00:21:26,247
I think his father
was a drinker.
309
00:21:26,574 --> 00:21:32,468
Charlie had such an upbringing
that it's in the movies.'
310
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:37,021
And never more so than
in his picture, The Kid,
311
00:21:37,047 --> 00:21:41,090
which recreated the rooms and
relationships of Chaplin's childhood.
312
00:21:41,375 --> 00:21:42,598
Cold mornings.
313
00:21:42,719 --> 00:21:43,968
Worn out bedding.
314
00:21:44,147 --> 00:21:48,029
Life in a London garret,
with a bath on the wall.
315
00:21:48,959 --> 00:21:51,900
Chaplin plays a version of his
by now famous character,
316
00:21:51,900 --> 00:21:55,766
a penniless tramp, who thinks
he's a gentleman dilettante.
317
00:21:56,369 --> 00:21:58,842
Who finds an orphan boy
and brings him up.
318
00:22:03,264 --> 00:22:05,238
The boy starts to work
for his dad.
319
00:22:05,238 --> 00:22:07,747
He breaks windows
so his dad can fix them.
320
00:22:10,415 --> 00:22:14,608
Shot in America, of course,
but English style windows and doors.
321
00:22:26,605 --> 00:22:29,872
Eventually, the boy's taken
to an orphanage.
322
00:22:31,798 --> 00:22:37,597
Chaplin coaxed a brilliant performance
from Jackie Coogan as he's taken away.
323
00:22:44,355 --> 00:22:46,550
The film humanized comic cinema.
324
00:22:47,107 --> 00:22:49,694
It D.W. Griffith-ized it,
you could say.
325
00:22:50,315 --> 00:22:53,337
It showed Chaplin's
passionate empathy with the poor.
326
00:22:53,780 --> 00:22:56,085
It was a huge hit
around the world.
327
00:22:56,796 --> 00:22:59,503
Chaplin was cinema's
Charles Dickens.
328
00:23:08,224 --> 00:23:11,596
He built his own studio in L.A.
in the English style
329
00:23:11,596 --> 00:23:14,081
and filmed it in time lapse.
330
00:23:14,578 --> 00:23:17,211
A rare thing to do,
which shows his pride in it.
331
00:23:17,556 --> 00:23:19,765
He had final cut on his films.
332
00:23:20,390 --> 00:23:22,352
His premieres were mobbed.
333
00:23:23,231 --> 00:23:26,052
The studio today looks like
a row of English houses,
334
00:23:26,052 --> 00:23:28,276
plunked in a megalopolis.
335
00:23:35,327 --> 00:23:38,075
A deleted scene from his
film City Lights,
336
00:23:38,075 --> 00:23:42,475
that Chaplin made ten years later,
shows how his mind worked.
337
00:23:42,992 --> 00:23:44,768
He's on a street corner.
338
00:23:44,768 --> 00:23:47,206
A piece of wood is stuck
in an air vent.
339
00:23:47,456 --> 00:23:49,368
Chaplin begins to play with it.
340
00:23:49,368 --> 00:23:50,609
To improvise.
341
00:24:09,123 --> 00:24:11,345
The Soviets thought
of him as a marxist,
342
00:24:11,345 --> 00:24:13,787
but Chaplin was
almost a Jungian too.
343
00:24:13,999 --> 00:24:15,270
A believer in play.
344
00:24:15,545 --> 00:24:16,770
Inspiration.
345
00:24:16,957 --> 00:24:18,798
Finding ideas within yourself.
346
00:24:25,004 --> 00:24:26,967
It's like he's strumming
on the table,
347
00:24:26,967 --> 00:24:29,614
letting his unconscious
do its work.
348
00:24:35,209 --> 00:24:39,683
60 years later, the British director,
Nicholas Roeg, also seemed to try
349
00:24:39,683 --> 00:24:42,916
to show the unconscious lives
of his characters.
350
00:24:44,133 --> 00:24:47,497
'You could be right.
Then again, why spoil the mystery?
351
00:24:48,030 --> 00:24:50,280
The people act cool
with each other,
352
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:55,711
but their hands, filmed in close up,
suggest twitchy mental energy.
353
00:24:58,672 --> 00:25:01,399
Chaplin's deleted scene
is a lovely little poem
354
00:25:01,399 --> 00:25:04,042
about daydreaming
on street corners.
355
00:25:29,388 --> 00:25:32,999
Stanley donen sees ideas
in Chaplin too.
356
00:25:33,541 --> 00:25:38,254
'To be wonderful choreography
it has to have an idea
357
00:25:38,254 --> 00:25:43,133
which overwhelms the
whole production,
358
00:25:43,135 --> 00:25:45,641
or dance, or whatever you'd like
to call it.
359
00:25:45,974 --> 00:25:49,150
And that's what's hard to find.
360
00:25:49,153 --> 00:25:54,971
A great, wonderful, encompassing idea
for the musical number.
361
00:25:54,971 --> 00:25:59,021
Well, the idea of the dictator kicking
the balloon is a great metaphor
362
00:25:59,021 --> 00:26:03,637
because it's Adolf Hitler
making the world his toy
363
00:26:03,637 --> 00:26:09,853
and the image is so spectacular
that that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
364
00:26:09,859 --> 00:26:13,444
If you can come up with
that kind of idea.
365
00:26:13,444 --> 00:26:16,382
But it had to be... First
he was going to...
366
00:26:16,408 --> 00:26:18,831
I don't know how he thought of it,
in what order,
367
00:26:18,833 --> 00:26:22,052
but he was going to make a
film about Adolf Hitler
368
00:26:22,078 --> 00:26:24,071
and he was going to play Hitler.
369
00:26:24,077 --> 00:26:27,013
And how was he going to
make a buffoon of him
370
00:26:27,013 --> 00:26:33,427
but not make him be
the ogre that he was
371
00:26:33,428 --> 00:26:37,180
and that's quite
an accomplishment.
372
00:26:58,807 --> 00:27:00,485
Fascism and ballet.
373
00:27:00,820 --> 00:27:03,891
Who else would have thought
up a scene like this?
374
00:27:06,438 --> 00:27:09,834
No one else in the story of
film combines entertainment,
375
00:27:09,834 --> 00:27:15,535
ideas, movement, improvisation
and politics like Chaplin.
376
00:27:20,287 --> 00:27:24,464
In France in the 1940s Chaplin
inspired Jacques Tati,
377
00:27:24,490 --> 00:27:27,509
but Tati leant forward
and wore short trousers,
378
00:27:27,509 --> 00:27:30,641
where Chaplin leant backwards
and wore long ones.
379
00:27:32,052 --> 00:27:37,430
In Italy, Toto became a huge star,
wearing Chaplin's trademark bowler hat
380
00:27:37,430 --> 00:27:40,433
and with Chaplin's
jabby, confident manner.
381
00:27:41,596 --> 00:27:45,869
And in the massive film industry of
India, this man, megastar and director,
382
00:27:45,869 --> 00:27:51,741
Raj Kapoor, modeled his screen character,
"the tramp," on Chaplin's.
383
00:27:51,750 --> 00:27:52,724
Streetwise.
384
00:27:52,726 --> 00:27:53,799
Plucky.
385
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:54,748
Tipping his hat.
386
00:27:55,107 --> 00:28:00,147
Stealing from the rich.
387
00:28:00,147 --> 00:28:05,525
And in America itself, the great director
Billy Wilder saw Chaplin as his master.
388
00:28:06,365 --> 00:28:10,061
Gloria Swanson explicitly impersonates him
in Sunset Boulevard.
389
00:28:17,214 --> 00:28:20,783
But even a moment like this in
Chaplin's The Great Dictator"...
390
00:28:27,051 --> 00:28:31,544
Was reworked in this scene,
in Wilder's Some like it hot.
391
00:28:36,545 --> 00:28:37,757
Look at that!
392
00:28:38,472 --> 00:28:40,052
Look how she moves!
393
00:28:40,054 --> 00:28:44,398
Chaplin co-founded United Artists,
the studio that made Some like it hot.
394
00:28:45,369 --> 00:28:48,975
The studio was one of the great
foundation stones of Hollywood.
395
00:28:49,201 --> 00:28:52,264
Chaplin was
in American cinema's bloodstream.
396
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,996
But to the country's shame,
it kicked him out in the '50s
397
00:28:56,996 --> 00:28:58,676
because he was a leftist.
398
00:28:59,921 --> 00:29:06,603
'When you work with a man
like Chaplin, or Renoir,
399
00:29:06,629 --> 00:29:08,064
you assimilate.
400
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:10,255
You hope their greatness.
401
00:29:10,748 --> 00:29:14,034
That is to say,
you become part of their world.
402
00:29:14,830 --> 00:29:17,914
And you try to not only
work on that level
403
00:29:17,941 --> 00:29:22,813
but you absorb
something from them.
404
00:29:23,858 --> 00:29:27,860
And you begin to have the
points of view that they have,
405
00:29:27,860 --> 00:29:34,537
not that you've disregarded
your own, but what you bring
406
00:29:34,563 --> 00:29:42,740
is the ability to assimilate
what they're doing.'
407
00:29:46,385 --> 00:29:49,224
The comedian who was most
influenced by Chaplin in the '20s
408
00:29:49,224 --> 00:29:53,311
was the Nebraskan son
of a photographer, Harold Lloyd.
409
00:29:55,128 --> 00:29:57,435
At first Lloyd was too
like Chaplin.
410
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,688
Here he shrugs, wears a frock coat
and sports a moustache.
411
00:30:02,690 --> 00:30:06,819
But then he and his producer
tried him in big black, rimmed glasses.
412
00:30:07,432 --> 00:30:09,498
In those days this was
a nerdy look.
413
00:30:10,086 --> 00:30:13,725
But add in Lloyd's athleticism,
and the flinty courage
414
00:30:13,752 --> 00:30:16,538
that we see here
and you got a ballsy dreamer.
415
00:30:16,776 --> 00:30:18,531
Both aggressive and lyrical.
416
00:30:18,718 --> 00:30:20,093
A jock-nerd.
417
00:30:21,379 --> 00:30:24,596
Lloyd's most influential film,
Safety Last,
418
00:30:24,622 --> 00:30:28,367
ends with one of the most famous
sequences in '20s cinema.
419
00:30:28,817 --> 00:30:31,396
He plays a hick who
pretends to his girlfriend
420
00:30:31,396 --> 00:30:33,635
that he's manager of a store.
421
00:30:34,583 --> 00:30:38,185
In the climax of the film,
as a publicity stunt for the store,
422
00:30:38,211 --> 00:30:41,747
Lloyd, who had vertigo and a
missing thumb and forefinger
423
00:30:41,747 --> 00:30:45,491
on one hand in real life,
climbs the building.
424
00:30:46,524 --> 00:30:53,076
The sequence is a vertical obstacle
race: a bird, a net, a plank, a clock,
425
00:30:53,076 --> 00:30:58,701
a rope, a dog, a mouse, a gun,
and a wind-gauge get in Lloyd's way.
426
00:31:16,211 --> 00:31:18,402
When he finally reaches
the top of the building
427
00:31:18,402 --> 00:31:22,435
the action reaches a crescendo,
and he swoops in an arc
428
00:31:22,435 --> 00:31:24,521
into the arms of his sweetheart.
429
00:31:25,702 --> 00:31:28,626
The climb is a beautiful idea
on film.
430
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:52,989
On the other side of the world,
Japan's great director, Yasujirô Ozu,
431
00:31:52,989 --> 00:31:55,868
was influenced
by the ballsy dreamer.
432
00:31:58,253 --> 00:32:02,006
The students in this film have been
working out how to cheat at exams.
433
00:32:02,219 --> 00:32:07,338
They have Harold Lloyd's
confident silliness, his man-boyishness.
434
00:32:11,283 --> 00:32:14,816
The comedies were the brightest, most
entertaining and innovative things
435
00:32:14,816 --> 00:32:17,257
to come out of
Hollywood in the '20s.
436
00:32:18,803 --> 00:32:22,509
They, and the extravagant romance
of films like The Thief of Bagdad
437
00:32:22,536 --> 00:32:25,870
in all its splendor,
its special effects and sweep,
438
00:32:25,896 --> 00:32:30,122
made Hollywood a major
export industry for America.
439
00:32:32,657 --> 00:32:37,301
But something in its very flickering,
the fact that the bauble was a fantasy,
440
00:32:37,301 --> 00:32:39,198
made it vulnerable.
441
00:32:40,097 --> 00:32:44,040
This architectural dream of Baghdad
isn't the real Baghdad of course.
442
00:32:44,203 --> 00:32:46,225
This is the real Baghdad.
443
00:32:48,485 --> 00:32:51,237
To say so can shatter
the bauble.
444
00:32:51,861 --> 00:32:54,446
Reality can break fantasy.
445
00:32:54,472 --> 00:32:57,081
And in the '20s,
446
00:32:57,107 --> 00:33:00,513
several filmmakers
already realized this.
447
00:33:02,583 --> 00:33:05,808
They wanted to show this:
real life.
448
00:33:05,810 --> 00:33:07,787
Without the costumes
and glitter.
449
00:33:08,374 --> 00:33:09,688
Non-fiction.
450
00:33:10,785 --> 00:33:15,125
In 1921, an Irish-American explorer,
Robert Flaherty,
451
00:33:15,151 --> 00:33:19,207
made the longest non-fiction film
so far in the story of film,
452
00:33:19,349 --> 00:33:21,043
Nanook of the North.
453
00:33:21,996 --> 00:33:23,341
It's set in Alaska.
454
00:33:23,456 --> 00:33:27,023
And has beautiful but conventional
scenic shots like this.
455
00:33:27,163 --> 00:33:30,520
But then it focuses on
one real Itivinuit man,
456
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:32,436
Nanook, and his family.
457
00:33:33,231 --> 00:33:35,430
Nanook of the North
was no travelogue.
458
00:33:35,527 --> 00:33:38,273
It stared into Nanook's face.
459
00:33:38,583 --> 00:33:42,915
It was about his psychology,
his mythic struggle against the elements.
460
00:33:42,893 --> 00:33:47,298
Like Chaplin and D.W. Griffith,
Flaherty was a romantic,
461
00:33:47,298 --> 00:33:53,730
but by using non-actors, non-stars,
no Douglas Fairbanks or Garbo here.
462
00:33:55,133 --> 00:33:57,758
He made the audience
look more ethically.
463
00:34:07,514 --> 00:34:12,019
As it happens, Flaherty
staged this scene and others,
464
00:34:12,045 --> 00:34:16,026
but Nanook of the North
was a huge hit around the world.
465
00:34:18,362 --> 00:34:21,277
People had seen a real
man, a playful father
466
00:34:21,277 --> 00:34:23,785
with a sense of
humor, on screen.
467
00:34:39,598 --> 00:34:42,417
You could buy Nanook
ice cream bars.
468
00:34:42,835 --> 00:34:47,484
Nanook's death, two years later,
of starvation, made headlines.
469
00:34:51,429 --> 00:34:57,080
And so documentary, as an art form,
as a viable genre, was born.
470
00:35:00,774 --> 00:35:04,111
Documentary is often thought
of as merely information
471
00:35:04,111 --> 00:35:09,696
but in fact non-fiction cinema is amongst
the most innovative in the story of film.
472
00:35:11,397 --> 00:35:14,766
Forugh Farrokhzad's Iranian film,
The House is black,
473
00:35:14,766 --> 00:35:17,613
used beautiful tracking
shots to turn a home
474
00:35:17,613 --> 00:35:20,898
for people with leprosy
into a film poem.
475
00:35:31,127 --> 00:35:36,709
In this film essay, Sans soleil,
Chris Marker filmed real places
476
00:35:36,735 --> 00:35:38,259
in Japan and elsewhere.
477
00:35:38,427 --> 00:35:42,433
Then wrote a fictional commentary
in which an imaginary women
478
00:35:42,533 --> 00:35:45,554
quotes from made-up letters
from the filmmaker.
479
00:35:46,433 --> 00:35:50,002
He wrote: "I'm just back from
Hikida, the northern island.
480
00:35:50,547 --> 00:35:54,171
Rich and hurried Japanese
take the plane, others take the ferry.
481
00:35:55,139 --> 00:35:57,718
Waiting. Immobility.
Snatches of sleep.
482
00:35:58,232 --> 00:36:02,345
Curiously all of that makes me
think of a past or future war."
483
00:36:02,924 --> 00:36:07,130
Imagined words on top
of non-fiction pictures.
484
00:36:07,472 --> 00:36:13,251
"That's why I go into
so much trouble when I got back.
485
00:36:15,943 --> 00:36:20,529
'Cause I was in the mindframe
of well, just come back
486
00:36:20,555 --> 00:36:22,704
from a place where everyone
wants me dead."
487
00:36:24,096 --> 00:36:26,355
And director Brian Hill and
and poet Simon Armitage
488
00:36:26,355 --> 00:36:29,377
interviewed this man about
his war experiences,
489
00:36:29,377 --> 00:36:31,780
then turned his
words into poems,
490
00:36:31,780 --> 00:36:36,267
then had him speak the poems
to make his memories magical.
491
00:36:36,798 --> 00:36:40,746
Exit wounds or burns to the face.
You're just soft in the head.
492
00:36:42,897 --> 00:36:48,566
And the British army isn't the place
for a lying bastard or basket case.
493
00:36:52,835 --> 00:36:55,929
Watch him now.
Watch him all the time.
494
00:36:56,908 --> 00:37:00,862
In the '60s, Jørgen Leth
made this short documentary
495
00:37:00,862 --> 00:37:02,120
The perfect Human.
496
00:37:02,203 --> 00:37:04,879
In a documentary made
nearly 40 years later,
497
00:37:04,879 --> 00:37:09,863
director Lars Von Trier asked
Leth to remake the original
498
00:37:09,863 --> 00:37:16,449
five times, each time
with a startling new challenge.
499
00:37:21,858 --> 00:37:25,239
All these are innovative high
points in the story of film,
500
00:37:26,058 --> 00:37:29,820
and show that documentary
directors, from Flaherty onwards,
501
00:37:29,820 --> 00:37:31,729
were really co-directors.
502
00:37:32,055 --> 00:37:36,318
The other half of the directing team
was real life itself.
503
00:37:39,761 --> 00:37:43,252
Back in L.A. in the '20s,
maybe it was seeing documentaries
504
00:37:43,252 --> 00:37:46,185
like Nanook of the North
that led our next filmmaker
505
00:37:46,185 --> 00:37:49,976
to use realism to undermine
the Hollywood fantasy.
506
00:37:51,723 --> 00:37:55,672
A director called Erich Von Stroheim
took on the establishment.
507
00:37:56,607 --> 00:38:00,590
Here he filmed himself square on,
looming out of the dark.
508
00:38:00,697 --> 00:38:01,528
Grinning.
509
00:38:01,554 --> 00:38:02,671
Scarred.
510
00:38:02,785 --> 00:38:08,193
"Eric Von Stroheim was one of
the few legitimate geniuses
511
00:38:08,193 --> 00:38:11,683
of the early silent days.
512
00:38:12,166 --> 00:38:21,032
He was a man of such vision
and he was so great a poet and an artist
513
00:38:21,058 --> 00:38:24,606
that he found nothing
but trouble in Hollywood.
514
00:38:24,606 --> 00:38:28,541
Stroheim's drive to realism
was more obsessive than Flaherty's.
515
00:38:28,625 --> 00:38:30,790
Here he even shows an actress
516
00:38:30,816 --> 00:38:33,287
how to do a simple thing
like comb her hair.
517
00:38:33,457 --> 00:38:35,358
A small detail in the scene.
518
00:38:36,376 --> 00:38:40,109
This is his gigantic fifth film,
Greed.
519
00:38:40,696 --> 00:38:42,420
The man on the right
is a dentist.
520
00:38:42,705 --> 00:38:44,389
His wife wins the lottery.
521
00:38:49,262 --> 00:38:53,185
In the original prints, the money
was hand tinted yellow.
522
00:38:59,568 --> 00:39:01,346
As she gets obsessively greedy,
523
00:39:01,346 --> 00:39:04,378
so her husband becomes
drunken and penniless.
524
00:39:04,718 --> 00:39:05,391
He beats her.
525
00:39:14,323 --> 00:39:17,666
Stroheim shows her agony,
her smallness.
526
00:39:28,927 --> 00:39:30,483
Eventually the man
murders his wife
527
00:39:30,483 --> 00:39:33,522
and, in this famous climax
shot in death valley,
528
00:39:33,522 --> 00:39:37,508
also kills a rival
who put him out of business.
529
00:39:38,162 --> 00:39:40,866
By now the yellow,
the color of money,
530
00:39:40,866 --> 00:39:43,346
has flooded the whole world
of the story.
531
00:39:48,976 --> 00:39:54,768
And, as the man is handcuffed
to the body, so he himself must perish.
532
00:40:01,614 --> 00:40:06,096
The story alone shows Stroheim's contempt
for Hollywood romance, for the bauble.
533
00:40:06,961 --> 00:40:08,904
As did his techniques.
534
00:40:09,650 --> 00:40:13,123
He shot every scene of the
novel by Frank Norris,
535
00:40:13,149 --> 00:40:14,840
on which the film was based.
536
00:40:15,264 --> 00:40:17,174
Nine months of shooting.
537
00:40:20,441 --> 00:40:23,703
Sometimes, as here,
in baking heat.
538
00:40:24,071 --> 00:40:26,052
Actors pushed to their limits.
539
00:40:26,055 --> 00:40:29,146
A budget of $1.5 million.
540
00:40:36,507 --> 00:40:39,319
The finished movie ran 7 hours.
541
00:40:39,715 --> 00:40:44,077
Stroheim was the Emile Zola
or Dostojevski of cinema.
542
00:41:00,279 --> 00:41:05,696
Cinematographer Carl [...] :
'Early in his life he was visited
543
00:41:05,696 --> 00:41:09,795
by such very great humiliation.
544
00:41:10,054 --> 00:41:16,421
Such deep, inward, psychic
wounds that there came in him
545
00:41:16,421 --> 00:41:22,757
an insane desire to use
his genius as a weapon.
546
00:41:25,197 --> 00:41:27,733
MGM hated the results.
547
00:41:27,973 --> 00:41:30,690
Stroheim's ultra-realism became
a stigma.
548
00:41:31,148 --> 00:41:33,563
He didn't get to direct
many more films.
549
00:41:33,710 --> 00:41:39,359
Here, in 1948, he returns to his home
city of Vienna to direct a film,
550
00:41:39,385 --> 00:41:40,627
but nothing came of it.
551
00:41:41,124 --> 00:41:46,214
In 1950, he saw the cut version of
Greed, and cried.
552
00:41:46,771 --> 00:41:48,820
He said that the film was dead.
553
00:41:52,122 --> 00:41:55,307
In the same year, Stroheim
played the protective butler
554
00:41:55,307 --> 00:41:57,861
in Billy Wilder's
Sunset Boulevard.
555
00:42:01,706 --> 00:42:06,892
In this famous scene, Wilder shows
fictional movie star Norma Desmond
556
00:42:06,892 --> 00:42:09,124
watching one of her old movies.
557
00:42:10,051 --> 00:42:15,642
The clip is from a sublime, extravagant
real movie from the 1920s, Queen Kelly.
558
00:42:16,469 --> 00:42:19,644
It was directed, way back then,
by none other
559
00:42:19,644 --> 00:42:23,211
than the sublime, extravagant,
Erich Von Stroheim.
560
00:42:23,370 --> 00:42:27,042
For complicated reasons the movie
never saw the light of day.
561
00:42:30,125 --> 00:42:33,767
Three years after Von Stroheim's
Greed, another MGM film
562
00:42:33,767 --> 00:42:39,123
tried to portray '20s America with far
more realism than romantic cinema.
563
00:42:40,143 --> 00:42:42,905
It became the greatest pre-Wall Street crash
564
00:42:42,905 --> 00:42:45,606
social problem picture of its time.
565
00:42:47,006 --> 00:42:50,956
The Crowd tells the story
of an ordinary New York couple.
566
00:42:51,470 --> 00:42:53,689
They have a child, but she dies.
567
00:42:54,923 --> 00:42:58,414
In this heartbreaking scene,
the father thinks his dead daughter
568
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:02,379
is merely sleeping, and so
tries to hush street noise
569
00:43:02,379 --> 00:43:04,919
so that it won't
disturb her slumber.
570
00:43:10,930 --> 00:43:14,858
The Crowd's director,
King Vidor, met James Joyce in Paris.
571
00:43:15,042 --> 00:43:18,917
He adored D.W. Griffiths' ideasy
epic Intolerance.
572
00:43:19,253 --> 00:43:22,698
He was that rare Hollywood beast,
an intellectual.
573
00:43:24,129 --> 00:43:28,847
His films almost never feature villains,
and were written mostly by women.
574
00:43:33,466 --> 00:43:37,254
Vidor pushed realism in acting
beyond the Hollywood norm.
575
00:43:37,713 --> 00:43:41,697
Here he films the leading actress
in the crowd in static shot,
576
00:43:41,697 --> 00:43:45,163
a longish take,
no fancy clothes or set.
577
00:43:45,611 --> 00:43:47,818
Just her growing despair.
578
00:44:24,657 --> 00:44:28,873
"The crowd" was the first movie
to use New York extensively as a location.
579
00:44:29,598 --> 00:44:31,549
Vidor used hidden cameras.
580
00:44:32,020 --> 00:44:36,463
He cast an unknown actor,
James Murray, instead of a star.
581
00:44:37,550 --> 00:44:40,564
To show the scale of the office
where the husband worked,
582
00:44:40,564 --> 00:44:43,430
he designed this magnificent sequence.
583
00:44:43,864 --> 00:44:49,983
An overhead studio crane shot finds
John among the other identical desks.
584
00:44:51,492 --> 00:44:56,997
Billy Wilder repeated it in The Apartment,
a bitter-sweet reworking of Vidor's film.
585
00:44:59,159 --> 00:45:01,946
We dissolve through
to Wilder's everyman,
586
00:45:01,946 --> 00:45:05,408
played by Jack Lemon
at the very center of the frame.
587
00:45:06,867 --> 00:45:10,187
And Orson Welles used the same
visual idea in The Trial,
588
00:45:10,187 --> 00:45:14,501
exaggerating it by craning
upwards and using small people,
589
00:45:14,501 --> 00:45:18,392
and even dolls, and smaller
desks in the background
590
00:45:18,392 --> 00:45:20,329
to force the perspective.
591
00:45:22,188 --> 00:45:28,268
MGM was uneasy about the crowd's refusal
to romanticize ordinary New York life.
592
00:45:28,777 --> 00:45:31,973
They made Vidor shoot
seven different endings
593
00:45:31,973 --> 00:45:34,071
in various shades of optimism.
594
00:45:34,972 --> 00:45:40,154
'They say for a studio tuned
to glamour pictures and happy endings,
595
00:45:40,180 --> 00:45:43,515
which it was for then,
and many years afterwards.
596
00:45:43,662 --> 00:45:49,713
To have a realistic picture
which put the spotlight
597
00:45:49,739 --> 00:45:53,445
on marriage
and on any kind of American life.
598
00:45:53,843 --> 00:45:56,459
And then, you can't have
a happy ending on that.
599
00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:01,421
It just wouldn't fit.
But the studio didn't know.
600
00:46:01,992 --> 00:46:04,397
They were lost.
601
00:46:04,814 --> 00:46:07,115
What sort of how to end this
picture happily?
602
00:46:07,497 --> 00:46:11,566
So we made actually seven
endings and tried it out.
603
00:46:11,592 --> 00:46:16,070
Seven previews with the various
endings and finally I came up
604
00:46:16,072 --> 00:46:19,011
with the ending where he's
lost again in the crowd
605
00:46:19,011 --> 00:46:22,369
and the camera moves
back, back, back.
606
00:46:33,155 --> 00:46:37,207
The Crowd sums up a lot
about cinema of the '20s and '30s.
607
00:46:37,464 --> 00:46:41,503
It showed mass society emerging,
it focused on the everyman,
608
00:46:41,503 --> 00:46:43,098
as French films would do.
609
00:46:43,542 --> 00:46:46,761
And showed the kinetic energy
of cities themselves.
610
00:46:46,787 --> 00:46:50,657
Their rhythms and compositions,
like the German movies
611
00:46:50,657 --> 00:46:53,109
of Fritz Lang and
Walter Ruttmann.
612
00:46:55,475 --> 00:46:58,163
And the Soviet films
of Dziga Vertov.
613
00:47:12,989 --> 00:47:17,530
In the Soviet Union itself in the '20s,
this wonderful film played
614
00:47:17,530 --> 00:47:21,121
with the rebellious idea
of realism and cities.
615
00:47:21,959 --> 00:47:28,334
We're on Mars. It's all angles,
diagonals, modernist costumes.
616
00:47:29,717 --> 00:47:36,680
This is queen Aelita. She's shown earth
for the first time and sees a city.
617
00:47:47,697 --> 00:47:48,745
A battleship.
618
00:47:54,672 --> 00:47:57,365
Then, a focus pull
to a balcony in Moscow.
619
00:48:02,996 --> 00:48:07,785
The queen has glimpsed something real,
earth, and she wants it.
620
00:48:21,510 --> 00:48:24,798
We'll get to the famous Soviet
films of the '20s soon,
621
00:48:24,798 --> 00:48:29,964
but those by this director,
Yakov Protazanov, are quite unlike them.
622
00:48:32,228 --> 00:48:35,260
Protazanov worked at the same time
as the director of this film,
623
00:48:35,260 --> 00:48:36,596
Yevgeni Bauer.
624
00:48:37,611 --> 00:48:42,439
A scholar studies in his room.
Handsome side lighting.
625
00:48:43,432 --> 00:48:47,658
The scholar's aunt arrives.
Bauer uses an open door
626
00:48:47,684 --> 00:48:50,051
to create a slit on screen,
like a Vermeer painting.
627
00:48:53,317 --> 00:48:55,888
Later, we're in the scholar's study.
628
00:48:56,928 --> 00:49:00,003
Daringly for the time,
a main source light
629
00:49:00,029 --> 00:49:02,686
is in the shot, here
in the foreground.
630
00:49:07,287 --> 00:49:08,641
Bravely natural.
631
00:49:10,279 --> 00:49:13,625
Later, the scholar sees a
beautiful actress on stage,
632
00:49:13,625 --> 00:49:19,534
then, astonishingly, gets
a letter from her, asking to meet.
633
00:49:21,145 --> 00:49:22,817
He waits for her in the snow.
634
00:49:23,075 --> 00:49:27,212
She arrives in the background of
this shot: a daring composition.
635
00:49:27,238 --> 00:49:29,211
Filmed in natural light.
636
00:49:51,171 --> 00:49:55,104
And then the actress dies
and the scholar begins to dream of her.
637
00:49:57,591 --> 00:50:01,704
Here, in a field, she walks
into a beam of intense light.
638
00:50:21,541 --> 00:50:23,806
At the end of the film,
on his deathbed,
639
00:50:23,806 --> 00:50:28,094
exhausted with lamenting,
the scholar's aunt consoles him.
640
00:50:29,909 --> 00:50:33,835
Then Bauer dissolves
from nighttime blue to black and white.
641
00:50:34,490 --> 00:50:37,029
The ghost of the actress
is in the room too.
642
00:50:37,435 --> 00:50:40,046
And so the scholar stirs
once more.
643
00:50:41,083 --> 00:50:44,857
His aunt can't see the actress
of course and becomes upset.
644
00:50:58,257 --> 00:51:01,471
Where romantic cinema
was usually optimistic,
645
00:51:01,497 --> 00:51:04,149
these early Russian films
were laments.
646
00:51:04,409 --> 00:51:07,712
Pessimistic in a way,
about the realism of grief
647
00:51:07,712 --> 00:51:09,891
and loss and longing.
648
00:51:16,832 --> 00:51:19,050
You'd think that films like
Nanook of the North
649
00:51:19,050 --> 00:51:20,996
and Greed and The crowd
650
00:51:20,996 --> 00:51:24,782
and those of Yevgeni Bauer would
be the last word in realism
651
00:51:24,782 --> 00:51:27,726
in cinema at this time, but no.
652
00:51:29,822 --> 00:51:35,118
One profoundly serious Danish filmmaker
challenged romantic and fantasy cinema
653
00:51:35,118 --> 00:51:37,696
with such deeply felt
realism that he was
654
00:51:37,696 --> 00:51:40,204
a one man reformation.
655
00:51:40,593 --> 00:51:44,085
Undercutting the emotionalism
of mainstream cinema
656
00:51:44,085 --> 00:51:46,384
with a spiritual spareness.
657
00:51:47,513 --> 00:51:50,641
Look at this scene from
The Passion of Joan of Arc.
658
00:51:53,638 --> 00:51:59,305
Joan, the 15th century French catholic girl,
who was accused of witchcraft,
659
00:51:59,331 --> 00:52:02,326
has just signed a
statement denying God,
660
00:52:02,326 --> 00:52:03,499
to save her life.
661
00:52:20,893 --> 00:52:24,810
The actress, Marie Falconetti, had
never been in a movie before,
662
00:52:24,810 --> 00:52:26,512
nor would she again.
663
00:52:28,791 --> 00:52:30,872
She's filmed only in close up.
664
00:52:32,119 --> 00:52:33,582
Wears almost no make-up.
665
00:52:34,035 --> 00:52:35,596
You can see her freckles.
666
00:52:36,198 --> 00:52:38,670
Her eyelashes are matted
with tears.
667
00:52:39,951 --> 00:52:43,968
Falconetti's hair was cropped
just before this scene was shot.
668
00:52:44,839 --> 00:52:46,769
The filming was done in silence.
669
00:52:47,092 --> 00:52:51,411
Such an atmosphere on the set
that even some of the electricians cried.
670
00:52:52,163 --> 00:52:53,930
Look at the lighting and focus.
671
00:52:54,467 --> 00:52:56,038
No depth to the image.
672
00:52:56,273 --> 00:52:57,724
Nothing in the background.
673
00:53:00,445 --> 00:53:02,580
No set or shadows.
674
00:53:03,571 --> 00:53:06,355
The walls were painted pink
to remove their glare,
675
00:53:06,355 --> 00:53:09,707
so as not to detract
from falconetti's face.
676
00:53:11,539 --> 00:53:16,917
The set designer, Hermann Warmm,
painted the shadows in Caligari.
677
00:53:21,306 --> 00:53:25,605
The film was directed in France
by a Dane, Carl Theodor Dreyer.
678
00:53:26,528 --> 00:53:29,464
He was brought up
in a strict protestant family.
679
00:53:31,256 --> 00:53:33,575
Falconetti and the others
are speaking.
680
00:53:34,478 --> 00:53:36,618
Dreyer had them say
the actual words
681
00:53:36,618 --> 00:53:40,172
that were spoken at the trial
nearly 500 years earlier.
682
00:53:40,756 --> 00:53:43,640
He thought that this gave
the scene conviction.
683
00:54:07,049 --> 00:54:09,673
The '90s maverick Lars Von Trier:
684
00:54:10,459 --> 00:54:12,538
Dreyer is fantastic.
685
00:54:14,296 --> 00:54:15,255
Why?
686
00:54:15,255 --> 00:54:20,161
He... The same thing that
he did with the décor,
687
00:54:20,187 --> 00:54:21,948
he also did with the
script, you know?
688
00:54:21,948 --> 00:54:26,492
He started with a very thick script
and then he kind of reduced and reduced.
689
00:54:26,842 --> 00:54:33,311
I don't know what he did
but it had this monumental feeling of course,
690
00:54:33,311 --> 00:54:38,460
after reducing for many years, it's
like a very good soup, you know,
691
00:54:38,486 --> 00:54:40,963
that's been reducing
for a long time.
692
00:54:42,831 --> 00:54:49,175
I don't know why he's great
but I think that goes for everybody.
693
00:54:49,175 --> 00:54:50,923
Why is Tarkovsky great?
694
00:54:50,923 --> 00:54:54,704
It's really difficult to say,
but it was, for me,
695
00:54:54,704 --> 00:54:58,166
to see his films were
kind of a revelation.
696
00:54:58,500 --> 00:55:05,152
So it's really... You should be
thankful that it's difficult to say
697
00:55:05,178 --> 00:55:08,511
why people are great,
because it's just something
698
00:55:08,537 --> 00:55:14,623
that you feel very strongly and
if you don't feel it strongly
699
00:55:14,649 --> 00:55:16,261
then they're not great.
700
00:55:18,749 --> 00:55:23,062
Dreyer was born out of wedlock,
adopted, and brought up a Lutheran.
701
00:55:23,321 --> 00:55:27,603
He lived here and went
to churches like this.
702
00:55:28,193 --> 00:55:31,502
Though he didn't believe in God,
the purity and plainness
703
00:55:31,502 --> 00:55:35,978
of Lutheran churches seemed
to have formed Dreyer's inner eye.
704
00:55:36,660 --> 00:55:39,694
He is the master
of pared down décor.
705
00:56:59,788 --> 00:57:05,953
Even in his first film, The president,
he seems to want to simplify and purify
706
00:57:05,979 --> 00:57:07,587
his images in a protestant way.
707
00:57:18,276 --> 00:57:21,341
Sets at the time
were usually cluttered, like this.
708
00:57:23,026 --> 00:57:25,586
Soon he started to film
on misty days.
709
00:57:25,672 --> 00:57:28,746
Or into the light
to soften his imagery.
710
00:57:29,236 --> 00:57:32,052
His shots became paler, whiter.
711
00:57:35,584 --> 00:57:40,717
His haunting vampire movie Vampyr,
features shadows against a white wall.
712
00:57:48,462 --> 00:57:50,841
They have a life of their own.
713
00:57:56,496 --> 00:58:00,430
And, in its famous ending, a
vampire's accomplice dies
714
00:58:00,430 --> 00:58:03,423
by suffocating in white flour.
715
00:58:05,908 --> 00:58:10,342
Dreyer's utterly spare use of
whiteness was wildly rebellious.
716
00:58:10,344 --> 00:58:13,670
Hollywood romantic cinema was
supposed to be decorative.
717
00:58:13,672 --> 00:58:14,780
Full of detail.
718
00:58:14,782 --> 00:58:16,398
Not blank.
719
00:58:18,441 --> 00:58:22,575
No other director in the story of
film cared so much about whiteness,
720
00:58:22,575 --> 00:58:25,645
its simplicity,
its spirituality.
721
00:58:26,583 --> 00:58:30,891
At the end of his film Ordet,
"the word," a woman comes to life
722
00:58:30,891 --> 00:58:34,473
in a white, entirely
undecorated room.
723
00:58:57,159 --> 00:59:02,157
In Dreyer's last film, many years later,
a woman believes so completely
724
00:59:02,157 --> 00:59:05,452
in the power of love
that he films her as
725
00:59:05,452 --> 00:59:09,150
if through a white
scrim, as if in heaven,
726
00:59:09,176 --> 00:59:10,837
and she says this:
727
00:59:39,265 --> 00:59:41,812
Dreyer's seriousness was
deeply unfashionable
728
00:59:41,812 --> 00:59:46,390
and, so, in the '50s,
not getting his films made,
729
00:59:46,556 --> 00:59:48,303
he managed this cinema.
730
00:59:53,359 --> 00:59:57,650
The Danish film institute now
has a study center dedicated to his work.
731
01:00:22,323 --> 01:00:26,085
It's hard not to see Dreyer's
radical reduction of set and decor
732
01:00:26,085 --> 01:00:30,474
in Lars Von Trier's completely
set less film Dogville.
733
01:00:33,945 --> 01:00:35,562
734
01:00:35,588 --> 01:00:38,422
This was the opposite
of romantic Hollywood cinema.
735
01:00:38,550 --> 01:00:43,355
A million miles away from the decorative
splendor of The T hief of Bagdad.
736
01:00:45,472 --> 01:00:48,104
Martha, need I repeat,
we don't need the organ.
737
01:00:48,812 --> 01:00:51,581
We can be spiritual without singing
or reading from the Bible.
738
01:00:52,534 --> 01:00:55,024
It's almost seven.
Don't forget your bell now.
739
01:00:56,507 --> 01:01:00,257
This is the original screenplay
from Dreyer's film Joan of Arc.
740
01:01:02,286 --> 01:01:06,187
He sketched an idea for an image
in the film in the margin.
741
01:01:12,154 --> 01:01:16,602
Dreyer had purged silent cinema
of its spectacle its decoration,
742
01:01:16,602 --> 01:01:19,024
its action, its bauble.
743
01:01:19,381 --> 01:01:22,612
What was left was
a girl facing her God.
744
01:01:23,112 --> 01:01:24,375
Facing the camera.
745
01:01:25,739 --> 01:01:29,666
Years later, France's great
maverick director, Jean-Luc Godard,
746
01:01:29,666 --> 01:01:35,485
had his lover and muse, Anna Karina,
go to the cinema, in his film Vivre sa Vie.
747
01:01:36,090 --> 01:01:39,342
The film she saw was
The Passion of Joan of Arc.
748
01:01:48,249 --> 01:01:52,503
Dreyer's Scandinavian spiritualism
and fatalism was a universe away
749
01:01:52,503 --> 01:01:54,704
from this place: Hollywood.
750
01:01:56,015 --> 01:01:58,876
Escapist, romantic movies
were what most people saw
751
01:01:58,902 --> 01:02:00,986
in movie palaces like these.
752
01:02:01,523 --> 01:02:03,723
Places you'd go after
a hard day's work
753
01:02:03,723 --> 01:02:05,160
to forget your troubles.
754
01:02:05,419 --> 01:02:08,122
To see what utopia
might feel like.
755
01:02:16,618 --> 01:02:20,582
The realist directors of the '20s
hardly got a look in in these places.
756
01:02:21,020 --> 01:02:24,059
But they'd seen something
brilliant in the movies,
757
01:02:24,085 --> 01:02:29,078
the ability to capture reality
and make it splendid and moving.
758
01:02:30,255 --> 01:02:31,751
And this was just the start.
759
01:02:32,273 --> 01:02:36,434
Filmmakers in Germany, France,
Russia, Japan, and China
760
01:02:36,434 --> 01:02:39,211
would see other great things
in the filmstrip.
761
01:02:41,112 --> 01:02:47,658
Their discoveries would make the 1920s
the greatest decade in the story of film.
63009
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