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22
00:00:10,213 --> 00:00:12,776
America. The end of the 20s.
23
00:00:12,802 --> 00:00:15,101
The world is changing fast.
24
00:00:16,112 --> 00:00:17,807
The wall street crash.
25
00:00:18,124 --> 00:00:23,823
The great depression,
which would last for 12 years, begins.
26
00:00:24,592 --> 00:00:27,918
The movie world upended
at the end of the 20s too.
27
00:00:28,313 --> 00:00:30,867
Sound cinema was taking off.
28
00:00:31,029 --> 00:00:37,292
Talking pictures sold ten million
more tickets a year than silent cinema.
29
00:00:37,297 --> 00:00:39,062
There was money in sound.
30
00:00:39,219 --> 00:00:41,089
So movie theatres like this one:
31
00:00:41,089 --> 00:00:46,324
the Palace Theatre in Time Square,
New York, wired for sound.
32
00:00:49,098 --> 00:00:53,562
Filmmaking with sound was
a whole new way of making movies.
33
00:00:57,957 --> 00:01:01,457
Real locations were hard to use now
because someone was bound
34
00:01:01,457 --> 00:01:04,398
to start hammering metal
or digging a road.
35
00:01:05,389 --> 00:01:12,594
So filmmakers were forced back into studios
like this that were re-named sound stages.
36
00:01:13,021 --> 00:01:15,522
What happened in such stages?
37
00:01:16,033 --> 00:01:19,018
This scene from the 1931 film
Her Dilemma [Confessions of a Co-Ed]
38
00:01:19,018 --> 00:01:20,824
shows what happened.
39
00:01:21,748 --> 00:01:25,091
Because recording sound
was suddenly the main thing,
40
00:01:25,091 --> 00:01:27,973
picture became secondary.
41
00:01:28,887 --> 00:01:31,464
When we cut to the close
up of singer Bing Crosby,
42
00:01:31,464 --> 00:01:35,261
the violinist is still playing,
in the exact same position,
43
00:01:35,261 --> 00:01:39,472
slightly awkwardly framed
beside Crosby's face.
44
00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:43,746
This is because it's shot with two cameras,
filming at the same time,
45
00:01:43,746 --> 00:01:46,323
for sound reasons, like TV.
46
00:01:47,610 --> 00:01:52,354
If the close up had been shot single camera
the violinist could have been moved
47
00:01:52,354 --> 00:01:55,194
and the close up would have
looked less cluttered.
48
00:01:55,885 --> 00:01:57,331
And notice the lighting.
49
00:01:57,535 --> 00:02:02,208
It's flatter and more overhead than
we've seen in Hollywood movies so far,
50
00:02:02,208 --> 00:02:04,838
like lighting in
a TV soap opera.
51
00:02:05,115 --> 00:02:09,126
This is because, if you shoot a close up
and a wide shot at the same time
52
00:02:09,126 --> 00:02:11,215
you can't light
them differently.
53
00:02:11,759 --> 00:02:18,539
So at the start of the sound era,
cinema became far less cinematic.
54
00:02:21,694 --> 00:02:25,925
But, again, the story of film
is full of inventive people
55
00:02:25,925 --> 00:02:29,721
with ideas who
overcame these limitations.
56
00:02:30,037 --> 00:02:33,421
Rouben Mamoulian directed opera
and was impatient
57
00:02:33,447 --> 00:02:35,749
with static cinema
and naturalism.
58
00:02:36,229 --> 00:02:41,740
In 1932, Mamoulian made a musical
that was so explosively inventive
59
00:02:41,740 --> 00:02:45,364
that it makes most other films
from the time look creaky.
60
00:02:46,701 --> 00:02:49,632
Love me tonight
is set in Paris.
61
00:02:50,164 --> 00:02:54,283
Mamoulian is so excited
by the new possibilities of sound
62
00:02:54,283 --> 00:02:59,818
that he depicts the morning awakening
of Paris as a kind of emerging symphony
63
00:02:59,818 --> 00:03:02,016
of everyday noises.
64
00:03:33,512 --> 00:03:38,049
Then we meet our main character,
this plucky tailor who will fall in love
65
00:03:38,049 --> 00:03:40,409
with a Princess
who lives in a chateau.
66
00:03:41,069 --> 00:03:43,802
The tailor sings,
isn't it romantic.
67
00:03:46,417 --> 00:03:49,291
This is overheard
by this customer...
68
00:03:52,609 --> 00:03:55,249
Romantic da da dad a da
69
00:03:55,275 --> 00:03:56,371
Taxi!
70
00:03:56,373 --> 00:03:58,283
Oh no, I need some air
71
00:03:58,285 --> 00:04:00,212
Isn't it romantic?
72
00:04:00,953 --> 00:04:03,645
And then picked
up by this composer.
73
00:04:03,647 --> 00:04:05,524
At last I've got a fair!
74
00:04:05,526 --> 00:04:07,535
Railroad station!
75
00:04:07,537 --> 00:04:09,714
A, b, a, b
76
00:04:09,716 --> 00:04:11,858
Who writes it down
as sheet music.
77
00:04:11,860 --> 00:04:13,134
A, b flat
78
00:04:13,135 --> 00:04:15,413
isn't it romantic
79
00:04:15,415 --> 00:04:17,993
da da da da da
80
00:04:17,995 --> 00:04:22,354
And then, turned into
a marching song by these soldiers.
81
00:04:23,460 --> 00:04:29,124
Isn't it romantic...
82
00:04:29,126 --> 00:04:30,970
Then it becomes fiddle music.
83
00:04:36,426 --> 00:04:41,266
And finally, reaches the ears
of the stranded Princess herself.
84
00:04:41,940 --> 00:04:44,913
This was sound
unifying a sequence.
85
00:04:45,109 --> 00:04:47,516
Sound as a metaphor for travel.
86
00:04:47,665 --> 00:04:50,641
Sound as the thing
that cinema follows.
87
00:04:51,067 --> 00:04:54,174
Sound calls, image responds.
88
00:04:54,735 --> 00:04:58,790
Isn't it romantic
89
00:04:58,792 --> 00:05:00,801
music in the night
90
00:05:00,803 --> 00:05:04,753
a dream that can be heard
91
00:05:05,239 --> 00:05:08,108
But Mamoulian was
more inventive yet.
92
00:05:11,001 --> 00:05:16,722
He put the sound of yappy dogs
onto a shot of old ladies to mock them.
93
00:05:23,876 --> 00:05:30,945
He substituted real sound
for metaphorical sound
94
00:05:30,971 --> 00:05:36,536
and, in doing so, helped free directors
from sonic literalness.
95
00:05:40,860 --> 00:05:46,793
So, sound made money for the movie world
and brought new styles to cinema.
96
00:05:47,669 --> 00:05:52,795
But it also helped to standardize films
into types, with recognizable stories,
97
00:05:52,795 --> 00:05:54,824
styles and pleasures.
98
00:05:55,476 --> 00:05:58,321
There were
six such movie genres.
99
00:05:58,634 --> 00:06:03,846
They became the familiar staples of
entertainment cinema for decades to come.
100
00:06:05,112 --> 00:06:07,969
There'd been horror movies
since the 1920s.
101
00:06:08,375 --> 00:06:09,782
The best were German.
102
00:06:10,099 --> 00:06:13,982
This one, The Golem, has
daring diagonal compositions
103
00:06:14,008 --> 00:06:16,444
and beautiful expressionist design.
104
00:06:16,908 --> 00:06:19,708
The Golem has been made
of clay, by a rabbi,
105
00:06:19,708 --> 00:06:23,169
to protect the Jews
from persecution.
106
00:06:24,858 --> 00:06:29,427
James Whale's film Frankenstein,
made in the Universal Studio
107
00:06:29,427 --> 00:06:34,256
in Hollywood in 1931,
borrowed heavily from The Golem.
108
00:06:35,450 --> 00:06:39,612
It realizes that borrowing the
look of German expressionism,
109
00:06:39,612 --> 00:06:44,446
would give popular Hollywood horror
a striking style and mood.
110
00:06:45,599 --> 00:06:49,668
Frankenstein tells the story
of a scientist who makes a monster,
111
00:06:49,668 --> 00:06:54,229
who's then shunned by society
because he's visually repulsive.
112
00:06:54,926 --> 00:06:59,882
In the original novel by Mary Shelly,
the monster speaks frequently.
113
00:07:00,166 --> 00:07:04,400
Whale and his screenwriters
had him hardly speak at all.
114
00:07:06,022 --> 00:07:08,227
Take care,
herr Frankenstein, take care!
115
00:07:09,043 --> 00:07:12,788
Boris Karloff's tender
performance made Frankenstein
116
00:07:12,788 --> 00:07:16,471
studio cinema's
greatest essay in prejudice.
117
00:07:26,704 --> 00:07:34,006
Horror became Universal Studio's trademark,
as its back lot tours for tourists today show.
118
00:07:34,616 --> 00:07:39,841
The success of Frankenstein
added fear to the pleasures of movie going.
119
00:07:41,890 --> 00:07:45,903
The best horror directors
used this fear imaginatively.
120
00:07:46,282 --> 00:07:51,304
In the French film Eyes without a Face
for example, a surgeon's daughter
121
00:07:51,304 --> 00:07:54,852
has a disfigured face,
so she wears a mask.
122
00:07:59,606 --> 00:08:02,750
Emotionless, she seems to float.
123
00:08:07,898 --> 00:08:10,725
We're desperate to see
what's behind the mask.
124
00:08:11,008 --> 00:08:15,012
Horror cinema is often
about the dread of the unseen.
125
00:08:15,421 --> 00:08:20,293
And in the Japanese film Audition
[Odishon] an eerily calm young woman
126
00:08:20,293 --> 00:08:25,530
is angry at an older man
who's been trying to make her his wife.
127
00:08:26,078 --> 00:08:30,230
Her phone rings and then this.
128
00:08:37,457 --> 00:08:40,026
One of the greatest shocks
in cinema.
129
00:08:40,565 --> 00:08:42,766
Our nervous system spasms.
130
00:08:43,361 --> 00:08:46,164
Horror movies get closer
to our nervous systems
131
00:08:46,164 --> 00:08:48,495
than almost any other genre.
132
00:08:49,552 --> 00:08:54,093
Another genre that came of age
in the 1930s was the gangster picture.
133
00:08:55,750 --> 00:08:59,419
Unlike horror films,
these had no European roots.
134
00:09:00,726 --> 00:09:05,308
Alcohol was illegal in America
between 1920 and 1933.
135
00:09:05,288 --> 00:09:11,664
So, gangs of entrepreneurial lawbreakers,
gangsters, ran it between country and city.
136
00:09:11,876 --> 00:09:14,747
Often of Italian or Irish decent.
137
00:09:14,773 --> 00:09:18,300
They structured
their empires like families.
138
00:09:18,829 --> 00:09:23,081
One of the first great gangster pictures
was this one, Public Enemy.
139
00:09:23,123 --> 00:09:26,383
Made just two years
after sound came in.
140
00:09:26,611 --> 00:09:32,093
James Cagney is a sparky, rat-a-tat opportunist,
who's made money running liquor.
141
00:09:32,288 --> 00:09:34,162
This is him and his childhood buddy.
142
00:09:34,326 --> 00:09:35,960
They're always on the alert.
143
00:09:41,302 --> 00:09:45,233
But then the buddy's gunned down
from an opposite building,
144
00:09:45,260 --> 00:09:47,667
beautifully staged
in deep focus.
145
00:09:47,841 --> 00:09:49,433
Cagney runs for cover
146
00:09:49,460 --> 00:10:12,686
but then emerges,
almost smirking.
147
00:10:13,030 --> 00:10:14,925
No grief here.
148
00:10:18,057 --> 00:10:21,135
Cagney, a former dancer,
had charm.
149
00:10:21,715 --> 00:10:26,384
Many organizations in America denounced
the film for indulging this charm.
150
00:10:26,562 --> 00:10:29,877
This was the start
of the moral debate about gangster films
151
00:10:29,877 --> 00:10:32,043
that continues to this day.
152
00:10:32,624 --> 00:10:36,231
Also in the 1930s,
journalist Ben Hecht wrote
153
00:10:36,257 --> 00:10:40,225
and Howard Hawks directed
Scarface, the Shame of the Nation
154
00:10:40,225 --> 00:10:43,645
turning the gangster genre
into Greek tragedy.
155
00:10:44,224 --> 00:10:46,568
This is the end of the film.
156
00:10:46,570 --> 00:10:48,646
A lover's clinch.
157
00:10:48,648 --> 00:10:50,563
And yet they're not lovers,
158
00:10:50,589 --> 00:10:52,234
they're brother and sister.
159
00:10:52,555 --> 00:10:54,177
Why didn't you shoot?
160
00:10:54,179 --> 00:11:01,861
I don't know maybe it's
because you're me and I'm you.
161
00:11:02,069 --> 00:11:03,325
It's always been that way.
162
00:11:03,351 --> 00:11:06,986
Paul Muni is the ultra-violent,
not very bright gangster
163
00:11:07,012 --> 00:11:10,818
with a thick Italian accent,
as if he's just arrived in America.
164
00:11:11,141 --> 00:11:14,935
His eyebrows were thickened
to make him look almost apelike.
165
00:11:17,008 --> 00:11:18,551
She's shot.
166
00:11:19,956 --> 00:11:22,067
He says he's nothing
without her.
167
00:11:22,069 --> 00:11:23,119
You're all I got left!
168
00:11:23,145 --> 00:11:25,390
Little boy, he's gone.
Angelo, he's gone.
169
00:11:25,416 --> 00:11:26,904
I'm no good without you,
Jessica.
170
00:11:26,930 --> 00:11:28,227
I'm no good with myself.
171
00:11:28,228 --> 00:11:29,222
Jessica!
172
00:11:30,884 --> 00:11:31,764
Jessica!
173
00:11:31,958 --> 00:11:33,801
They're out there. They want to get me.
They're all there.
174
00:11:33,827 --> 00:11:35,868
Jessica, they won't give me a chance.
Please!
175
00:11:36,350 --> 00:11:39,184
The tragic neediness
beneath the macho surface.
176
00:11:39,466 --> 00:11:41,612
The smallness of the big man.
177
00:11:42,315 --> 00:11:44,137
Jessica don't go.
Please, Jessica.
178
00:11:44,347 --> 00:11:48,487
Scarface was remade,
with cold brilliance, in 1983.
179
00:11:48,885 --> 00:11:52,742
This time Oliver Stone wrote
and Brian De Palma directed.
180
00:11:53,345 --> 00:11:56,243
He used his
trademark crane shots.
181
00:11:56,951 --> 00:12:01,590
Camonte's now called Montana.
He's again a recent immigrant.
182
00:12:01,592 --> 00:12:04,445
Now, a Cuban thug
dealing cocaine.
183
00:12:05,338 --> 00:12:08,941
The film chimed well
with the consumerist 1980s.
184
00:12:09,064 --> 00:12:11,929
Shiny buildings
and flashy pop music.
185
00:12:17,313 --> 00:12:21,162
In the original film Camonte
dies under a sign that says,
186
00:12:21,162 --> 00:12:23,554
The world is yours.
187
00:12:29,831 --> 00:12:33,583
De Palma takes this moment
and turns it into a baroque scene
188
00:12:33,583 --> 00:12:35,297
in the middle of his film.
189
00:12:48,883 --> 00:12:52,195
His craning camera points
to the irony.
190
00:12:52,726 --> 00:12:54,996
The world is not Montana's.
191
00:12:55,990 --> 00:12:58,488
The world is over for Montana.
192
00:13:09,983 --> 00:13:15,087
Hollywood made 70 gangster films
in the 3 years after 1930 alone.
193
00:13:15,451 --> 00:13:19,805
They influenced cinema
on every continent for decades.
194
00:13:21,111 --> 00:13:25,838
In Japan, in 1954,
The seven Samurai mixed gangster themes
195
00:13:25,864 --> 00:13:30,155
with a traditional Japanese story
of swordsmen and villagers.
196
00:13:30,386 --> 00:13:33,999
Scenes like this,
that were lashed with rain,
197
00:13:34,025 --> 00:13:36,203
looked like they were
drawn in charcoal.
198
00:13:36,524 --> 00:13:37,648
And The seven Samurai
199
00:13:37,648 --> 00:13:41,289
became one
of the most influential films of all time.
200
00:13:45,135 --> 00:13:46,561
Once upon a Time in America
201
00:13:46,561 --> 00:13:49,468
was perhaps
the best gangster film of the lot.
202
00:13:53,810 --> 00:13:56,896
This character, Noodles,
played by Robert De Niro,
203
00:13:56,896 --> 00:14:01,121
had, in his downward look,
the dismay of the movie gangster.
204
00:14:01,325 --> 00:14:07,229
His fascism, victim-hood,
hubris, style, and enigma.
205
00:14:07,599 --> 00:14:09,634
A complex set of ideas.
206
00:14:09,845 --> 00:14:13,892
All deriving from America cinema
of the 1930s.
207
00:14:16,640 --> 00:14:19,263
Musicals, horror films,
and gangster pictures
208
00:14:19,289 --> 00:14:21,188
all exploded in the 30s.
209
00:14:22,188 --> 00:14:24,004
But it was the western
that had been going
210
00:14:24,030 --> 00:14:26,072
from the first decade of cinema.
211
00:14:27,696 --> 00:14:31,222
Most are set between
1860 and 1900.
212
00:14:31,561 --> 00:14:34,930
This scene, from John Ford's
The iron Horse,
213
00:14:34,930 --> 00:14:37,642
shows so much
about the western genre.
214
00:14:38,030 --> 00:14:40,971
It's a landscape film of course,
not a cityscape.
215
00:14:41,280 --> 00:14:46,089
The camera is moving fast,
in a chase scene, a staple of westerns.
216
00:14:46,170 --> 00:14:49,718
Whereas, in gangster pictures,
the camera was often static.
217
00:14:49,979 --> 00:14:53,681
The Iron Horse of the title is,
of course, the railway.
218
00:14:53,777 --> 00:14:57,255
The coming of modernity.
A big theme in westerns.
219
00:14:59,815 --> 00:15:03,949
Ford actually films from the train,
using it as a camera Dolly.
220
00:15:04,226 --> 00:15:10,778
And, of course, the drama is a shoot-out
between white settlers and indigenous Indians.
221
00:15:11,365 --> 00:15:15,988
Nearly all the mob films are
about lawbreakers, in a cynical age.
222
00:15:16,736 --> 00:15:21,845
Many of the best westerns are
about lawmakers, in an idealistic age.
223
00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:27,606
In this much later western by John Ford,
Henry Fonda plays Wyatt Earp.
224
00:15:28,026 --> 00:15:33,852
Here sitting on the right, who's become
Marshall in Tombstone to create the law.
225
00:15:34,127 --> 00:15:38,526
I'm leaving in 30 minutes,
see you around.
226
00:15:42,272 --> 00:15:45,151
The town, society,
is just being born.
227
00:15:45,391 --> 00:15:46,969
For white people at least.
228
00:15:47,564 --> 00:15:51,907
Fonda surveys the town
as if it's virgin territory.
229
00:15:52,462 --> 00:15:54,673
The light's clean and white.
230
00:15:55,548 --> 00:15:59,478
In gangster movies, of course,
the town, the city, is dying.
231
00:15:59,478 --> 00:16:01,200
The world is dark.
232
00:16:02,340 --> 00:16:05,127
No one remembers
the law being made.
233
00:16:11,043 --> 00:16:13,359
Comedy, which had been
the greatest genre
234
00:16:13,359 --> 00:16:17,885
in silent American cinema,
changed course with the coming of sound.
235
00:16:18,289 --> 00:16:20,146
It became feminized.
236
00:16:20,901 --> 00:16:26,377
The first of these new farcical female films
was this one: 20th Century.
237
00:16:26,706 --> 00:16:30,924
A down-at-heel theatre producer
tries to convince his former lover,
238
00:16:30,924 --> 00:16:36,071
who's now a Hollywood star, to return
to Broadway, to revive his career.
239
00:16:36,493 --> 00:16:38,014
But there's only one problem.
240
00:16:38,251 --> 00:16:39,563
They hate each other.
241
00:16:39,709 --> 00:16:41,798
A film of hilarious rows.
242
00:16:42,058 --> 00:16:46,341
$10,000-$15,000 in front of your nose,
your mouth would begin to water,
243
00:16:46,367 --> 00:16:50,156
you'd start drooling and squealing,
gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.
244
00:16:50,170 --> 00:16:53,037
That's right, Oscar. Now get out
before I have the porter
245
00:16:53,063 --> 00:16:54,173
throw you off the train.
246
00:16:54,173 --> 00:16:57,079
You'll see who's going
to be thrown off this train.
247
00:16:57,211 --> 00:17:01,781
John Barrymore, who played the producer,
was a distinguished dramatic actor,
248
00:17:01,781 --> 00:17:04,957
but made a complete idiot
out of himself in this picture.
249
00:17:06,204 --> 00:17:09,435
Wild gestures, mad eyes,
unkempt hair.
250
00:17:11,305 --> 00:17:15,711
Carole Lombard was ever better.
Natural, but fast.
251
00:17:15,713 --> 00:17:17,015
Very fast.
252
00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:19,802
The film's director said:
253
00:17:19,802 --> 00:17:23,840
I told Lombard
that if she acted, I'd fire her.
254
00:17:24,568 --> 00:17:29,154
She would just throw lines at him so fast
that he didn't know what to do sometimes.
255
00:17:29,396 --> 00:17:33,152
It was so fast,
I didn't know what to do sometimes.
256
00:17:33,402 --> 00:17:36,554
This speed was new in cinema.
257
00:17:37,483 --> 00:17:42,667
Bringing up Baby, by the same director,
took the speed, the mayhem, further.
258
00:17:42,970 --> 00:17:46,303
A scientist wants
to buy a dinosaur bone.
259
00:17:46,618 --> 00:17:51,900
A millionaires will help him,
if he travels with her and her pet leopard.
260
00:17:51,926 --> 00:17:53,920
Yes, leopard, called baby.
261
00:17:53,946 --> 00:17:55,886
I don't believe you, Susan.
But you have to believe me.
262
00:17:55,886 --> 00:17:58,521
I've been the victim
of your unbridled imagination once more.
263
00:18:03,317 --> 00:18:05,857
That'll teach you to go round
saying things about people.
264
00:18:06,234 --> 00:18:08,297
Again, a feeble man.
265
00:18:08,488 --> 00:18:10,286
Again, a brassy dame.
266
00:18:10,513 --> 00:18:13,155
Her apartment is
almost entirely white,
267
00:18:13,181 --> 00:18:16,497
so the two characters
and the leopard stand out visually.
268
00:18:16,724 --> 00:18:20,899
Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn
overlapped each other's dialogue.
269
00:18:21,652 --> 00:18:24,520
This had never been done
so emphatically before.
270
00:18:24,667 --> 00:18:27,718
It added to the realism
of film acting thereafter.
271
00:18:27,927 --> 00:18:30,208
Realism and surrealism.
272
00:18:30,558 --> 00:18:34,279
A sparky new combination
in sound cinema.
273
00:18:34,607 --> 00:18:37,340
20th Century and Bringing up Baby
were both made
274
00:18:37,340 --> 00:18:43,001
by one of the most talented studio directors
working in the 1930s, Howard Hawks.
275
00:18:43,246 --> 00:18:46,299
Hawks' nickname was
"the old grey fox",
276
00:18:46,299 --> 00:18:51,209
plainly spoken and slightly gruff
as this interview shows.
277
00:18:51,770 --> 00:18:55,874
I never believed in staying
under contract or being under contract.
278
00:18:55,874 --> 00:19:00,736
I've never been under contract.
Consequently, I can choose.
279
00:19:01,079 --> 00:19:06,278
Or if I like a story that a studio
has, I can say to them in advance:
280
00:19:06,278 --> 00:19:08,343
"I'm going to change it."
281
00:19:08,343 --> 00:19:10,591
And they say, "well, go ahead."
282
00:19:12,548 --> 00:19:16,239
And if you get lucky the way I did, well,
they let you do what you want to do.
283
00:19:16,840 --> 00:19:18,484
And he did.
284
00:19:20,326 --> 00:19:23,489
He made movie icons
that people still remember.
285
00:19:26,728 --> 00:19:31,973
As well as the screwball comedies,
Hawks directed Scarface for Howard Hughes,
286
00:19:33,836 --> 00:19:40,505
The big Sleep, one of the definers of film noir
and with Red River and Rio Bravo,
287
00:19:40,505 --> 00:19:45,760
he became a maker and baker
of rich and beautiful character westerns.
288
00:19:46,293 --> 00:19:49,443
He helped shape
the popular movie genres.
289
00:19:49,926 --> 00:19:53,027
Maybe because he was such
a mix of personalities.
290
00:19:54,025 --> 00:19:58,846
One critic called Hawks, 'the greatest optimist
the cinema has produced'.
291
00:19:59,948 --> 00:20:04,389
Another refers to his
'distinctively bitter view of life.'
292
00:20:06,232 --> 00:20:10,989
Somehow, he's both.
He's at a motocross bike race here.
293
00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:12,722
A very male world.
294
00:20:12,889 --> 00:20:14,053
Living simply.
295
00:20:14,228 --> 00:20:15,557
Sitting on a box.
296
00:20:15,963 --> 00:20:17,757
His son's at the race.
297
00:20:19,044 --> 00:20:23,164
When Hawks heard that his oldest son
was badly injured in a car accident,
298
00:20:23,164 --> 00:20:25,825
he apparently just
kept on filming.
299
00:20:26,342 --> 00:20:30,132
Some say he was anti-semitic,
others that he was bisexual.
300
00:20:30,910 --> 00:20:37,072
Whatever the complexities of his life,
Hawks was a studio director of the purest kind.
301
00:20:37,324 --> 00:20:38,692
Its poster boy.
302
00:20:38,986 --> 00:20:40,727
Its patron Saint.
303
00:20:42,693 --> 00:20:46,911
We've already seen examples of
the fifth Hollywood sound genre
304
00:20:46,937 --> 00:20:48,265
of the 1930s: the musical.
305
00:20:48,574 --> 00:20:52,650
This scene from Gold Diggers of 1933
was choreographed
306
00:20:52,676 --> 00:20:57,053
by one of the most innovative people
in musicals, Busby Berkley.
307
00:20:57,251 --> 00:20:58,410
He'd been in the army.
308
00:20:58,611 --> 00:21:01,762
He loved its marching patterns
and theatricality.
309
00:21:02,078 --> 00:21:06,013
So, in his film, he has soldiers
marching in the rain.
310
00:21:06,403 --> 00:21:10,620
On moving walkways,
to emphasise this theatricality.
311
00:21:11,073 --> 00:21:16,982
The second source of his ideas was this:
he took a 30-minute hot bath every morning.
312
00:21:17,768 --> 00:21:19,998
Looked at the geometry
of a bathroom.
313
00:21:20,286 --> 00:21:22,924
Dreamt up dance routines.
314
00:21:32,843 --> 00:21:42,521
And once he used to love meI was happy then.
315
00:21:42,741 --> 00:21:45,664
In the finale of Gold Diggers of 1933,
316
00:21:45,664 --> 00:21:49,076
a chorus girl sings
about the forgotten men.
317
00:21:49,175 --> 00:21:53,385
Ex-soldiers, who had come back from war,
traumatized.
318
00:21:53,572 --> 00:21:55,779
And who were then hit
by the depression.
319
00:21:56,321 --> 00:21:57,659
A double whammy.
320
00:21:58,301 --> 00:22:01,860
Most Hollywood films of the time
were seen from a man's point of view.
321
00:22:02,032 --> 00:22:06,315
Here, a woman sings about
the humiliation of a generation of men.
322
00:22:06,701 --> 00:22:14,131
Social comment is married with patterned
images, erotic longing, and filmic display.
323
00:22:14,545 --> 00:22:18,394
One of the most innovative moments
in 30s cinema.
324
00:22:24,481 --> 00:22:26,702
A sixth type of film
made in Hollywood,
325
00:22:26,702 --> 00:22:31,178
took the world by storm
in th 1930s: the cartoon.
326
00:22:31,875 --> 00:22:34,704
There'd been animated films
from 1906.
327
00:22:34,859 --> 00:22:40,511
Like this one, drawn in pencil,
black and white, flickering, comic.
328
00:22:41,690 --> 00:22:43,936
And in Germany, 20 years later,
329
00:22:43,962 --> 00:22:49,910
Lotte Reineger used Victorian cutout techniques
to create this remarkable movie
330
00:22:49,936 --> 00:22:52,314
The Adventures of Prince Achmed.
331
00:22:54,865 --> 00:22:59,919
The little metal hinges on this original cut-out
shows how she created the movement.
332
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:06,544
But Walt Disney turned animation
into an internationally popular art form.
333
00:23:08,129 --> 00:23:11,119
He loved Robert Louis Stevenson
and Charlie Chaplin.
334
00:23:12,373 --> 00:23:17,264
In New York, he started working
with a brilliant Dutch draftsman, Ub Iwerks.
335
00:23:17,496 --> 00:23:21,282
They decided to create
a new, likable cartoon character.
336
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:24,266
Disney decided on a mouse.
337
00:23:24,879 --> 00:23:28,909
This is their first Mickey Mouse film,
Plane Crazy.
338
00:23:29,335 --> 00:23:30,288
Black and white.
339
00:23:30,288 --> 00:23:31,982
Simple line drawings.
340
00:23:32,212 --> 00:23:36,966
Mickey, agog, magically changes
a car into an aeroplane.
341
00:23:40,073 --> 00:23:46,761
In 1937, Disney had a worldwide box office hit
with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
342
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:52,350
As snow white was a human character,
not an animal, Disney filmed a real actress
343
00:23:52,350 --> 00:23:57,632
in costume and transcribed
the individual images of her on to paper.
344
00:23:57,773 --> 00:23:59,135
This was a first.
345
00:23:59,616 --> 00:24:03,411
The sort of thing that's done today
with what's called motion capture.
346
00:24:03,705 --> 00:24:06,064
Snow white danced
like a real girl.
347
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:10,656
Gracefully, no jerky action
or distortions of her body.
348
00:24:11,347 --> 00:24:14,343
The result got
standing ovations.
349
00:24:15,384 --> 00:24:17,779
Reviews were raves.
350
00:24:21,707 --> 00:24:26,575
It was painstakingly drawn in buildings
long gone from this street corner.
351
00:24:28,511 --> 00:24:31,221
Disney, it seemed,
could do no wrong.
352
00:24:32,902 --> 00:24:35,629
But gradually his work
became less innovative
353
00:24:35,629 --> 00:24:37,601
and he became more conservative.
354
00:24:40,188 --> 00:24:46,196
After World War II, Disney testified
at the McCarthy anti-communist witch hunts.
355
00:24:46,862 --> 00:24:50,585
His production process changed,
so that drawings were, in effect,
356
00:24:50,585 --> 00:24:52,819
"photocopied" onto film.
357
00:24:53,075 --> 00:24:57,697
This was cheaper but meant
that the dog, window, and cushion
358
00:24:57,697 --> 00:25:02,155
in this scene in 101 Dalmatians
had black lines around them.
359
00:25:06,047 --> 00:25:09,446
The early Disney films had
touches of surrealism
360
00:25:09,446 --> 00:25:11,146
and were technically innovative.
361
00:25:11,589 --> 00:25:15,639
But, as the decades went on,
surrealism and innovation
362
00:25:15,639 --> 00:25:20,790
were gradually replaced by more
conservative techniques and messages.
363
00:25:23,848 --> 00:25:28,398
Horror movies, gangster pictures,
westerns, comedies, cartoons,
364
00:25:28,398 --> 00:25:29,998
Hollywood was agog.
365
00:25:29,998 --> 00:25:33,460
In love with itself
and the world was in love with it.
366
00:25:37,934 --> 00:25:43,730
Here in the most luminous city of the 1930s,
Paris, there were standardized films too.
367
00:25:44,231 --> 00:25:48,862
But the best directors extended cinema
in both the magical direction
368
00:25:48,862 --> 00:25:53,730
of Georges Méliès and beyond
the realism of the Lumière Brothers.
369
00:25:56,571 --> 00:25:58,760
The greatest magician
of French cinema,
370
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:02,457
the poet, and artist Jean Cocteau,
was born here.
371
00:26:02,792 --> 00:26:05,507
In the grand leafy outskirts
of Paris.
372
00:26:06,423 --> 00:26:09,461
In Cocteau's, The Blood of a Poet
[Le sang d'un Poète]
373
00:26:09,487 --> 00:26:14,034
a statue tells a young artist
that to get out of his studio
374
00:26:14,034 --> 00:26:15,900
he must go through a mirror.
375
00:26:16,422 --> 00:26:17,659
So he does.
376
00:26:17,807 --> 00:26:22,614
This unnerving scene where Cocteau
has voices shout as he plunges in.
377
00:26:26,088 --> 00:26:29,702
Not something
that could have been done in silent cinema.
378
00:26:31,328 --> 00:26:35,052
Beyond the mirror he finds
the hotel of dramatic lunacies.
379
00:26:35,052 --> 00:26:40,555
A world, perhaps his unconscious mind,
where gravity doesn't apply.
380
00:26:42,210 --> 00:26:46,162
Cocteau was influenced by Picasso,
the impresario Diaghalev,
381
00:26:46,162 --> 00:26:48,103
and by smoking opium.
382
00:26:50,310 --> 00:26:56,166
In this corridor scene, the set was shot
on its side and the action was reversed.
383
00:26:56,592 --> 00:26:59,731
The simple techniques
of early cinema and surrealism.
384
00:27:02,994 --> 00:27:06,837
Eighty years later, this
scene in Christopher Nolan's
385
00:27:06,863 --> 00:27:09,656
Inception, was under its spell.
386
00:27:10,265 --> 00:27:15,189
This time the corridor was built
in a huge barrel and spun.
387
00:27:18,114 --> 00:27:21,650
As inventive as Cocteau
and even more about youth,
388
00:27:21,650 --> 00:27:27,382
and far more political, are the astounding
30s films of French director Jean Vigo.
389
00:27:28,301 --> 00:27:32,080
Look at this scene, for example,
from Vigo's zero de conduite.
390
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,092
It seems to be snowing inside.
391
00:27:35,598 --> 00:27:39,851
Boys in a repressive boarding school
are having a pillow fight in their dormitory.
392
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,850
Vigo slows the action.
393
00:27:43,415 --> 00:27:46,650
Like Cocteau,
Vigo plays with sound.
394
00:27:46,998 --> 00:27:51,180
His composer wrote this piece
of music to be played backwards.
395
00:27:51,544 --> 00:27:55,347
Again, a brilliant innovation
that came with sound.
396
00:28:00,588 --> 00:28:01,849
The boys riot.
397
00:28:01,875 --> 00:28:04,017
The shoot was fun and chaotic.
398
00:28:05,346 --> 00:28:08,509
The film was seen as
an attack on French schools
399
00:28:08,509 --> 00:28:11,702
and banned until the mid-1940s.
400
00:28:12,448 --> 00:28:17,953
It inspired Lindsay Anderson's film
If, which combined Vigo's radicalism
401
00:28:17,953 --> 00:28:20,090
with the British class structure.
402
00:28:21,283 --> 00:28:24,622
Anderson had his students rebel
from a rooftop too.
403
00:28:25,094 --> 00:28:27,988
But he set his film
in an elite school.
404
00:28:28,469 --> 00:28:34,550
And rather than throwing buckets and books,
Anderson's students had machine guns.
405
00:28:37,515 --> 00:28:41,951
Vigo's next movie, l'Atalante,
had the same non-conformism.
406
00:28:42,056 --> 00:28:43,359
The same wonder.
407
00:28:43,712 --> 00:28:47,274
It's about a woman, Dita Parlo,
who marries a young man.
408
00:28:47,507 --> 00:28:49,659
Joins him on his barge.
409
00:28:49,963 --> 00:28:53,868
Parlo is like a child,
discovering the poetry of the world.
410
00:28:53,868 --> 00:28:55,600
Tenderness and humour.
411
00:28:59,369 --> 00:29:02,147
Vigo filmed on this canal
in Paris.
412
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:09,779
Halfway through the shoot it snowed,
causing continuity problems.
413
00:29:09,779 --> 00:29:13,641
So, Vigo had his brilliant
cameraman, Boris Kaufman,
414
00:29:13,641 --> 00:29:16,606
the brother of Soviet
director Dziga Vertov,
415
00:29:16,606 --> 00:29:22,406
point his camera upwards,
so we see Parlo against the sky.
416
00:29:32,052 --> 00:29:36,332
Parlo soon gets bored
and sets off for the bright lights of Paris.
417
00:29:36,510 --> 00:29:39,973
Her husband swims
in the canal because he's heard
418
00:29:39,999 --> 00:29:42,565
that if you swim
under water and open your eyes,
419
00:29:42,565 --> 00:29:44,978
you see the one you love.
420
00:29:52,064 --> 00:29:56,062
Like Zéro de Conduite,
the response to L'Atalante was turbulent.
421
00:29:56,646 --> 00:29:58,981
But Vigo's aim remains clear.
422
00:30:00,206 --> 00:30:04,840
Many admired its visual beauty
but wanted a more conventional story.
423
00:30:05,725 --> 00:30:10,529
Like Ozu and, later, the French
comedy director Jacques Tati
424
00:30:10,555 --> 00:30:15,687
and the Scottish director Bill Forsyth,
Vigo wasn't interested in plot.
425
00:30:16,115 --> 00:30:20,494
He wanted to show the joyous,
fascinated, uncensored way
426
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,453
in which this woman
was opening up to life.
427
00:30:24,161 --> 00:30:27,075
Alas Vigo's own life
was closing down.
428
00:30:27,078 --> 00:30:29,919
He had leukaemia and died in1934.
429
00:30:30,076 --> 00:30:34,296
Aged just 29, in a building
that used to stand here.
430
00:30:41,675 --> 00:30:46,845
This canal in Paris that Vigo used was
also one of the favourite filming locations
431
00:30:46,871 --> 00:30:50,864
of a writer/director team,
Marcel Carné and Jacques Prévert.
432
00:30:51,817 --> 00:30:56,937
The innovative Carné-Prévert films
of the 30s were about forgotten people
433
00:30:56,963 --> 00:31:00,787
encountering each other
in the bleak morning or evening light.
434
00:31:01,126 --> 00:31:04,055
Coming alive for a moment
in each other's company,
435
00:31:04,055 --> 00:31:07,586
but then retreating
into themselves and their pessimism.
436
00:31:08,303 --> 00:31:12,933
Unemployment in France stood
nearly 1/2 million in 1935.
437
00:31:13,194 --> 00:31:15,193
There was political instability.
438
00:31:15,921 --> 00:31:19,207
Then, of course,
the Nazis marched into Paris.
439
00:31:20,064 --> 00:31:22,741
And the film industry
itself was unstable.
440
00:31:23,403 --> 00:31:29,196
The haunting Carné-Prévert films that
resulted are often called "poetic realist".
441
00:31:30,184 --> 00:31:34,116
Le Quai des Brumes, is one
of the signature poetic realist films.
442
00:31:34,772 --> 00:31:39,991
Jean Gabin is a deserter from the foreign legion,
whose whole life has been bad luck.
443
00:31:40,346 --> 00:31:42,490
He wants to leave France.
444
00:31:42,516 --> 00:31:43,554
Start again.
445
00:31:43,832 --> 00:31:46,197
He gets a lift in a truck
to a port.
446
00:31:46,757 --> 00:31:47,944
It's night time.
447
00:31:48,197 --> 00:31:50,117
The truck's headlights light up
448
00:31:50,117 --> 00:31:50,971
the gloom.
449
00:31:51,585 --> 00:31:54,532
The mist and the dusk
make the world look weary.
450
00:31:55,607 --> 00:31:58,802
Carné had this scene shot
with diffusion on the lens.
451
00:31:59,764 --> 00:32:04,078
Gabin has an expressionless face,
like Humphrey Bogart.
452
00:32:11,061 --> 00:32:14,342
He's alone, except for a dog
that befriends him.
453
00:32:21,122 --> 00:32:23,010
It's a beautiful mood piece.
454
00:32:23,036 --> 00:32:25,519
A film with its eyes lowered.
455
00:32:33,671 --> 00:32:36,895
Where Hollywood characters
looked optimistically upwards
456
00:32:36,895 --> 00:32:41,397
to a new dawn,
writer Prévert's world was tragic.
457
00:32:41,981 --> 00:32:45,686
Quai des Brumes so defined
the mood of France in the 30s,
458
00:32:45,712 --> 00:32:49,930
that a spokesman of the Vichy government,
which sided with the Nazis, said,
459
00:32:49,956 --> 00:32:53,810
"if we have lost the war
it's because of Quai des Brumes".
460
00:32:54,101 --> 00:32:58,782
Director Carné retorted that you
"can't blame a storm on the barometer".
461
00:33:01,025 --> 00:33:03,004
He was a master filmmaker.
462
00:33:03,253 --> 00:33:06,907
As at home in this studio
in Joinville near Paris.
463
00:33:06,907 --> 00:33:09,619
As Howard Hawks
was in Hollywood.
464
00:33:14,135 --> 00:33:15,907
Behind these walls.
465
00:33:15,907 --> 00:33:20,132
And here, at the former Pathé studios,
466
00:33:20,158 --> 00:33:25,453
Carné and his great designer,
Alexander Trauner, conjured worlds.
467
00:33:26,060 --> 00:33:31,781
None was greater, grander than
Les Enfants du Paradis.
468
00:33:34,721 --> 00:33:39,317
Les Enfants du Paradis is set
around a 19th century Parisian theatre.
469
00:33:40,119 --> 00:33:45,917
Its story sweeps through the lives of many
people, including this courtesan, Garance,
470
00:33:45,943 --> 00:33:49,330
who's accused of stealing the watch
of the rich man on the right here.
471
00:33:49,461 --> 00:33:55,914
Baptiste, a mime, sees that she's innocent
and shows what really happened.
472
00:34:09,745 --> 00:34:12,823
Suddenly, Carné introduces music
to the mime.
473
00:34:13,176 --> 00:34:15,292
A street scene becomes theatre.
474
00:34:15,618 --> 00:34:20,185
Jean-Louis Barrault, all in white,
is brilliant at the mime.
475
00:34:31,073 --> 00:34:33,415
And there's a political edge.
476
00:34:33,788 --> 00:34:37,923
His wordless eyewitness account
shows that the rich man is lying
477
00:34:37,923 --> 00:34:42,298
and saves the beautiful
but lowly courtesan.
478
00:34:42,928 --> 00:34:45,261
The mime falls in love with her.
479
00:34:47,355 --> 00:34:51,136
As France was under Nazi control
at the time of its production,
480
00:34:51,136 --> 00:34:55,030
Les Enfants du Paradis
couldn't refer to contemporary reality.
481
00:34:55,279 --> 00:34:58,006
It was enforced escapism,
as it were.
482
00:34:58,997 --> 00:35:00,518
This man knew Carné
and owns the theatre
483
00:35:00,518 --> 00:35:03,947
where some of
Les Enfants du Paradis was shot.
484
00:35:56,263 --> 00:35:59,033
The title of the film,
The Children of Paradise,
485
00:35:59,033 --> 00:36:02,109
refers to the cheap seats in
"the gods of the theatre",
486
00:36:02,135 --> 00:36:03,835
where the poor people are.
487
00:36:06,745 --> 00:36:10,575
From up here you have
a realistic overview of life,
488
00:36:10,575 --> 00:36:14,320
which matches the overview
of Carné and Prévert.
489
00:36:15,271 --> 00:36:19,730
If Carné was a realist and a romantic,
this man, Jean Renoir,
490
00:36:19,730 --> 00:36:23,165
was a great humanist
of French cinema of the '30s.
491
00:36:23,865 --> 00:36:28,106
The veteran actor Norman Lloyd
worked with Renoir in the 40s.
492
00:36:30,369 --> 00:36:34,401
What he wanted
and what you get from his pictures,
493
00:36:34,401 --> 00:36:39,308
we're talking about Renoir, is
the great sense of humanity,
494
00:36:39,308 --> 00:36:42,192
of people vis-a-vis one another.
495
00:36:43,042 --> 00:36:47,936
And something comes off the screen
that you don't see with any other director.
496
00:36:48,740 --> 00:36:56,258
And actually, while Jean had a great visual sense,
a lot of the stuff is just very simply shot.
497
00:36:57,015 --> 00:37:01,230
This scene shows what Lloyd
means about the humanism in Renoir.
498
00:37:01,814 --> 00:37:03,357
It's from his most famous film,
499
00:37:03,383 --> 00:37:04,895
The Rules of the Game.
[La règle du Jeu]
500
00:37:05,164 --> 00:37:09,276
We're in a drawing room of a
chateau, owned by aristocrats,
501
00:37:09,276 --> 00:37:11,693
who know about nothing real life.
502
00:37:12,053 --> 00:37:14,856
These two old friends
discuss love.
503
00:37:15,161 --> 00:37:20,735
Renoir himself plays Octave,
the one in the suit, an unemployed playboy.
504
00:37:20,913 --> 00:37:24,594
The framing, the lighting,
the camera angles are not innovative.
505
00:37:24,910 --> 00:37:29,963
Renoir's camera just seems to observe
the decline and fall of this civilisation.
506
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:34,253
But then, Renoir delivers
the film's famous lines.
507
00:37:36,332 --> 00:37:37,667
And how would this help you?
508
00:37:37,693 --> 00:37:40,766
This would help me having nothing,
not having to search anymore
509
00:37:40,792 --> 00:37:42,588
knowing what's good, what's evil.
510
00:37:43,150 --> 00:37:46,494
Tu comprends, sur cette terre,
il y a quelque chose d'effroyable,
511
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:48,340
c'est que tout le monde
a ses raisons
512
00:37:48,367 --> 00:37:53,040
On the eve of World War II, with the Nazis
breathing down France's neck,
513
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:54,854
this was remarkable.
514
00:37:55,133 --> 00:37:58,078
Film historian, Jean Michel Frodon:
515
00:37:58,078 --> 00:38:03,517
The most meaningful sentence
from Renoir is
516
00:38:03,543 --> 00:38:05,600
"everyone has his own reasons."
517
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:14,211
Meaning that it's not about good and bad,
future and past, you know, things with capital.
518
00:38:14,211 --> 00:38:20,158
There is no capital letters
in Renoir vocabulary.
519
00:38:20,158 --> 00:38:24,114
And this is what makes
this film so alive
520
00:38:24,140 --> 00:38:28,371
but also so difficult
to deal with to a certain extent,
521
00:38:28,397 --> 00:38:32,368
because you cannot rely
on solid basics like, you know:
522
00:38:32,394 --> 00:38:34,224
who are the good guys
and who are the bad guys?
523
00:38:34,250 --> 00:38:37,524
You know that
there is a fight to be fought
524
00:38:37,505 --> 00:38:41,188
and where we are headed to
and why we are heading there?
525
00:38:41,214 --> 00:38:41,690
No.
526
00:38:41,772 --> 00:38:46,065
Renoir was born in this mansion
in Montmarte in Paris.
527
00:38:47,478 --> 00:38:51,771
His father was the French impressionist painter,
Pierre August Renoir.
528
00:38:52,334 --> 00:38:56,933
Renoir's La grande Illusion,
is all about human balance.
529
00:38:58,201 --> 00:39:02,237
A French officer in a German
World War I prison camp
530
00:39:02,237 --> 00:39:04,272
is befriended by his enemy.
531
00:39:04,431 --> 00:39:08,577
That typecast monster of silent cinema,
Eric Von Stroheim,
532
00:39:08,577 --> 00:39:10,628
who's the German camp commander.
533
00:39:10,842 --> 00:39:14,510
They're the same dying,
aristocratic class.
534
00:39:14,848 --> 00:39:17,222
Renoir frames them equally.
535
00:39:17,821 --> 00:39:20,963
But Stroheim treats
the prisoners decently too.
536
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:24,100
They're French soldiers,
of ordinary background.
537
00:39:24,660 --> 00:39:27,612
They have equal weight
within the frame also.
538
00:39:28,649 --> 00:39:32,889
War films and most genre films
of the 30s usually stereotype
539
00:39:32,915 --> 00:39:38,406
goodies and baddies but Renoir
saw good in each of the pairs of men
540
00:39:38,432 --> 00:39:43,290
and, also, respect
between their very different classes.
541
00:39:43,834 --> 00:39:48,453
He said that he wanted to
"constantly to insert wedges" in his films.
542
00:39:48,695 --> 00:39:50,881
Their design, their world.
543
00:39:51,210 --> 00:39:53,448
As you would
under a wobbly table.
544
00:39:54,081 --> 00:39:57,719
Like Vigo, Renoir disliked
a straight story.
545
00:39:58,518 --> 00:40:02,162
He liked his films to zigzag,
to go off on tangents.
546
00:40:02,341 --> 00:40:05,973
One famous tangent is this scene
in La grande Illusion,
547
00:40:05,999 --> 00:40:10,012
in which the men talk
about Jewish generosity.
548
00:40:34,814 --> 00:40:36,671
Renoir had stopped his plot
549
00:40:36,697 --> 00:40:41,399
for a moment to have the soldiers
discuss decency and goodness.
550
00:40:42,227 --> 00:40:46,252
Having travelled in India,
he had an Asian philosophy.
551
00:40:48,666 --> 00:40:51,743
He said that people create
a veil in their lives
552
00:40:51,743 --> 00:40:55,140
that screens them off
from the joy of the real world.
553
00:40:56,678 --> 00:41:00,956
Jean Renoir films
try to let us glimpse this joy.
554
00:41:03,716 --> 00:41:09,245
But it wasn't only France that was making
great non-genre films in the 1930s.
555
00:41:11,127 --> 00:41:17,110
In 1930 itself, South America made
its first surviving innovative movie.
556
00:41:17,398 --> 00:41:21,325
Mario Peixoto's film Limite,
made in Brazil,
557
00:41:21,351 --> 00:41:25,367
when the director was just 19,
was called "very beautiful"
558
00:41:25,367 --> 00:41:29,082
by the Soviet montage master
Sergei Eisenstein.
559
00:41:29,429 --> 00:41:31,892
A woman sits on a hill, alone.
560
00:41:32,648 --> 00:41:33,734
No dialogue.
561
00:41:33,932 --> 00:41:35,185
No reverse angle.
562
00:41:35,297 --> 00:41:37,047
A series of dissolves.
563
00:41:37,049 --> 00:41:39,048
As if we're walking towards her.
564
00:41:42,523 --> 00:41:44,857
She seems worn down
by something.
565
00:41:45,062 --> 00:41:46,733
The atmosphere's sultry.
566
00:41:46,905 --> 00:41:48,059
Then this.
567
00:41:48,290 --> 00:41:51,752
The camera is lifted
and rushes towards her face.
568
00:41:52,072 --> 00:41:53,515
Hand held.
569
00:41:56,353 --> 00:41:57,608
Then this.
570
00:41:59,475 --> 00:42:01,427
It seems to soar.
571
00:42:05,455 --> 00:42:07,981
When we hear that she's
probably just out of prison,
572
00:42:07,981 --> 00:42:09,839
maybe we understand more.
573
00:42:10,202 --> 00:42:11,631
Maybe she's exhausted.
574
00:42:11,791 --> 00:42:13,837
Traumatized by confinement.
575
00:42:14,243 --> 00:42:16,454
She's beginning to unwind.
576
00:42:18,257 --> 00:42:21,438
The first Brazilian film
was made in 1906.
577
00:42:21,592 --> 00:42:25,444
By the late 20s,
more than 100 features had been made.
578
00:42:25,787 --> 00:42:29,683
Limite seems to have been
the most remarkable and pensive of them.
579
00:42:29,841 --> 00:42:33,871
It refined the ideas of the
French impressionist filmmakers.
580
00:42:34,030 --> 00:42:39,571
Not until the 1950s would
Brazil again make films of such splendor.
581
00:42:40,774 --> 00:42:47,418
And it's in the 1930s that Poland, too,
makes its first major contribution to the story of film.
582
00:42:47,551 --> 00:42:51,383
The country's first movie studio
started production in 1920,
583
00:42:51,383 --> 00:42:56,784
but in 1938,
this very non-genre film made waves.
584
00:42:57,525 --> 00:43:00,932
It was made by Stefan
and Francizka Themerson.
585
00:43:01,735 --> 00:43:05,212
Men carry a mirrored wardrobe
into a forest.
586
00:43:05,192 --> 00:43:07,741
A surreal adventure
that's sometimes lyrical.
587
00:43:08,279 --> 00:43:12,976
The Themersons seem to love to
play with light and exposure,
588
00:43:13,002 --> 00:43:15,152
and it's sometimes experimental.
589
00:43:15,737 --> 00:43:19,611
Off horizontal angles,
reverse action, etc.
590
00:43:21,851 --> 00:43:25,509
Thirty years later, Poland's
most famous filmmaker,
591
00:43:25,509 --> 00:43:30,228
Roman Polanski, seemed to have the
Themersons pioneering film in mind,
592
00:43:30,228 --> 00:43:33,030
for one of his
experimental shorts.
593
00:43:33,993 --> 00:43:37,304
Poland had a hard time in the 1930s,
594
00:43:37,330 --> 00:43:41,625
and then was invaded by
its neighbour, Germany.
595
00:43:48,610 --> 00:43:52,761
Popular German films
of the 1930s tended to be folksy,
596
00:43:52,787 --> 00:43:55,524
about mountains
and music and homeland.
597
00:43:55,823 --> 00:44:01,684
Soon Adolf Hitler's national socialists
banned Jews from working in the film industry.
598
00:44:02,059 --> 00:44:07,173
Into this moral wilderness strode
this filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl.
599
00:44:07,866 --> 00:44:12,186
She used soft light, mists,
mountain landscapes.
600
00:44:18,910 --> 00:44:20,796
Romantic close-ups of herself.
601
00:44:21,299 --> 00:44:26,108
Talented and outrageous,
beautiful and resolute.
602
00:44:27,531 --> 00:44:31,014
Hitler and Reichsminister of
propaganda, Josef Goebbels,
603
00:44:31,014 --> 00:44:34,526
asked Riefenstahl to
film a Nazi party rally.
604
00:44:35,250 --> 00:44:38,135
The result was Triumph of the Will,
[Triumph des Willens]
605
00:44:38,135 --> 00:44:41,654
a documentary of sorts,
which pictured Hitler
606
00:44:41,654 --> 00:44:45,110
and the party almost
in mythic terms.
607
00:44:47,745 --> 00:44:50,732
Riefenstahl was given the
resources that Griffith had
608
00:44:50,732 --> 00:44:54,853
for Intolerance or
Gance for Napoleon.
609
00:45:18,996 --> 00:45:24,993
Her images were geometric,
epic, euphoric, bombastic.
610
00:45:26,854 --> 00:45:33,447
Then, here in the olympic stadium
in Berlin, she filmed the 1936 games.
611
00:45:34,897 --> 00:45:37,189
This is one of the cameras
she used.
612
00:45:37,522 --> 00:45:43,323
She attached them to balloons
and dug others into the ground,
613
00:45:43,349 --> 00:45:46,729
so she could get
at the same level of the athletes.
614
00:45:46,991 --> 00:45:51,184
Zoom lenses, which allow close-ups
to be taken from a distance,
615
00:45:51,210 --> 00:45:55,808
and give the feeling of intimacy
became available around 1932.
616
00:45:56,494 --> 00:46:00,616
Riefenstahl used them
to pick out details in the crowd.
617
00:46:08,897 --> 00:46:13,326
In this diving sequence she cut
before the athletes hit the water,
618
00:46:13,326 --> 00:46:17,730
or reversed the action, or
turned some shots upside down,
619
00:46:17,730 --> 00:46:21,656
to make them soar,
balletic, like a musical.
620
00:46:21,980 --> 00:46:26,726
Hollywood choreographer Busby Berkeley
nicked visual ideas from military marching,
621
00:46:26,726 --> 00:46:31,259
and, in turn, Riefenstahl seemed
to steal ideas from him.
622
00:46:32,061 --> 00:46:36,577
Riefenstahl was interested
in the sublime, something grand and fearful
623
00:46:36,577 --> 00:46:39,094
glimpsed beyond the everyday.
624
00:46:41,784 --> 00:46:44,930
She filmed these people as
if they were Greek gods,
625
00:46:44,930 --> 00:46:49,768
apparently approving of the political
obscenity of her paymasters.
626
00:46:49,970 --> 00:46:55,796
Next to Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock,
Riefenstahl thought in terms of cinema
627
00:46:55,822 --> 00:46:59,252
more than any other filmmaker
of the 30s or 40s.
628
00:46:59,500 --> 00:47:01,728
Though she disputed it
to the end of her life,
629
00:47:01,728 --> 00:47:05,023
she seems to have used people
from concentration camps
630
00:47:05,023 --> 00:47:08,573
as extras in this
film, Tiefland.
631
00:47:10,687 --> 00:47:13,041
Again, using glossy film techniques,
632
00:47:13,067 --> 00:47:16,056
an elaborate tracking shot
and moody lighting.
633
00:47:18,021 --> 00:47:22,623
Even with the coming of modernity and
new ideas about the divided self,
634
00:47:22,623 --> 00:47:25,943
Riefenstahl didn't change
her style one bit.
635
00:47:26,216 --> 00:47:29,317
Her 70s photographs
of African people here,
636
00:47:29,317 --> 00:47:33,537
are similar to her images
of athletes in the 30s.
637
00:47:36,721 --> 00:47:39,035
The story of film
so far in the 30s
638
00:47:39,035 --> 00:47:41,579
has been about the great
American movie genres
639
00:47:41,579 --> 00:47:44,708
versus movie innovation elsewhere.
640
00:47:45,082 --> 00:47:49,164
But then, in London in the 30s,
we meet a man who was
641
00:47:49,164 --> 00:47:53,834
both one of the great genre directors,
and seriously innovative.
642
00:47:55,181 --> 00:47:57,377
His name is Alfred Hitchcock.
643
00:47:57,377 --> 00:48:02,153
You have to remember
that this process of frightening
644
00:48:02,153 --> 00:48:06,393
is done by means
of a given medium.
645
00:48:06,401 --> 00:48:10,509
The medium of pure cinema is
what I believe in.
646
00:48:12,035 --> 00:48:17,140
Is the assembly of pieces
of film to create fright
647
00:48:17,166 --> 00:48:19,912
is the essential part of my job.
648
00:48:20,398 --> 00:48:24,097
Hitchcock became the greatest image maker
of the 20th century.
649
00:48:24,344 --> 00:48:27,260
More significant even
than Pablo Picasso.
650
00:48:27,490 --> 00:48:28,699
How can we say this?
651
00:48:28,984 --> 00:48:30,820
For seven reasons.
652
00:48:32,995 --> 00:48:35,011
The first is
about point of view.
653
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:40,063
In his youth, Hitchcock saw,
here, on Oxford Steet in London,
654
00:48:40,089 --> 00:48:45,522
a phantom ride film... shot with
the camera attached to the front of a tram.
655
00:48:45,816 --> 00:48:47,004
He loved it.
656
00:48:47,030 --> 00:48:50,340
He saw that the camera
could become the eye of a character.
657
00:48:50,738 --> 00:48:55,793
Nearly 50 years later, in this scene
in Hitchcock's dreamy sex film Vertigo,
658
00:48:55,819 --> 00:48:58,680
his camera becomes
the eye of James Stewart,
659
00:48:58,706 --> 00:49:03,702
filming through his windscreen as
Stewart tracks a woman in a green car,
660
00:49:03,728 --> 00:49:05,721
with whom he's obsessed.
661
00:49:14,641 --> 00:49:19,450
The second reason why Hitchcock's images
are great is because of where he was born.
662
00:49:19,668 --> 00:49:20,440
Here.
663
00:49:20,808 --> 00:49:22,661
Essex in england.
664
00:49:25,656 --> 00:49:27,160
A place with a lot of life.
665
00:49:27,847 --> 00:49:32,605
But Hitchcock thought, perversely,
that movies should not be about life.
666
00:49:33,631 --> 00:49:36,214
He said that they're stronger
than realism.
667
00:49:36,966 --> 00:49:39,790
He cut the everyday world
out of his pictures.
668
00:49:41,860 --> 00:49:42,373
Why?
669
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:44,781
Maybe because of this place.
670
00:49:45,801 --> 00:49:49,108
The catholic Jesuit college
where Hitchcock studied.
671
00:49:49,436 --> 00:49:52,268
He said that the Jesuits taught
him a logic
672
00:49:52,268 --> 00:49:56,989
that allowed him to prove the improvable,
for example, that god exists,
673
00:49:56,989 --> 00:50:00,452
which gave his films
an otherworldly logic.
674
00:50:03,130 --> 00:50:07,218
For example in this film:
a decent man is locked up
675
00:50:07,244 --> 00:50:09,082
in the larder of a posh house.
676
00:50:09,180 --> 00:50:10,295
He needs to get out.
677
00:50:10,522 --> 00:50:14,609
So he holds a match
to the house's smoke detector.
678
00:50:14,610 --> 00:50:17,156
His clothes are rumpled
and he gets a bit wet.
679
00:50:18,778 --> 00:50:22,087
But a moment later he's out.
On the street.
680
00:50:22,113 --> 00:50:25,216
Patting himself down,
far less rumpled.
681
00:50:26,306 --> 00:50:29,010
No scenes to show
how he got out.
682
00:50:29,454 --> 00:50:30,969
A story miracle.
683
00:50:32,375 --> 00:50:36,759
Jesuitical logic that would continue
throughout Hitchcock's career.
684
00:50:43,185 --> 00:50:47,067
And the third brilliance of Hitchcock
is his understanding of fear.
685
00:50:48,164 --> 00:50:50,086
That it's in ordinary places.
686
00:50:50,478 --> 00:50:52,708
That it's different from shock.
687
00:50:54,768 --> 00:50:57,506
Look at this scene
in his film about a German
688
00:50:57,488 --> 00:50:59,735
trying to bomb London, Sabotage.
689
00:51:00,366 --> 00:51:02,530
A boy is on a London bus.
690
00:51:05,266 --> 00:51:08,641
Suddenly what he is carrying
explodes.
691
00:51:14,915 --> 00:51:17,136
Well, now everything
seems to be alright.
692
00:51:17,461 --> 00:51:18,779
The boy dies.
693
00:51:18,891 --> 00:51:20,538
Shock and tragedy.
694
00:51:21,096 --> 00:51:23,643
But fear is different to shock.
695
00:51:24,536 --> 00:51:29,714
In Sabotage, Hitchcock tells
us no less than 15 times,
696
00:51:29,740 --> 00:51:36,024
that the boy's package is a bomb and that
it will blow up at 1:45 pm on Saturday.
697
00:51:49,182 --> 00:51:52,729
Fear comes from knowing
that the shock is coming.
698
00:52:01,226 --> 00:52:04,528
Throughout his career, Hitchcock
told us well in advance,
699
00:52:04,528 --> 00:52:07,960
to be scared, and so we were.
700
00:52:11,099 --> 00:52:13,105
Hitchcock worked
in German cinema.
701
00:52:13,306 --> 00:52:16,358
Then came here,
the first film production company
702
00:52:16,358 --> 00:52:18,681
built in Britain by the Americans.
703
00:52:19,331 --> 00:52:21,122
Hitchcock met his wife here
704
00:52:21,148 --> 00:52:25,697
and learnt from the great female
American script-editors who worked here.
705
00:52:26,108 --> 00:52:28,860
Hitchcock's films
were very female.
706
00:52:31,644 --> 00:52:35,896
The fourth reason that Hitchcock was great
was due to his use of close-ups.
707
00:52:36,217 --> 00:52:41,041
More than any director since Eisenstein,
Hitchcock loved close ups.
708
00:52:41,505 --> 00:52:46,293
His great British film
The 39 Steps is obsessed by hands.
709
00:52:50,991 --> 00:52:54,432
That of the mysterious man
with the severed finger,
710
00:52:54,432 --> 00:52:56,715
who knows what the 39 steps are.
711
00:52:58,969 --> 00:53:01,916
The hands of Madeline Carroll,
the reluctant girl
712
00:53:01,916 --> 00:53:06,417
that Hannay gets hand-cuffed to,
as she takes off her stockings.
713
00:53:10,601 --> 00:53:14,192
They're holding hands
in the end.
714
00:53:16,664 --> 00:53:21,118
"Close ups," said Hitchcock,
"are crashes of cymbals."
715
00:53:21,485 --> 00:53:24,287
Dramatic punctuation in a story.
716
00:53:30,152 --> 00:53:34,021
And close ups lead to the fifth reason
why Hitchcock was so innovative.
717
00:53:35,541 --> 00:53:38,701
Where most directors started
with establishing shots
718
00:53:38,701 --> 00:53:44,954
then cut to mid shots then close
ups, to take us into a world gently,
719
00:53:44,954 --> 00:53:47,423
Hitchcock tended to the opposite.
720
00:53:47,649 --> 00:53:50,000
This is the start
of The 39 Steps.
721
00:53:50,646 --> 00:53:53,324
We start with a close up
of a neon.
722
00:53:53,665 --> 00:53:55,365
We don't know where we are.
723
00:53:58,337 --> 00:53:59,705
Then a ticket booth.
724
00:54:05,813 --> 00:54:07,034
Then carpet.
725
00:54:08,033 --> 00:54:09,340
Then feet.
726
00:54:14,116 --> 00:54:15,133
Then a back.
727
00:54:19,894 --> 00:54:22,656
Then the top of a double bass
and a conductor.
728
00:54:25,855 --> 00:54:28,556
Only then do we widen out.
729
00:54:28,682 --> 00:54:30,803
We're in a London theatre.
730
00:54:32,974 --> 00:54:36,837
But we see no cityscape,
no theatre exterior.
731
00:54:37,532 --> 00:54:42,391
The 39 Steps was written here
where Hitchcock lived,
732
00:54:42,417 --> 00:54:44,398
where he had his ideas.
733
00:54:47,649 --> 00:54:50,988
Norman Lloyd produced lots
of Hitchcock's TV shows
734
00:54:50,988 --> 00:54:54,300
and was in this scene
that shows the sixth reason
735
00:54:54,300 --> 00:54:58,067
why Hitchcock was the greatest image-maker
of the century.
736
00:54:59,236 --> 00:55:03,799
We're in America, and Lloyd is hanging
from the statue of Liberty.
737
00:55:06,159 --> 00:55:08,230
It just has the sound
of wind.
738
00:55:10,115 --> 00:55:13,722
You hear the slight...
739
00:55:13,748 --> 00:55:18,474
It isn't the whistle, quite,
it's just the almost murmur of wind.
740
00:55:22,123 --> 00:55:23,629
I'll get your sleeve.
741
00:55:24,443 --> 00:55:29,055
The standard thriller way to play
this scene would be big dramatic music.
742
00:55:29,254 --> 00:55:33,023
Lloyd shouting for help
from the nice guy, Robert Cummings.
743
00:55:34,016 --> 00:55:36,546
But Hitchcock uses no music.
744
00:55:36,732 --> 00:55:38,892
Almost whispered dialogue.
745
00:55:41,545 --> 00:55:42,880
I'll clear you.
746
00:55:44,608 --> 00:55:46,171
I swear I will.
747
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:49,037
I'll clear you.
748
00:55:49,232 --> 00:55:50,532
Hurry up with the rope!
749
00:55:52,177 --> 00:55:54,026
Why so little sound?
750
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:56,618
Because lots of noise
would take away
751
00:55:56,618 --> 00:56:01,188
from the tiny detail of the stitches
on the sleeve loosening.
752
00:56:07,298 --> 00:56:09,718
But, also, because Hitchcock,
753
00:56:09,744 --> 00:56:14,564
who learnt his techniques
in silent cinema, loved silence.
754
00:56:23,930 --> 00:56:24,937
Tell them quick.
755
00:56:25,429 --> 00:56:26,626
The sleeve.
756
00:56:26,847 --> 00:56:28,545
Sleeve.
757
00:56:37,809 --> 00:56:39,274
There was an urgency.
758
00:56:40,010 --> 00:56:42,409
He was pleading
with the guy to save him.
759
00:56:43,889 --> 00:56:46,783
And at the same time
he felt he was falling.
760
00:56:48,130 --> 00:56:57,864
And somehow in trying
to get at Bob Cummings,
761
00:56:57,890 --> 00:57:01,873
he didn't feel
that shouting would do it.
762
00:57:01,873 --> 00:57:06,407
He just felt if he could
give the urgency to him
763
00:57:06,407 --> 00:57:08,976
that he would really save him.
764
00:57:11,569 --> 00:57:14,639
And look at this scene
from Hitchcock's film, Marnie.
765
00:57:16,117 --> 00:57:19,521
It shows the seventh reason
why Hitchcock is great.
766
00:57:20,505 --> 00:57:24,070
Sean Connery is with Tippi Hedren
who plays Marnie.
767
00:57:25,399 --> 00:57:30,258
They're on a cruise
and he wants sex and she doesn't.
768
00:57:31,298 --> 00:57:32,611
No!
769
00:57:34,481 --> 00:57:36,600
So he rips off her gown.
770
00:57:36,940 --> 00:57:38,559
She freezes.
771
00:57:43,133 --> 00:57:44,576
I'm sorry, Marnie.
772
00:57:58,398 --> 00:58:00,038
And what does Hitchcock do?
773
00:58:09,948 --> 00:58:13,059
He cuts to a high angle
for a moment.
774
00:58:15,699 --> 00:58:16,579
A shriek.
775
00:58:21,378 --> 00:58:22,552
Her shriek?
776
00:58:27,696 --> 00:58:31,815
Hitchcock said that where a
close up is a clash of cymbals,
777
00:58:31,815 --> 00:58:34,945
a high level shot is a tremolo.
778
00:58:46,002 --> 00:58:50,171
Back in London, where the studio,
where he made the great British films,
779
00:58:50,171 --> 00:58:53,522
once stood,
there are posh flats now.
780
00:58:54,272 --> 00:59:00,210
And at their centre is a massive sculpture
of Hitchcock as a Buddha.
781
00:59:00,694 --> 00:59:02,733
Wise and inscrutable.
782
00:59:03,777 --> 00:59:09,049
Hitchcock, the great image-maker
and entertainer, would surely have chuckled.
783
00:59:12,816 --> 00:59:17,710
Hitch had a certain physical presence,
as a consequence of that
784
00:59:17,710 --> 00:59:26,843
it came him a certain churchillian,
Buddha-like, masterful presence
785
00:59:26,869 --> 00:59:34,738
when he sat there and he would
just stare at you, as if to say:
786
00:59:34,764 --> 00:59:40,015
"are you sure that what
you're saying makes sense?"
787
00:59:45,414 --> 00:59:49,341
Looking back at the 1930s,
the first decade of sound cinema,
788
00:59:49,341 --> 00:59:53,670
it's clear that the new movie genres became,
at their best,
789
00:59:53,670 --> 00:59:58,245
dazzling inventive friends,
familiar and beloved.
790
00:59:59,258 --> 01:00:03,413
But cinema at the time was full
of haunting strangers too,
791
01:00:03,414 --> 01:00:09,310
uncategorizable directors like Cocteau
and Vigo, the French poetic realists,
792
01:00:09,336 --> 01:00:12,766
brilliant scary talents
like Leni Riefenstahl
793
01:00:12,768 --> 01:00:16,315
and an obsessive trickster
like Alfred Hitchcock.
794
01:00:19,437 --> 01:00:24,011
As the decade came to an end,
as war was declared in Europe,
795
01:00:24,011 --> 01:00:29,112
three films about three women,
debated the roles that pleasure
796
01:00:29,112 --> 01:00:31,742
and escape play in our lives.
797
01:00:32,009 --> 01:00:36,438
Ninotchka is a joyless communist,
who finds love in Paris
798
01:00:36,438 --> 01:00:38,680
and starts dressing
like a Princess.
799
01:00:38,706 --> 01:00:43,841
Comrades, people of the world.
The revolution is on the march.
800
01:00:43,843 --> 01:00:47,561
I know.
Bombs will fall.
801
01:00:47,563 --> 01:00:53,207
Civilisation will crumble.
But not yet please.
802
01:00:53,207 --> 01:00:55,972
Wait!
What's the hurry?
803
01:00:55,948 --> 01:00:57,817
Give us our moment.
804
01:00:57,817 --> 01:01:02,280
She's intoxicated with love,
diamonds, the glittering city,
805
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:05,938
and lit like romantic cinema
of the 1920s.
806
01:01:06,941 --> 01:01:09,021
So happy and so tired!
807
01:01:11,190 --> 01:01:14,252
Like Ninotchka, Dorothy
in The wizard of Oz
808
01:01:14,252 --> 01:01:16,630
lives in a grey reality too.
809
01:01:18,504 --> 01:01:21,854
In this famous moment,
we see the back of an actress,
810
01:01:21,854 --> 01:01:24,614
wearing sepia clothes
in a sepia set.
811
01:01:24,614 --> 01:01:28,589
The door opens from her world
onto a fantastic colour set
812
01:01:28,589 --> 01:01:33,521
and a second actress, Judy Garland,
in blue gingham check,
813
01:01:33,521 --> 01:01:37,745
walks into a land
of apparent pleasure: Oz.
814
01:01:44,664 --> 01:01:47,969
A fantasy world like
Ninotchka's Paris.
815
01:01:51,108 --> 01:01:54,319
Yet Oz is a false dream
for Dorothy.
816
01:01:54,536 --> 01:01:57,684
She comes to understand
that there's no place like home.
817
01:01:57,976 --> 01:02:01,605
As the camera cranes, the
film gently questions
818
01:02:01,605 --> 01:02:04,151
the very 30s idea of escapism.
819
01:02:04,302 --> 01:02:07,304
And here's the third woman
dealing with escapism.
820
01:02:07,539 --> 01:02:11,177
Scarlett O'Hara in
Gone with the Wind is rich and spoilt.
821
01:02:11,475 --> 01:02:16,574
She starts life in a fantasy world
but steps into reality and war.
822
01:02:16,715 --> 01:02:19,859
The rising camera in this
brilliant single shot
823
01:02:19,859 --> 01:02:21,918
shows the scale of the trauma.
824
01:02:22,110 --> 01:02:25,889
The previous two films didn't blame
Ninotchka or Dorothy
825
01:02:25,915 --> 01:02:30,566
for making mistakes about escapism, but
Gone with the Wind's god's eye view
826
01:02:30,566 --> 01:02:32,951
punishes Scarlet for her denial.
827
01:02:33,124 --> 01:02:35,044
She loses everything.
828
01:02:35,545 --> 01:02:38,488
Gone with the Wind is thought of
as one of the most escapist films
829
01:02:38,488 --> 01:02:43,424
ever made yet its content
explicitly attacks escapism.
830
01:02:43,901 --> 01:02:45,896
Its form is another matter.
831
01:02:47,019 --> 01:02:50,549
It created so vivid
an emotional universe.
832
01:02:50,810 --> 01:02:52,956
Its craning camera was so grand.
833
01:02:53,251 --> 01:02:58,668
Its music was so lush,
that the film's bitter pill was sugared.
834
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:06,482
Ninotchka, Dorothy and Scarlett show
that escapism was the main melody in 1939,
835
01:03:06,482 --> 01:03:12,714
but listen carefully and you can hear
the distant drums of war, realism,
836
01:03:12,714 --> 01:03:14,638
and Orson Welles.
71852
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