1.
French comedy films
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French comedy films are comedy films produced in France. Comedy is also the most popular French genre in cinema, comic films began to appear in significant numbers during the era of silent films, roughly 1895 to 1930. The visual humour of many of these silent films relied on slapstick, a very early comedy short was Watering the Gardener by the Lumière brothers. In his native France and throughout the world, Max Linder was a comic feature. Later, when the sound came in 1927, Comedy films took another swing, due to laughter can now be caused not only by the burlesque situations, but also the dialogues. Always a favorite of the public, as well as acclaimed, some were the subject of remakes in other countries and have had great success worldwide, sometimes rewarded with prizes. French comedy films are often social comedies. That is a big difference compared to American comedies, during the Middle Ages, the theater plays in the street, in the form of mystery plays, fabliaux, farces, soties and mimes. Some of these types are more or less inspired by antique survivals genres like Atellan, in France in the 17th century under Louis XIV, the Italian influence and Molière are recognizing the comedy theater as an art in itself and not as a subgenre compared to the tragedy. From the 18th to the 19th century, comedy would go to incorporate opera, Comedy would also go to create the Operetta in the middle of the 19th century. In the beginning of the 20th century, operettas were transformed into musical theatre, Bourvil and Fernandel started as operetta singers, Louis de Funès, started as a music-hall pianist. In 1892, before cinema was created, Émile Reynaud realized several Comedy Cartoons, comic films began to appear in significant numbers during the era of silent films, roughly 1895 to 1930. The visual humour of many of these silent films relied on slapstick, a very early comedy short was Watering the Gardener by the Lumière brothers. In his native France and throughout the world, Max Linder was a comic feature. Georges Méliès, from theatre, created the first studio de cinéma and he also created a lot of silent comedies in which a lot will be destroyed later. He would have an homage in 2011 with the movie Hugo, when the sound came in 1927, Comedy films took another swing, due to laughter can now be caused not only by the burlesque situations, but also the dialogues. In the 1930s, French comedies talked about farmers and villages, the theme of countryside associated to medecine occurs in the film Dr. Knock of 1933, based on the novel Knock by Jules Romains. In this film, Louis Jouvet plays the character Dr. Knock, in A Cage of Nightingales of 1945, a teacher has to face difficult teens
2.
Gaumont Film Company
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The Gaumont Film Company is a French mini-major film studio founded by the engineer-turned-inventor Léon Gaumont, in 1895. It is the first and oldest film company in the world, founded before other studios such as Pathé, Titanus, Nordisk Film, Universal, Gaumont predominantly produces, co-produces, and distributes films, and in 2011, 95% of Gaumonts consolidated revenues came from the film division. The company is becoming a TV series producer with its new American subsidiary Gaumont International Television as well as its existing French production features. Originally dealing in photographic apparatus, the company began producing films in 1897 to promote its make of camera-projector. Léon Gaumonts secretary Alice Guy-Blaché became the motion picture industry’s first female director, from 1905 to 1914, its Cité Elgé studios at La Villette, France, were the largest in the world. The company manufactured its own equipment and mass-produced films until 1907, when World War I broke out, he was replaced by Léonce Perret, who continued his career in the United States a few years later. The company headquarters are in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Gaumont opened foreign offices and acquired theatre chains Gaumont British, which later notably produced several films directed by Alfred Hitchcock such as The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. Along with its competitor Pathé Frères, Gaumont dominated the industry in Europe until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Following the World War I, Gaumont suffered economic losses due to increased competition from American Hollywood productions, in 1925, the studios output had decreased to only 3 films. In addition, Gaumont was unable to pace with the cost of technological changes. Struck by mounting debts in the early 1930s and the effects of the Great Depression, in 1937, the studio ceased production and operated only as a theater and distribution company. The company was purchased by the French corporation Havas in 1938, renamed Société Nouvelle des Etablissements Gaumont, during the later years of World War II, Gaumont was effected by the financial ruin of Frances economy as well as the physical destruction of its facilities. The company ceased production until 1947, the period was to see the return to prominence of Gaumont Studios. On February 2,2000, Philippe Binant, technical manager of Digital Cinema Project at Gaumont, from 1993 to early 2004, Gaumount and Disney made a partnership for producing films for theater distribution. In 2001, Gaumont spun off the division into a joint-venture with Pathé since known as Les Cinémas Gaumont Pathé. Gaumont owns a 34% stake in the entity, which controls a large network in France, Switzerland. As of 2011, this stake is worth €214 million, in 2004, Gaumont continued its development with Pathé to set up another joint-venture, Gaumont-Pathé Archives. Gaumont owns 57. 5% of this entity, which contains newsreels, documentaries, from early 2004 to 2007, the company had a partnership with Sony for producing films and for theater and DVD distribution worldwide
3.
Projection screen
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A projection screen is an installation consisting of a surface and a support structure used for displaying a projected image for the view of an audience. Projection screens may be installed, as in a movie theater, painted on the wall. As in a room or other non-dedicated viewing space. Another popular type of portable screens are inflatable screens for movie screening. Flat or curved screens may be used depending on the used to project the image. Screens can be designed for front or back projection, the more common being front projection systems. In commercial movie theaters, the screen is a surface that may be either aluminized or a white surface with small glass beads. The screen also has hundreds of small, evenly spaced holes to allow air to and from the speakers and subwoofer, rigid wall-mounted screens maintain their geometry perfectly just like the big movie screens, which makes them suitable for applications that demand exact reproduction of image geometry. Such screens are used in home theaters, along with the pull-down screens. Pull-down screens are used in spaces where a permanently installed screen would require too much space. These commonly use painted fabric that is rolled in the case when not used. Fixed-frame screens provide the greatest level of tension on the screens surface. They are often used in theater and professional environments where the screen does not need to be recessed into the case. Electric screens can be mounted, ceiling mounted or ceiling recessed. These are often larger screens, though electric screens are available for theater use as well. Electric screens are similar to pull-down screens, but instead of the screen being pulled down manually, switchable projection screens can be switched between opaque and clear. In the opaque state, projected image on the screen can be viewed from both sides and it is very good for advertising on store windows. Mobile screens usually use either a pull-down screen on a free stand and these can be used when it is impossible or impractical to mount the screen to a wall or a ceiling
4.
Twentieth Century Fox
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Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation is an American film studio currently owned by 21st Century Fox. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios and is located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, the studio was formerly owned by News Corporation. 20th Century Fox is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, in 2015, 20th Century Fox celebrated its 80th anniversary as a studio. Spyros Skouras, then manager of the Fox West Coast Theaters, the studios biggest star, Will Rogers, died in a plane crash weeks after the merger. Its leading female star, Janet Gaynor, was fading in popularity and promising leading men James Dunn, at first, it was expected that the new company was originally to be called Fox-20th Century, even though 20th Century was the senior partner in the merger. However, 20th Century brought more to the bargaining table besides Schenck and Zanuck, the new company, 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, began trading on May 31,1935, the hyphen was dropped in 1985. Schenck became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, while Kent remained as President, Zanuck became Vice President in Charge of Production, replacing Foxs longtime production chief Winfield Sheehan. The company established a training school. The contracts included an option for renewal for as long as seven years. For many years, 20th Century Fox claimed to have founded in 1915. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary, however, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915. The companys films retained the 20th Century Pictures searchlight logo on their credits as well as its opening fanfare. Also on the Fox payroll he found two players who he built up into the studios leading assets, Alice Faye and seven-year-old Shirley Temple, favoring popular biographies and musicals, Zanuck built Fox back to profitability. Thanks to record attendance during World War II, Fox overtook RKO, while Zanuck went off for eighteen months war service, junior partner William Goetz kept profits high by going for light entertainment. The studios—indeed the industrys—biggest star was creamy blonde Betty Grable, in 1942, Spyros Skouras succeeded Kent as president of the studio. Together with Zanuck, who returned in 1943, they intended to make Foxs output more serious-minded. During the next few years, with pictures like The Razors Edge, Wilson, Gentlemans Agreement, The Snake Pit, Boomerang, and Pinky, Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books such as Ben Ames Williams Leave Her to Heaven, starring Gene Tierney and they also made the 1958 film version of South Pacific
5.
Warner Bros.
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Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, however, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
6.
UGC (cinema operator)
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UGC was originally an exclusively French operator, created in 1971 from a merger of several regional cinema companies. The name originally stood for Union Générale Cinématographique, but today only the initials are used, out of Paris, in some cities like Nantes or Lyon, a part of this diversified programming does exist, but mostly UGC cinemas are like Pathé and Gaumont cinemas. Its competitors include EuroPalaces, Cinéville, CGR, MK2 and Kinepolis Group, UGC was formerly also a leading UK cinema owner following the purchase of Richard Bransons Virgin Cinema Group, which it purchased in October 1999. In December 2004, the business was sold to Blackstone Group and this rebranding was completed in September 2005. Cineworld has retained certain aspects of the UGC offer, including the Unlimited season ticket, originally introduced by Virgin, UGC Fox Distribution — joint venture with 20th Century Fox Bawden, Tom
7.
Film industry
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The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i. e. Though the expense involved in making movies almost immediately led film production to concentrate under the auspices of standing production companies, advances in affordable film making equipment, and expansion of opportunities to acquire investment capital from outside the film industry itself, have allowed independent film production to evolve. Hollywood is the oldest film industry of the world and the largest in terms of box office gross, other centers include Hong Kong and in Europe the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany are the countries that lead movie production. The worldwide theatrical market had a box office of US$38.3 billion in 2015. The top three continents/regions by box office gross were, Asia-Pacific with US$14.1 billion, North America with US$11.1 billion and Europe, distinct from the centers are the locations where movies are filmed. Because of labor and infrastructure costs, many films are produced in other than the one in which the company which pays for the film is located. For example, many U. S. movies are filmed in Canada, many Nigerian movies are filmed in Ghana, while many Indian movies are filmed in the Americas, Europe, Singapore etc. The cinema of the United States, often referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. The United States cinema is the oldest film industry in the world which originated more than 121 years ago and also the largest film industry in terms of revenue. Hollywood is the nexus of the U. S. film industry with established film study facilities such as the American Film Institute, LA Film School. However, four of the six film studios are owned by East Coast companies. Today, American film studios collectively generate several hundred movies every year, only The Walt Disney Company — which owns the Walt Disney Studios — is fully based in Southern California. And while Sony Pictures Entertainment is headquartered in Culver City, California, its parent company, most shooting now takes place in California, New York, Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina. Hollywood is the most popular film industry with the highest number of screens, between 2009-2015, Hollywood consistently grossed $10 billion annually. Jenkins used his Phantoscope to project his film before an audience of family, friends, the film featured a vaudeville dancer performing a Butterfly Dance. Jenkins and his new partner Thomas Armat modified the Phantoscope for exhibitions in temporary theaters at the Cotton States Exposition in the fall of 1895, the Phantoscope was later sold to Thomas Edison, who changed the name of the projector to Edisons Vitascope. Nestor Studios was Hollywoods first movie studio, founded on October 27,1911 It was built by David Horsley for Nestor Motion Picture Company and it was then owned and operated by David Horsley and his brother, William Horsley. The first motion picture stage in Hollywood was built behind the tavern, other East Coast studios had moved production to Los Angeles, prior to Nestors move west
8.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
9.
Nouvelle Vague
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The New Wave is a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s. New Wave is an example of European art cinema, using portable equipment and requiring little or no set up time, the New Wave way of filmmaking presented a documentary style. The films exhibited direct sounds on film stock that required less light, filming techniques included fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes. The combination of realism, subjective realism, and authorial commentary created a narrative ambiguity in the sense that questions that arise in a film are not answered in the end. This is why I would like to call this new age of cinema the age of the camera-stylo, Cahiers co-founder and theorist André Bazin was a prominent source of influence for the movement. By means of criticism and editorialization, they laid the groundwork for a set of concepts, revolutionary at the time, Cahiers du cinéma writers critiqued the classic Tradition of Quality style of French Cinema. Notable among these was François Truffaut in his manifesto-like article Une Certaine tendance du cinéma français, Bazin and Henri Langlois, founder and curator of the Cinémathèque Française, were the dual father figures of the movement. These men of cinema valued the expression of the personal vision in both the films style and script. The auteur theory holds that the director is the author of his movies, the beginning of the New Wave was to some extent an exercise by the Cahiers writers in applying this philosophy to the world by directing movies themselves. Apart from the role that films by Jean Rouch have played in the movement, part of their technique was to portray characters not readily labeled as protagonists in the classic sense of audience identification. The auteurs of this era owe their popularity to the support they received with their youthful audience, most of these directors were born in the 1930s and grew up in Paris, relating to how their viewers might be experiencing life. With high concentration in fashion, urban life, and all-night parties. The French New Wave was popular roughly between 1958 and 1964, although New Wave work existed as late as 1973, the socio-economic forces at play shortly after World War II strongly influenced the movement. Politically and financially drained, France tended to back on the old popular pre-war traditions. One such tradition was straight narrative cinema, specifically classical French film, the movement has its roots in rebellion against the reliance on past forms, criticizing in particular the way these forms could force the audience to submit to a dictatorial plot-line. They were especially against the French cinema of quality, the type of high-minded, literary period films held in esteem at French film festivals, New Wave critics and directors studied the work of western classics and applied new avant garde stylistic direction. The low-budget approach helped filmmakers get at the art form and find what was, to them. French New Wave is influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema, many of these directors, such as Edmond Agabra and Henri Zaphiratos, were not as successful or enduring at the well-known members of the New Wave and today would not be considered part of it
10.
French government
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The Government of the French Republic exercises executive power. It is composed of a minister, who is the head of government. Senior ministers are titled as Ministers, whereas junior ministers are titled as Secretaries of State, a smaller and more powerful executive body, called the Council of Ministers, is composed only of the senior ministers, though some Secretaries of State may attend Council meetings. By comparison, the Government of France is equivalent to Her Majestys Government in the United Kingdom, all members of the French government are nominated by the President of the Republic on the advice of the Prime Minister. Members of the government are ranked in an order, which is established at the time of government formation. In this hierarchy, the Prime Minister is the head of government and he is nominated by the President of the Republic. After being nominated to lead a government, the Prime Minister nominee must propose a list of ministers to the President, the President can either accept or reject these proposed ministers. Ministers are ranked by importance, Ministers of State are senior ministers and it is an honorary rank, granted to some Ministers as a sign of prestige. Ministers are senior ministers, and are members of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries of State are junior ministers. This is the lowest rank in the French ministerial hierarchy, Secretaries work directly under a Minister, or sometimes directly under the Prime Minister. While the Council of Ministers does not include Secretaries of State as members, according to the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic, the government directs and decides the policy of the nation. In practice, the government writes bills to be introduced to parliament, all political decisions made by the government must be registered in the government gazette. All bills and some decrees must be approved by the Council of Ministers, furthermore, it is the Council of Ministers that defines the collective political and policy direction of the government, and takes practical steps to implement that direction. In addition to writing and implementing policy, the government is responsible for national defence, the workings of the government of France are based on the principle of collegiality. Meetings of the Council of Ministers take place every Wednesday morning at the Élysée Palace and they are presided over by the President of the Republic, who promotes solidarity and collegiality amongst government ministers. These meetings follow a set format, in the first part of a meeting, the Council deliberates over general interest bills, ordinances, and decrees. In the second part, the Council discusses individual decisions by each Minister regarding the appointment of civil servants. In addition, the Minister of Foreign Affairs provides the Council with weekly updates on important international issues, most government work, however, is done elsewhere
11.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
12.
Roman Polanski
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Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer, and actor. Born in Paris, his Polish-Jewish parents moved the back to Poland in 1937. Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany a few later, in 1939. Polanskis first feature-length film, Knife in the Water, made in Poland, was nominated for a United States Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He has since received five more Oscar nominations, along with two BAFTAs, four Césars, a Golden Globe Award and the Palme dOr of the Cannes Film Festival in France, in the United Kingdom he directed three films, beginning with Repulsion. In 1968 he moved to the United States and cemented his status by directing the horror film Rosemarys Baby. A turning point in his life took place in 1969, when his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, following her death, Polanski returned to Europe and eventually continued directing. He made Macbeth in England and back in Hollywood, Chinatown, in 1977, Polanski was arrested and charged with the rape of a 13-year-old model during a photo session. He subsequently pled guilty to the charge of statutory rape and he was released from prison after serving 42 days, and as part of an apparent plea bargain, was to be put on probation. When he learned that the judge changed his mind and planned to reject the plea bargain, in Europe, Polanski continued to make films, including Tess, starring aspiring actress, Nastassja Kinski. It won Frances César Awards for Best Picture and Best Director and he later produced and directed The Pianist, starring Adrien Brody, in a World War II true story drama about a Jewish-Polish musician. The film won three Academy Awards including Best Director, along with numerous international awards and he also directed Oliver Twist, a story which parallels his own life as a young boy attempting to triumph over adversity. Polanski was born in Paris, the son of Bula and Ryszard Polański, a painter and manufacturer of sculptures and his mother had a daughter, Annette, by her previous husband. Annette managed to survive Auschwitz, where her mother died, Polańskis father was Jewish and originally from Poland, Polańskis mother, born in Russia, had been raised Roman Catholic and was of half-Jewish ancestry. Polański, influenced by his education in the Peoples Republic of Poland, said Im an atheist in an interview about his film, Rosemarys Baby. The Polański family moved back to the Polish city of Kraków in 1936, Kraków was soon occupied by the German forces, and Nazi racial purity laws made the Polańskis targets of persecution, forcing them into the Kraków Ghetto, along with thousands of the citys Jews. Around the age of six, he attended school for only a few weeks, until all the Jewish children were abruptly expelled. That initiative was followed by requiring all Jewish children over the age of twelve to wear white armbands with a blue Star of David imprinted for visual identification
13.
Argentina
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Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a federal republic in the southern half of South America. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2, Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the second largest in Latin America, and the largest Spanish-speaking one. The country is subdivided into provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system, Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The earliest recorded presence in the area of modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century, Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with waves of European immigration radically reshaping its cultural. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest developed nation in the world by the early 20th century, Argentina retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs, and is a prominent regional power in the Southern Cone and Latin America. Argentina has the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America and is a member of the G-15 and it is the country with the second highest Human Development Index in Latin America with a rating of very high. Because of its stability, market size and growing high-tech sector, the description of the country by the word Argentina has to be found on a Venice map in 1536. In English the name Argentina probably comes from the Spanish language, however the naming itself is not Spanish, Argentina means in Italian of silver, silver coloured, probably borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine of silver > silver coloured already mentioned in the 12th century. The French word argentine is the form of argentin and derives of argent silver with the suffix -in. The Italian naming Argentina for the country implies Argentina Terra land of silver or Argentina costa coast of silver, in Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is often used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said lArgentina. The name Argentina was probably first given by the Venitian and Genoese navigators, in Spanish and Portuguese, the words for silver are respectively plata and prata and of silver is said plateado and prateado. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin. The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region, the 1826 constitution included the first use of the name Argentine Republic in legal documents. The name Argentine Confederation was also used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the name as Argentine Republic
14.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
15.
Anatole Litvak
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Anatole Litvak was a Russian-born American filmmaker who wrote, directed, and produced films in various countries and languages. He began his training at age 13 in Leningrad. Litvak was notable for directing little-known foreign actors to early fame, in 1936 he directed Mayerling, a film which made Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux international stars. He returned Swedish star Ingrid Bergman to popularity with American audiences in 1956 with Anastasia and he directed Olivia de Havilland to an Academy Award nomination for The Snake Pit in 1948. He also directed Jean Gabin in his debut, and directed Elia Kazan in his earliest acting role. Litvak directed Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939 starring Edward G. Robinson, as a refugee from Nazi Germany, Litvak was among the few directors who tried to open Hollywoods eyes to the threat Germany posed to Europe and the world. During World War II, he enlisted and co-directed documentaries with Frank Capra and his solo-directed, The Battle of Russia, in 1943, won numerous awards and was nominated for an Oscar. Because of Litvaks ability to speak Russian, German, and French and he also filmed aerial warfare with the U. S. For his volunteer efforts, he ended the war as a full colonel, receiving special awards from the governments of France, Britain. Born Mikhail Anatol Litvak in Kiev, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire, as a teenager, he worked at a theater in St. Petersburg and took acting lessons at the state drama school. Litvak worked with Leningrads Nordkino Studios where he was assistant director for nine silent films, for political and ideological reasons, and especially because Russian theaters were nationalized in the 1920s, he fled Russia for Berlin in 1925. In Germany, Litvak made his first few films at the beginning of the 1930s before the rise of the Nazis and he later fled to France prior to the Nazi invasions of World War II. According to film historian Ronald Bowers, Litvak became skilled in using location shooting and he also became known in the industry for emphasizing sound effects over dialogue in sound films as well as preferring to keep the camera running with tracking shots and pans. His preference for achieving motion in camerawork often saw him using crane shots, max Ophüls, who worked as Litvaks assistant in France, would later become a recognized director. American writer Lincoln Kirstein claimed the film became a kind of standard for the film in an historical setting. The worldwide success of Mayerling brought Litvak invitations from Hollywood, including being offered a contract by Warner Brothers. Accepting the contract, Litvak became one of Hollywoods leading directors by the late 1930s and he directed such films as Tovarich, a comedy celebrating outmoded values of the ruined Russian aristocracy. Also with Warners, he directed Confessions of a Nazi Spy, among the techniques he used in the film to achieve realism was the inclusion of actual newsreel footage from U. S. Nazi rallies
16.
Michael Haneke
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Michael Haneke is an Austrian film director and screenwriter best known for films such as Funny Games, Caché, The White Ribbon and Amour. His work often examines social issues, and depicts the feelings of estrangement experienced by individuals in modern society, Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. Besides working as a filmmaker, Haneke also teaches film direction at the Film Academy Vienna. At the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, his film The White Ribbon won the Palme dOr, in 2012, his film Amour premiered and competed at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and it won in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. Haneke has made films in French, German and in English, in 2013 Haneke won the Prince of Asturias Award for the arts. Haneke was born in Munich, Germany, the son of the German actor and director Fritz Haneke and his stepfather, the composer Alexander Steinbrecher, had later married the mother of actor Christoph Waltz. After graduating, he became a critic and from 1967 to 1970 he worked as editor. He made his debut as a director in 1974. Hanekes feature film debut was 1989s The Seventh Continent, which served to trace out the violent, three years later, the controversial Bennys Video put Hanekes name on the map. Haneke achieved great success in 2001 with the critically successful French film The Piano Teacher and it won the prestigious Grand Prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and also won its stars, Benoît Magimel and Isabelle Huppert, the Best Actor and Actress awards. He has worked with Juliette Binoche, after she expressed interest in working with him, Haneke frequently worked with real-life couple Ulrich Mühe and Susanne Lothar – thrice each. His film, The White Ribbon, premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, in 2012, his film Amour also won the Palme dOr. Haneke says that films should offer more space for imagination and self-reflection. Films that have too much detail and moral clarity, Haneke says, are used for consumption by their viewers. It is often difficult for people to ascertain Hanekes philosophy and the messages he wishes to illustrate in his works. His 2012 film Amour won the Best Foreign Language Oscar and was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, in 2013 he was the subject of the documentary film Michael H – Profession, Director. Haneke has directed a number of productions in German, which include works by Strindberg, Goethe
17.
Georgia (country)
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Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi, Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres, and its 2016 population is about 3.72 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy, during the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century, a unified Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under hegemony of various powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various treaties with Iran. Since the establishment of the modern Georgian republic in April 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil, the countrys Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia, culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and it contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia and a part of the international community consider the regions to be part of Georgias sovereign territory under Russian military occupation. Georgia probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān, in the 11th and 12th centuries adapted via Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān, starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was later adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic and West European languages. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. The self-designation used by ethnic Georgians is Kartvelebi, the medieval Georgian Chronicles present an eponymous ancestor of the Kartvelians, Kartlos, a great-grandson of Japheth. However, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the name Sakartvelo consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i, specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, ancient Greeks and Romans referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians. Today the full, official name of the country is Georgia, before the 1995 constitution came into force the countrys name was the Republic of Georgia. The territory of modern-day Georgia was inhabited by Homo erectus since the Paleolithic Era, the proto-Georgian tribes first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. The earliest evidence of wine to date has found in Georgia. In fact, early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, the classical period saw the rise of a number of early Georgian states, the principal of which was Colchis in the west and Iberia in the east
18.
Otar Iosseliani
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Otar Iosseliani is a Georgian-French film maker. He was born in the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi, where he studied at the Tbilisi State Conservatoire and graduated in 1952 with a diploma in composition, conducting and piano. In 1953 he went to Moscow to study at the faculty of mathematics, while still a student, he began working at the Gruziafilm studios in Tbilisi, first as an assistant director and then as an editor of documentaries. In 1958 he directed his first short film Akvarel, in 1961 he graduated from VGIK with a diploma in film direction. Aprili was finally released only in 1972, in 1966 he directed his first feature film Giorgobistve that was presented at the Critics Week at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival and won a FIPRESCI award there. When his 1976 film Pastorali was shelved for a few years and then granted only a limited distribution, following Pastoralis success at the 1982 Berlin Film Festival, the director moved to France where in 1984 he made Les Favoris de la Lune. The film was distinguished with a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, since then Venice became a showcase for all his subsequent films. In 1986 he was a member of the jury at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival, in 1989 he again received a Special Jury Prize for Et la Lumiere Fut and in 1992 the Pasinetti Award for Best Direction for La Chasse aux Papillons. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union he continued to work in France where he made the documentary Seule Georgie which was followed by the sardonic, in 1995 he was a member of the jury at the 19th Moscow International Film Festival. In 2011 his film Chantrapas was selected as the Georgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards, in 2011 Otar Iosseliani received a lifetime achievement honor – the CineMerit Award at the Munich International Film Festival. It was given by his pupil, a Georgian filmmaker Dito Tsintsadze. Iosseliani holds political views that are considered Russophobia by some observers,200 Years of Contempt, in particular, in the after-math of 2008 Russo-Georgian war he expressed his political views in the interview to Ukrainian Weekly 2000 news agency, We will never be in peace with Russia again. Previously we felt contempt to it, but now what we feel is hatred --, so, go live with your Russians the way you want to. But there will be no way back, two hundred years of patience and contempt are over now. In 2011, while appearing on Echo of Moscow, Ioselianis claimed that journalists intentionally distorted his words about Russians, monday Morning / Lundi matin Gardens in Autumn / Jardins en automne Chantrapas Winter Song / Chant dhiver Otar Iosseliani at the Internet Movie Database
19.
Luc Besson
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Luc Besson is a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He directed or produced the films Subway, The Big Blue, Besson has been nominated for a César Award for Best Director and Best Picture for his films Léon, The Professional and The Messenger, The Story of Joan of Arc. He won Best Director and Best French Director for his action film The Fifth Element. He wrote and directed the 2014 sci-fi thriller film Lucy, in 1980, he founded his own production company, called Les Films du Loup, and later Les Films du Dauphin. This was superseded in 2000 by his co-founding EuropaCorp film company with his longtime collaborator, as writer, director, or producer, Besson has so far been involved in the creation of more than 50 films. Besson was born in Paris, to parents who worked as Club Med scuba-diving instructors. Influenced by this milieu, as a child Besson planned to become a marine biologist and he spent much of his youth traveling with his parents to tourist resorts in Italy, SFR Yugoslavia, and the Kingdom of Greece. The family returned to France when Besson was 10 and his parents promptly divorced and each remarried. Here there is two families, and I am the only bad souvenir of something doesnt work, he said in the International Herald Tribune. And if I disappear, then everything is perfect, the rage to exist comes from here. Otherwise I am going to die, at the age of 17, Besson had a diving accident that left him unable to dive. I was 17 and I wondered what I was going to do, so I took a piece of paper and on the left I put everything I could do, or had skills for, and all the things I couldnt do. The first line was shorter and I could see that I loved writing, I loved images, so I thought maybe movies would be good. But I thought that to really know I should go to a set, and a friend of mine knew a guy whose brother was a third assistant on a short film. Its true, he said in a 2000 interview with The Guardian, so, I said, OK, lets go on the set. So I went on the set. The day after I went back to see my mum and told her that I was going to films and stop school. Very soon after I made a film and it was very, very bad. I wanted to prove that I could do something, so I made a short film and that was in fact my main concern, to be able to show that I could do one
20.
Jacques Tourneur
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He is also known for directing Night of the Demon, that was released by Columbia Pictures. Born in Paris, France, Tourneur was the son of film director Maurice Tourneur, at age 10, Jacques moved to the United States with his father. He started a career in cinema while attending high school as an extra. Both Maurice and Jacques returned to France after his father worked on the film The Mysterious Island in 1925, Tourneur died in 1977 in Bergerac, Dordogne, France. Tourneur began work as an editor and assistant director and he made his debut as a director on French short film Tout ca ne vaut pas lamour in 1931. Tourneur went back to Hollywood in 1934 where he had a contract with MGM Studios, while working as the second unit director on the film A Tale of Two Cities he met film producer Val Lewton. Tourneur made his debut as director in the 1939 film They All Come Out. After Tourneur was dropped by MGM in 1941, he was picked up by Lewton to film several acclaimed low-budget horror films for RKO Studios including Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. Cat People was considered to be a B movie and didnt have a big budget, yet the style of lighting. Tourneur was promoted to the A-list at RKO, directing films including Out of the Past, in the 1950s, Tourneur became a freelance director, filming various genre films including The Flame and the Arrow, Stars In My Crown and Night of the Demon. His last films both starred Vincent Price, with The Comedy of Terrors and War-Gods of the Deep for American International Pictures, after his final days working for film, Tourneur began directing television episodes. Tourneur filmed episodes of The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Bonanza, The Twilight Zone, Tourneurs final director credit was for an episode of T. H. E. Tourneur then retired and returned to France, short films Feature films Notes Bibliography Earnshaw, Tony. Beating the Devil, The Making of Night of the Demon, further reading Young, Gwenda Shadows, Jacques Tourneurs Cinema of Ambiguity. Young, Gwenda Jacques Tourneurs World War II Films, From Unity to Chaos, Young, Gwenda The Cinema of Difference, Jacques Tourneur, Race and I Walked with a Zombie. Irish Journal of American Studies,7, 101–121, Jacques Tourneur at the Internet Movie Database Jacques Tourneur at AllMovie Jacques Tourneur at Find a Grave
21.
Francis Veber
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Francis Paul Veber is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, and playwright. He has written and directed both French and American films and he also wrote the screenplay for My Father the Hero, the 1994 American remake of the French-language film Mon père, ce héros. Some of his screenplays started as theater plays and this theatrical experience contributes to his films tight structure, resulting in what has been called marvels of economy. Many of his French comedies feature recurring types of characters, named François Pignon, Veber was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, the son of a writer mother and Pierre-Gilles Veber, a screenwriter. Vebers father was Jewish and his mother was Armenian-Russian and his grand-uncle was writer Tristan Bernard. He was made Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite in 2001, Francis Veber at the Internet Movie Database Francis Veber at AllMovie
22.
Cinema of the United States
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The cinema of the United States, often metonymously referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. The dominant style of American cinema is Classical Hollywood Cinema, which developed from 1917-1960, while the French Lumière Brothers are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, it is American cinema that soon became the most dominant force in an emerging industry. Since the 1920s, the American film industry has grossed more money every year than that of any other country, in 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the worlds first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City, the United States was in the forefront of sound film development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U. S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, Los Angeles, director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar. Orson Welless Citizen Kane is frequently cited in critics polls as the greatest film of all time. T, the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Titanic, Avatar, The Avengers, Furious 7, Jurassic World, and Star Wars, The Force Awakens. Today, American film studios collectively generate several hundred movies every year, muybridges accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices that would capture such motion. In the United States, Thomas Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast where, at one time, Fort Lee, New Jersey was the motion picture capital of America. The industry got its start at the end of the 19th century with the construction of Thomas Edisons Black Maria, in 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios, the Champion Film Company, built the first studio. They were quickly followed by others who either built new studios or who leased facilities in Fort Lee, such notables as Mary Pickford got their start at Biograph Studios. In New York, the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, was built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers, the Edison Studios were located in the Bronx. Chelsea, Manhattan was also frequently used, other major centers of film production also included Chicago, Florida, Texas, California, and Cuba. The film patents wars of the early 20th century led to the spread of film companies across the U. S and they started filming on a vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. While there, the decided to explore new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood. Griffith then filmed the first movie shot in Hollywood, In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about California in the 19th century. Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York, after hearing about Griffiths success in Hollywood, in 1913, many movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison, who owned patents on the movie-making process. Nestor Studios of Bayonne, New Jersey, built the first studio in Hollywood in 1911, Californias more hospitable and cost-effective climate led to the eventual shift of virtually all filmmaking to the West Coast by the 1930s. In Los Angeles, the studios and Hollywood grew, before World War I, movies were made in several U. S. cities, but filmmakers gravitated to southern California as the industry developed
23.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
24.
Movie theaters
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A movie theater or movie theatre is a venue, usually a building, that contains an auditorium for viewing films, for entertainment. Most, but not all, movie theaters are commercial operations catering to the general public, Some movie theaters, however, are operated by non-profit organizations or societies which charge members a membership fee to view films. The film is projected with a projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium while the dialogue, sounds. Since the 1970s, subwoofers have used for low-pitched sounds. In the 2010s, most movie theaters are equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create, a great variety of films are shown at cinemas, ranging from animated films for children, blockbusters for general audiences and documentaries for patrons who are interested in non-fiction topics. The smallest movie theaters have a viewing room with a single screen. In the 2010s, most movie theaters have multiple screens, the largest theater complexes, which are called multiplexes—a design developed in the U. S. in the 1960s—have up to 25 screens. The audience members sit on padded seats which in most theaters are set up on a sloped floor. Movie theaters typically sell soft drinks, popcorn and candy and some theaters also sell hot fast food, in some jurisdictions, movie theaters are licensed to sell alcoholic drinks. A movie theater may also be referred to as a theatre, movie house, film house. In the US, theater has long been the preferred spelling, while in the UK, Canada, the latter terms, as well as their derivative adjectives cinematic and kinematic, ultimately derive from Greek κινῆμα, κινήματος —movement, motion. In the countries where those terms are used, the theatre is usually reserved for live performance venues. Colloquial expressions, mostly applied to motion pictures and motion picture theaters collectively, include the silver screen, specific to North American term is the movies, while specific terms in the UK are the pictures, the flicks and for the facility itself the flea pit. A screening room is a theater, often a private one. Open air place in ancient times for viewing spectacles and plays, the term theater comes from the Old French word theatre, from the 12th century and. The use of the theatre to mean a building where plays are shown dates from the 1570s in the English language. The earliest precursors to movies were magic lantern shows, magic lanterns used a glass lens, a shutter and a powerful lamp to project images from glass slides onto a white wall or screen. The invention of the Argand lamp in the 1790s, limelight in the 1820s, the magic lantern could project rudimentary moving images, which was achieved by the use of various types of mechanical slides
25.
Digital cinema
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Digital cinema refers to the use of digital technology to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Digital movies are projected using a digital projector instead of a film projector. Digital cinema is distinct from high-definition television and is not dependent on using television or high-definition video standards, aspect ratios, in digital cinema, resolutions are represented by the horizontal pixel count, usually 2K or 4K. As digital cinema technology improved in the early 2010s, most of the theaters across the world converted to digital, Digital media playback of high-resolution 2K files has at least a 20-year history. Early video data storage units fed custom frame buffer systems with large memories, in early digital video units, content was usually restricted to several minutes of material. Transfer of content between remote locations was slow and had limited capacity and it was not until the late 1990s that feature-length films could be sent over the wire. In conjunction with Texas Instruments, the movie was publicly demonstrated in five theaters across the United States. In Europe, on February 2,2000, Texas Instruments DLP Cinema projector technology was demonstrated, by Philippe Binant. On January 19,2000, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, in the United States, by December 2000, there were 15 digital cinema screens in the United States and Canada,11 in Western Europe,4 in Asia, and 1 in South America. Digital Cinema Initiatives was formed in March 2002 as a joint project of many motion picture studios to develop a specification for digital cinema. In April 2004, in cooperation with the American Society of Cinematographers, DCI created standard evaluation material for testing of 2K and 4K playback, DCI selected JPEG2000 as the basis for the compression in the system the same year. In China, in June 2005, an E-Cinema System called dMs was established and was used in over 15,000 screens spread across Chinas 30 provinces, DMS estimated that the system would expand to 40,000 screens in 2009. In 2005 the UK Film Council Digital Screen Network launched in the UK by Arts Alliance Media creating a chain of 250 2K digital cinema systems, the roll out was completed in 2006. This was the first mass roll out in Europe, axis IT/Christie Digital also started a roll out in the United States and Canada. By mid 2006, about 400 theaters were equipped with 2K digital projectors with the number increasing every month, several digital 3D films surfaced in 2006 and several prominent filmmakers committed to making their next productions in stereo 3D. VUE West End was one of the first 3D Digital Cinemas along with Odeon Printworks Manchester and this was done by Emil and Eric Digital Films, a company based at Thrissur using the end-to-end digital cinema system developed by Singapore-based DG2L Technologies. This film was mastered at Real Image Media Technologies in India. In June 2007, Arts Alliance Media announced the first European commercial digital cinema Virtual Print Fee agreements, by June 2010, there were close to 16,000 digital cinema screens, with over 5000 of them being stereoscopic setups
26.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
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Texas Instruments
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Texas Instruments Inc. is an American technology company that designs and manufactures semiconductors, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globally. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, United States, TI is one of the top ten semiconductor companies worldwide, Texas Instrumentss focus is on developing analog chips and embedded processors, which accounts for more than 85% of their revenue. TI also produces TI digital light processing technology and education technology products including calculators, microcontrollers, to date, TI has more than 43,000 patents worldwide. TI produced the worlds first commercial silicon transistor in 1950, Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at TIs Central Research Labs. TI also invented the hand-held calculator in 1967, and introduced the first single-chip microcontroller in 1970, in 1987, TI invented the digital light processing device, which serves as the foundation for the companys award-winning DLP technology and DLP Cinema. In 1990, TI came out with the popular TI-81 calculator which made them a leader in the calculator industry. In 1997, its business was sold to Raytheon, which allowed TI to strengthen its focus on digital solutions. Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott, McDermott was one of the original founders of Geophysical Service Inc. in 1930. McDermott, Green, and Jonsson were GSI employees who purchased the company in 1941, in November,1945, Patrick Haggerty was hired as general manager of the Laboratory and Manufacturing division, which focused on electronic equipment. By 1951, the L&M division, with its contracts, was growing faster than GSIs Geophysical division. The company was reorganized and initially renamed General Instruments Inc, because there already existed a firm named General Instrument, the company was renamed Texas Instruments that same year. From 1956 to 1961, Fred Agnich of Dallas, later a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, was the Texas Instruments president, Geophysical Service, Inc. became a subsidiary of Texas Instruments. Early in 1988 most of GSI was sold to the Halliburton Company, in 1930, J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott founded Geophysical Service, an early provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum industry. In 1939, the company reorganized as Coronado Corp. an oil company with Geophysical Service Inc, on December 6,1941, McDermott along with three other GSI employees, J. Erik Jonsson, Cecil H. Green, and H. B. During World War II, GSI expanded their services to include electronics for the U. S. Army, Signal Corps, in 1951, the company changed its name to Texas Instruments, GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company. Texas Instruments also continued to manufacture equipment for use in the seismic industry, after selling GSI, TI finally sold the company to Halliburton in 1988, at which point GSI ceased to exist as a separate entity. Texas Instruments entered the electronics market in 1942 with submarine detection equipment. During the early 1980s, Texas Instruments instituted a quality program which included Juran training, as well as promoting statistical process control, Taguchi methods and Design for Six Sigma
28.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
29.
Cinematograph
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A cinematograph is a motion picture film camera, which also serves as a film projector and printer. It was invented in the 1890s, the device was first invented and patented as the Cinématographe Léon Bouly by French inventor Léon Bouly on February 12,1892. Bouly coined the term “cinematograph”, from the Greek for “writing in movement”, due to a lack of money, Bouly was unable to develop his ideas properly and maintain his patent fees, so he sold his rights to the device and its name to the Lumière Brothers. In 1895, they applied the name to a device that was largely their own creation and they made their first film, Sortie de lusine Lumière de Lyon, that same year. The film was screened at LEden, the worlds first and oldest cinéma, located in La Ciotat in southeastern France. The first commercial, public screening of cinematographic films happened in Paris on 28 December 1895 and was organised by the Lumière brothers, the cinematograph was also exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1900. At the Exposition, films made by the Lumière Brothers were projected onto a screen measuring 16 by 21 meters. Louis Lumière worked with his brother Auguste to create a motion-picture camera superior to Thomas Edisons kinetograph, the Lumières endeavored to correct the flaws they perceived in the kinetograph and the kinetoscope, to develop a machine with both sharper images and better illumination. The Cinématographe weighed only 16 lbs. which allowed for ease of transportation, as well, the Cinématographe was manually operated by a hand-crank, as opposed to Edisons electrically powered camera, which was not readily portable. In 1897, the Lumières further added to their invention by using a flask of water as the condenser to concentrate the light onto the film frame. The flask also acted as a safety feature, as the light would no longer focus on the film if the glass were to break due to overheating or accident. The cinematograph became an attraction for people all over the world. The Lumière Brothers took their machine as far as China and India and it was enjoyed by people of all classes, the cinematograph was used to show films in nickelodeons, where even the poorest classes could pay the entry fee. It was exhibited at fairs and used as entertainment in vaudeville houses in both Europe and the United States, while vaudeville is typically associated with the middle class, the machine also found its way into more sophisticated venues, where it appealed to the artistic tastes of high society. The Lumières held their first private screening of projected motion pictures on March 22,1895 and their first public screening of films at which admission was charged was held on December 28,1895, at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris. This history-making presentation featured ten short films, including their first film, each film is 17 meters long, which, when hand cranked through a projector, runs approximately 50 seconds. Bioscop Biograph Electrotachyscope Film Image Kinetoscope List of film formats Panoptikon Pleograph Praxinoscope Vitascope Zoopraxiscope Adventures in Cybersound Cinematograph
30.
Science fiction film
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Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition. The genre has existed since the years of silent cinema. The next major example in the genre was the film Metropolis - being the first feature length science fiction movie, from the 1930s to the 1950s, the genre consisted mainly of low-budget B movies. After Stanley Kubricks landmark 2001, A Space Odyssey, the fiction film genre was taken more seriously. This definition suggests a continuum between empiricism and transcendentalism, with science fiction film on the side of empiricism, and horror film, however, there are numerous well-known examples of science fiction horror films, epitomized by such pictures as Frankenstein and Alien. The visual style of fiction film can be characterized by a clash between alien and familiar images. This clash is implemented when alien images become familiar, as in A Clockwork Orange, as well, familiar images become alien, as in the films Repo Man and Liquid Sky. For example, in Dr. Strangelove, the, distortion of the make the familiar images seem more alien. Finally, alien and familiar images are juxtaposed, as in The Deadly Mantis, Science fiction films appeared early in the silent film era, typically as short films shot in black and white, sometimes with colour tinting. They usually had a theme and were often intended to be humorous. In 1902, Georges Méliès released Le Voyage dans la Lune, generally considered the first science fiction film, several early films merged the science fiction and horror genres. Examples of this are Frankenstein, a adaptation of Mary Shelleys novel. Taking a more adventurous tack,20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a based on Jules Verne’s famous novel of a wondrous submarine. In the 1920s, European filmmakers tended to use science fiction for prediction and social commentary, as can be seen in German films such as Metropolis and Frau im Mond. In the 1930s, there were big budget science fiction films, notably Just Imagine, King Kong, Things to Come. Starting in 1936, a number of science fiction comic strips were adapted as serials, notably Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and these serials, and the comic strips they were based on, were very popular with the general public. Other notable science fiction films of the 1930s include Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Doctor X, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, F. P. The 1940s brought us Before I Hang, Black Friday, Dr. Cyclops, The Devil Commands, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Man Made Monster, It Happened Tomorrow, It Happens Every Spring and The Perfect Woman
31.
A Trip to the Moon
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A Trip to the Moon is a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. The film was a popular success on its release, and was extensively pirated by other studios. An original hand-colored print was discovered in 1993 and restored in 2011, a Trip to the Moon was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by The Village Voice, ranked 84th. It is widely regarded as the earliest example of the fiction film genre and, more generally. At a meeting of the Astronomic Club, its president, Professor Barbenfouillis, after addressing some dissent, five other brave astronomers—Nostradamus, Alcofrisbas, Omega, Micromegas, and Parafaragaramus—agree to the plan. They build a space capsule in the shape of a bullet, the astronomers embark and their capsule is fired from the cannon with the help of marines, most of whom are played by a bevy of young women in sailors outfits. The Man in the Moon watches the capsule as it approaches, landing safely on the Moon, the astronomers get out of the capsule and watch the Earth rise in the distance. Exhausted by their journey, they unroll their blankets and sleep, phoebe causes a snowfall that awakens the astronomers, and they seek shelter in a cavern where they discover giant mushrooms. One astronomer opens his umbrella, it promptly takes root and turns into a giant mushroom itself, at this point, a Selenite appears, but it is killed easily by an astronomer, as the creatures explode if they are hit with force. More Selenites appear and it increasingly difficult for the astronomers to destroy them as they are surrounded. The Selenites capture the astronomers and take them to the palace of their king, an astronomer lifts the Selenite King off his throne and throws him to the ground, causing him to explode. The astronomers run back to their capsule while continuing to hit the pursuing Selenites, the sixth astronomer, Barbenfouillis himself, uses a rope to tip the capsule over a ledge on the Moon and into space. A Selenite tries to seize the capsule at the last minute, astronomer, capsule, and Selenite fall through space and land in an ocean on Earth, where they are rescued by a ship and towed ashore. When A Trip to the Moon was made, film actors performed anonymously and no credits were given, nonetheless, the following cast details can be reconstructed from available evidence, Georges Méliès as Professor Barbenfouillis. His extensive involvement in all of his films as director, producer, writer, designer, technician, publicist, editor, and often actor makes him one of the first cinematic auteurs. Speaking about his late in life, Méliès commented, The greatest difficulty in realising my own ideas forced me to sometimes play the leading role in my films. I was a star without knowing I was one, since the term did not yet exist, all told, Méliès took an acting role in at least 300 of his 520 films. Méliès discovered Bernon in the 1890s, when she was performing as a singer at the cabaret LEnfer and she also appeared in his 1899 adaption of Cinderella
32.
Maurice Tourneur
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Maurice Tourneur was a French film director and screenwriter. Born Maurice Thomas in the Epinettes district of Paris, France, as a young man, Maurice Thomas first trained as a graphic designer and a magazine illustrator but was soon drawn to the theater. In 1904, he married the actress, Fernande Petit and they had a son, Jacques, who would follow his father into the film industry. Drawn to the new art of filmmaking, in 1911 he began working as an assistant director for the Éclair company, a quick learner and an innovator, within a short time he was directing films on his own using major French stars of the day such as Polaire. Before long, Maurice Tourneur was a major and respected force in American film, Tourneur admired D. W. Griffith and considered the skill level of American actors at the time ahead of their counterparts in Europe. Of the actresses he worked with, he called Mary Pickford the finest screen actress in the world, however, Tourneur opposed the evolving star system that Carl Laemmle had begun with his advertising campaign for actress Florence Lawrence. After directing several films for Adolph Zukors Artcraft Pictures Corporation in 1917 and 1918. In 1921 he became a citizen of the United States. He was removed from production on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayers version of Jules Vernes The Mysterious Island in 1928, after his trouble with MGM, Tourneur decided to move back to his native France. There, he continued to make films both at home and in Germany, easily making the change to talkies, in 1933 he met his second wife, actress Louise Lagrange, while shooting his film, LHomme mystérieux. Tourneur went on to another two dozen films, several of which were crime thrillers, until a 1949 automobile accident in which he was seriously injured. Health and age prevented him from directing more films, but a voracious reader, after his death in 1961, Maurice Tourneur was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Maurice Tourneur was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6243 Hollywood Blvd, recently, the American Film Institutes Center for Film and Video Preservation and the National Archives of Canada have been cooperating on the restoration of Tourneurs 1915 film, The Cub. Maurice Tourneur at the Internet Movie Database Some contemporary interviews with, and articles by, Maurice Tourneur Maurice Tourneur
33.
Jacques Feyder
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Jacques Feyder was a Belgian actor, screenwriter and film director who worked principally in France, but also in the USA, Britain and Germany. He was a director of silent films during the 1920s. He adopted French nationality in 1928, born Jacques Léon Louis Frédérix in Ixelles, Belgium, he was educated at the École régimentaire in Nivelles, and was destined for a military career. At age twenty-five however he moved to Paris where he pursued an interest in acting, first on stage and then in film and he joined the Gaumont Film Company and in 1914 he became an assistant director with Gaston Ravel. He started directing films for Gaumont in 1916, but his career was interrupted by service with the Belgian army during 1917-1919, after the end of the war, he returned to filmmaking and quickly built a reputation as one of the most innovative directors in French cinema. LAtlantide, and Crainquebille were his first major films to achieve public and he followed these with Visages denfants which proved to be one of his most personal and enduring films. Shortly after this, Feyder was offered a post as director of a new film company, Vita Films, in Vienna. He made LImage, but the failed and he returned to Paris. He re-established himself with Gribiche and the adaptations of Carmen. He also contributed screenplays of films for directors, notably Poil de carotte for Julien Duvivier. His last silent film in France was Les Nouveaux Messieurs, a political satire which provoked calls for it to be banned in France for insulting the dignity of parliament. By this time Feyder had accepted an offer from MGM to work in Hollywood, in 1930, he directed Jetta Goudal in her only French language film made in Hollywood, Le Spectre vert. His subsequent work in the USA consisted mainly of directing foreign-language versions of American films, including a German version of Anna Christie, disillusioned with the Hollywood system, Feyder returned to France in 1933. During the next three years he made three of his most successful films, all of them in collaboration with screenwriter Charles Spaak, Feyder went on to direct films in England and Germany prior to the outbreak of World War II, but with diminishing success. Following the Nazi occupation in 1940, which led to the banning of La Kermesse héroïque, he left France for the safety of Switzerland, and directed a last film there, Une femme disparaît. Jacques Feyder died in 1948 at Prangins, Switzerland, and he was buried in the Cimetière de Sorel Moussel, Eure et Loir, France. A school in Épinay-sur-Seine in the north of Paris was named in his honour in 1977, Épinay was the location of the Tobis film studios where Feyder made Le Grand Jeu and Pension Mimosas. Some critics have been content to him at his word
34.
Jean Vigo
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Jean Vigo was a French film director who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s, he was a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Vigo was born to Emily Clero and the prominent Catalan militant anarchist Eugeni Bonaventura de Vigo i Sallés, much of Jeans early life was spent on the run with his parents. His father was imprisoned and murdered in Fresnes Prison on 13 August 1917, some speculated that Almereyda was hushed up by order of extreme Socialist politicians, Malvy and Caillaux, men later punished for war-time treason. The young Vigo was subsequently sent to boarding school under a name, Jean Sales. Vigo was married and had a daughter, Luce Vigo in 1931 and he died in 1934 of complications from tuberculosis, which he had contracted eight years earlier. Vigo is noted for two films that affected the development of both French and world cinema, Zero for Conduct and LAtalante. Zero for Conduct was approvingly described by critic David Thomson as forty-four minutes of sustained, LAtalante was Vigos only full-length feature. The simple story of a married couple splitting and reuniting is notable for the way it effortlessly merges rough, naturalistic filmmaking with shimmering, dreamlike sequences. Thomson described the result as not so much a masterpiece as a definition of cinema, none of his four films were financial successes, at one point, with his and his wifes health suffering, Vigo was forced to sell his camera. Zero for Conduct was banned by the French government until after the war, by this point, Vigo was too ill to strenuously fight the matter. Both films have outlived their detractors, LAtalante was chosen as the 10th-greatest film of all time in Sight & Sounds 1962 poll, and as the 6th-best in its 1992 poll. In the late 1980s a 1934 copy of LAtalante was found in the British National Film and Television Archive, but one who qualifies is Jean Vigo, the French director who died of tuberculosis at age 29 in 1934. Martin Scorsese wrote a letter for the occasion with praise for Vigo, Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov, the Prix Jean Vigo is an annual award given since 1951 to outstanding French film directors. The Jean Vigo Award is a prize given to Best Director at the Navarra Intl Documentary Film Festival in Spain. Vigo, Passion for Life, a 1998 British biopic about Jean Vigo, musician Steve Adey wrote a song called Dita Parlo on his 2012 studio album The Tower of Silence. The song was written in response to Vigos LAtalante, David Weir, Jean Vigo and the Anarchist Eye
35.
French Impressionist Cinema
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French impressionist cinema, also referred to as the first avant-garde or narrative avant-garde, is a term applied to a group of French films and filmmakers of the 1920s. Film scholars have had difficulty in defining this movement or for that matter deciding whether it should be considered a movement at all. David Bordwell has attempted to define a unified stylistic paradigm and set of tenets. ”2 Still others such as Dudley Andrew would struggle with awarding any credibility at all as “movement. ”3 Abel Gance Jean Epstein Germaine Dulac Marcel LHerbier Louis Delluc – Jean Renoir 1. Pictorialism, made up of films that focus mainly on manipulation of the film as image, through camerawork, mise-en-scene, montage, at which point rhythmic and fast paced editing became more widely used. Diffusion, at which point films and filmmakers began to pursue other stylistic, based on David Bordwell’s family resemblance model,4 I. Camerawork A. Camera distance, close-up B, arrangement and movement of figures in space III. As conveyors of abstract meanings F, but we had a common interest, which was the investigation of that famous cinematic specificity. 5 Richard Abel’s re-evaluation of Bordwell’s analysis sees the films as a reaction to conventional stylistic and formal paradigms, thus Abel refers to the movement as the Narrative Avant-Garde. The movement is often credited with the origins of film criticism. The movement published journals and periodicals reviewing recent films and discussing trends, the narrative avant-garde did have a theoretical base, although its divergent articulation by different writer-filmmakers has confused the issue to a certain extent. Much of it is an extension of Symbolist poetics that posit a realm beyond matter and our sense experience that art. Bordwell goes on to point out the holes in this theorization. Holes aside, the narrative explores the perception of reality. Neither of these terms is easily explainable, if at all, French impressionism destabilized familiar or objective ways of seeing, creating new dynamics of human perception. Using strange and imaginative effects, it altered traditional views and aimed to question the norm of the industry at the time. Photogénie Photogénie occurs at the meeting of the profilmic and the mechanical and it is above all a defamiliarization of the spectator with what appears on screen. It is a property that cannot be found in “reality” itself, a camera that is switched on does not record it. French Cinema, The First Wave 1915–1929, new Jersey, Princeton University Press,1984
36.
Abel Gance
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Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. A pioneer in the theory and practice of montage, he is best known for three major silent films, Jaccuse, La Roue, and the monumental Napoléon. Born in Paris in 1889, Abel Gance was the son of a prosperous doctor, Abel Flamant. Initially taking his mothers name, he was brought up until the age of eight by his grandparents in the coal mining town of Commentry in central France. He then returned to Paris to rejoin his mother who had by then married Adolphe Gance and he started working as a clerk in a solicitors office, but after a couple of years he turned to acting in the theatre. When he was 18, he was given a contract at the Théâtre Royal du Parc in Brussels, where he developed friendships with the actor Victor Francen. While in Brussels, Gance wrote his first film scenarios, which he sold to Léonce Perret, back in Paris in 1909, he acted in his first film, Perrets Molière. At that stage he regarded the cinema as infantile and stupid and was drawn into film jobs by his poverty, but he nevertheless continued to write scenarios. During this period he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, often fatal at that time, Gance tried to maintain a connection with the theatre and he finished writing a monumental tragedy entitled Victoire de Samothrace, in which he hoped that Sarah Bernhardt would star. Its five-hour length, and Gances refusal to cut it, proved to be a stumbling block, with the outbreak of World War I, Gance was rejected by the army on medical grounds and in 1915 he started writing and directing for a new film company, Film dArt. He soon caused controversy with La Folie du docteur Tube, a fantasy in which he. The producers were outraged and refused to show the film, Gance nevertheless continued working for Film dArt until 1918, making over a dozen commercially successful films. His experiments included tracking shots, extreme close-ups, low-angle shots and his subjects moved steadily away from simple action films towards psychological melodramas, such as Mater dolorosa starring Emmy Lynn as a neglected wife who has an affair with her husbands brother. The film was a commercial success, and it was followed by La Dixième Symphonie. Here Gances mastery of lighting, composition and editing was accompanied by a range of literary and artistic references which some critics found pretentious and he re-enlisted in the Service Cinématographique in order to be able to film some scenes on a real battlefield at the front. The film made an impact and went on to have international distribution. He employed elaborate editing techniques and innovative use of cutting which made the film highly influential among other contemporary directors. The finished film was originally in 32 reels and ran for nine hours
37.
Germaine Dulac
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Germaine Dulac was a French filmmaker, film theorist, journalist and critic. She was born in Amiens and moved to Paris in early childhood, a few years after her marriage she embarked on a journalistic career in a feminist magazine, and later became interested in film. With the help of her husband and friend she founded a film company and she is best known today for her Impressionist film, La Souriante Madame Beudet, and her Surrealist experiment, La Coquille et le Clergyman. Her career as filmmaker suffered after the introduction of film and she spent the last decade of her life working on newsreels for Pathé. Germaine Dulac was born in Amiens, France into a family of a career military officer. Since her fathers job required the family to move between small garrison towns, Germaine was sent to live with her grandmother in Paris. She soon became interested in art and studied music, painting, following the death of her parents, Dulac moved to Paris and combined her growing interests in socialism and feminism with a career in journalism. In 1905 she married Louis-Albert Dulac, an engineer who also came from an upper-class family. Four years later she began writing for La Française, a feminist magazine edited by Jane Misme where she became the drama critic. Dulac also found time to work on the staff of La Fronde. She also began to pursue her interest in photography, which preceded her initial entry into filmmaking. Dulac and her divorced in 1920. Dulac also taught courses at the École Technique de Photographie et de Cinématographie on the rue de Vaugirard. Even dead, Germaine Dulac still seemed dangerous, Dulac became interested in film in 1914 through her friend, actress Stacia Napierkowska. The two women traveled to Italy together shortly before World War I, Napierkowska was to act in a Film dArt film, and Dulac learned the basics of the medium during that trip. In the early 1900s through the late 1920s, Dulac frequently contrasted the modernity of the French capital to the nature of rural France. Soon after her return to France she decided to start a film company, Dulac and writer Irène Hillel-Erlanger then founded D. H. Films, with financial support provided by Dulacs husband. The company produced several films between 1915 and 1920, all directed by Dulac and written by Hillel-Erlanger and these included Les Sœurs ennemies, Vénus victrix, ou Dans louragan de la vie, Géo, le mystérieux, and others
38.
Jean Epstein
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Jean Epstein was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. He is often associated with French Impressionist Cinema and the concept of photogénie, Epstein was born in Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland to a French-Jewish father and Polish mother. After his father died in 1908, the relocated to Switzerland. While in Lyon, Epstein served as a secretary and translator for Auguste Lumière, Epstein started directing his own films in 1922 with Pasteur, followed by LAuberge rouge and Coeur fidèle. Film director Luis Buñuel worked as an assistant director to Epstein on Mauprat, Epsteins criticism appeared in the early modernist journal LEsprit Nouveau. He wrote the scenario in a single night, the later scenes of the film are relatively conventional in the techniques employed and depend more upon situation and action than upon photography and processing of the images. In the 1920s, Epsteins works would display influences from German Expressionism, Epstein also made several documentaries about Brittany. These include Finis Terræ filmed in Ouessant, Mor vran filmed in Sein, LOr des mers filmed in Hoëdic, chanson dArmor is known as the first Breton-speaking film in history. His two novels also take place in Breton isles, LOr des mers in Ouessant and Les Recteurs et la sirène in Sein. In August 2005, his films The Three-Sided Mirror and Le Tempestaire were restored and re-released on the DVD collection Avant-Garde, Epstein died in 1953 from a cerebral hemorrhage. La Poésie daujourdhui, un nouvel état dintelligence, Écrits sur le cinéma, 1921-1953, édition chronologique en deux volumes. La chute de la maison Usher, LAvant scène du cinéma, Avant-Garde, Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s This article draws in part on the fr, Jean Epstein article in the French-language Wikipedia, which was accessed in the version of April 6,2010. Vincent Guigueno, Jean Epstein, cinéaste des îles, prosper Hillairet, Cœur fidèle de Jean Epstein. Sarah Keller and Jason N. Paul, eds, Jean Epstein, Critical Essays and New Translations. Stuart Liebman, Jean Epstein’s Early Film Theory, 1920-1922, phD Dissertation, New York University,1980. Trond Lundemo, Jean Epstein, intelligensen hos en maskin, christophe Wall-Romana, Jean Epstein, Corporeal Cinema and Film Philosophy. Nicole Brenez, Ralph Eue, Bonjour Cinéma und andere Schriften zum Kino, filmmuseumSynemaPublikationen, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-901644-25-2 Jean Epstein at the Internet Movie Database Jean Epstein at Allmovie Le Cinéma du diable
39.
Marcel Pagnol
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Marcel Pagnol was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. In 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie française, about the same time, Augustines health, which had never been robust, began to noticeably decline and on 16 June 1910 she succumbed to a chest infection and died, aged 36. In 1913, at the age of 18, Marcel passed his baccalaureate in philosophy, when World War I broke out, he was called up into the infantry at Nice but in January 1915 he was discharged because of his poor constitution. On 2 March 1916, he married Simone Colin in Marseille and he became an English teacher, teaching in various local colleges and at a lycée in Marseille. In 1922, he moved to Paris, where he taught English until 1927, when he decided instead to devote his life to playwriting. During this time, he belonged to a group of writers, in collaboration with one of whom, Paul Nivoix, he wrote the play, Merchants of Glory. This was followed, in 1928, by Topaze, a based on ambition. Exiled in Paris, he returned nostalgically to his Provençal roots, taking this as his setting for his play, Marius, which later became the first of his works to be adapted into a film in 1931. Separated from Simone Collin since 1926, he formed a relationship with the young English dancer Kitty Murphy, their son, Jacques Pagnol, was born on 24 September 1930. In 1926, on a visit to London, Pagnol attended a screening of one of the first talking films and he contacted Paramount Picture studios and suggested adapting his play Marius for cinema. This was directed by Alexander Korda and released on 10 October 1931 and it became one of the first successful French-language talking films. In 1932 Pagnol founded his own production studios in the countryside near Marseille. On 4 April 1946, Pagnol was elected to the Académie française, taking his seat in March 1947, in his films, Pagnol transfers his playwriting talents onto the big screen. His editing style is reserved, placing emphasis on the content of an image. As a pictorial naturalist, Pagnol relies on film as art to convey a deeper meaning rather than solely as a tool to tell a story. Pagnol also took care in the type of actors he employed, hiring local actors to appear in his films to highlight their unique accents. Like his plays, Pagnols films emphasize dialogue and musicality, the themes of many of Pagnols films revolve around the acute observation of social rituals. Using interchangeable symbols and recurring roles, such as proud fathers and rebellious children
40.
The Baker's Wife (film)
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The Bakers Wife is a 1938 French comedy film directed by Marcel Pagnol. It is based on the novel Blue Boy by French author Jean Giono, the peacefulness of a village is shattered when the wife of the local baker runs off with a handsome shepherd. In his despair, the baker becomes heartbroken and no longer bakes bread, the villages organize forces to bring the wife back to her husband, and back to their daily bread
41.
Under the Roofs of Paris
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Under the Roofs of Paris is a 1930 French film directed by René Clair. The film was probably the earliest French example of a filmed musical-comedy and this was an early example of sound film in France, along with Prix de beauté and LÂge dor. However, Under the Roofs of Paris was the first French production of the film era to achieve great international success. In a working-class district of Paris, Albert, a street singer. He meets a beautiful Romanian girl, Pola, and falls in love with her, but he is not the one, since his best friend Louis. One evening Pola dares not return home because Fred has stolen her key and she spends the night with Albert who, reluctantly remaining the gentleman, sleeps on the floor and leaves his bed to Pola. They soon decide to get married, but fate prevents them when Émile and it is discovered by the police, and Albert is sent to prison. Later Émile is caught in his turn and admits that Albert was not his accomplice, Fred has just got back together with Pola who has fallen out with Louis, and in a jealous fury at Alberts return Fred decides to provoke a knife fight with him. Louis rushes to Alberts rescue and the two comrades are re-united, but their friendship is clouded by the realisation that each of them is in love with Pola, finally Albert decides to give up Pola to Louis. Albert Préjean as Albert Pola Illéry as Pola Edmond T, elsewhere he described the talking picture as a redoubtable monster, an unnatural creation, thanks to which the screen would become poor theatre, the theatre of the poor. It was therefore an irony that it was Clair who would produce the French cinemas first big success with a sound picture in Sous les toits de Paris. Clair accepted the inevitability of the picture but at first retained very specific views about the way that sound should be integrated into film. In 1929, the German film company Tobis Klangfilm established a studio at Épinay near Paris which was equipped for sound production and this studio inaugurated a policy of making French-speaking films in France rather than importing French performers to make French versions of films in Germany. The company concentrated on prestigious productions, and they recruited René Clair to undertake one of their first French projects with Sous les toits de Paris, René Clair filmed Sous les toits de Paris at Épinay between 2 January and 21 March 1930. This is the first of many ways in which Clair affirms his loyalty to the style, such devices are not only imaginative but amount almost to a satire of the sound film. Among the other members of Clairs team on the film were Georges Lacombe as assistant director, Sous les toits de Paris was the first of four successful sound films that Clair made for Tobis, all in collaboration with Meerson and Périnal. It was also the sixth and last of Clairs films which featured the actor Albert Préjean, when it was shown in Paris, the cinema gave Préjean star billing in its advertisements which led the two men to fall out. Clair commented, I think that the system is immoral and unjust for everyone, the artists and technicians
42.
L'Atalante
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LAtalante (, also released as Le Chaland qui passe, is a 1934 French film written and directed by Jean Vigo. Jean Dasté stars as Jean, the captain of a river barge who lives with his new wife Juliette on the barge, along with first mate Père Jules and the cabin boy. After the difficult release of his short film Zero for Conduct, Vigo initially wanted to make a film about Eugène Dieudonné. After Vigo and his producer Jacques-Louis Nounez struggled to find the project for a feature film. Vigo re-wrote the story with Albert Riéra while Nounez secured a deal with the Gaumont Film Company with a budget of ₣1 million. Vigo used many of the technicians and actors worked with him on Zero for Conduct, such as cinematographer Boris Kaufman. It has been hailed by critics as one of the greatest films of all time. Jean, the captain of the canal barge LAtalante, marries Juliette in her village and they decide to live aboard LAtalante along with Jeans crew, Père Jules and the cabin boy. The couple travel to Paris to deliver cargo, enjoying a makeshift honeymoon en route, Jules and the cabin boy are not used to the presence of a woman aboard. When Jean discovers Juliette and Jules talking in Juless quarters, Jean flies into a rage by smashing plates. Arriving in Paris, Jean promises Juliette a night out, but Jules and this disappoints Juliette because Jean cannot leave the barge unattended. Later, however, Jean takes Juliette to a dance hall, there, they meet a street peddler who flirts with Juliette, dances with her, and asks her to run off with him. This leads to a scuffle with Jean, after which he drags Juliette back to the barge, Juliette still wants to see the nightlife in Paris however, so she sneaks off the barge to go see the sights. When Jean discovers that she sneaked off the barge, he casts off. Unaware that Jean had already left, Juliette goes window shopping, when she returns to the barge and finds that its gone, she tries to buy a train ticket home, but someone steals her purse before she is able to. She is forced to find a job so she can afford to find a place to stay in Paris, meanwhile, Jean comes to regret his decision, and slips into depression. He is summoned by his companys manager, but Jules manages to keep him from losing his job, Jean recalls a folk tale that Juliette once told him. She said that one can see the face of true love in the water
43.
Carnival in Flanders (film)
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Carnival in Flanders is a 1935 French historical romantic comedy film directed by Jacques Feyder. Its original French title is La Kermesse héroïque and it is known under that name. A German-language version of the film was simultaneously and was released under the title Die klugen Frauen. In 1616, when Flanders is under Spanish occupation, the town of Boom, in the midst of preparations for its carnival, learns that a Spanish duke with his army is on the way to spend the night there. Fearing that this will result in rape and pillage, the mayor — supported by his town council — has the idea of pretending to be newly dead. But his redoubtable wife Cornelia despises this strategem and organises the women to prepare hospitality. Such is the warmth of the welcome that not only do the Spaniards refrain from misbehaviour. He turned to a story written at his suggestion ten years earlier by Charles Spaak. Sumptuous costumes were provided by Georges K. Benda, the strong cast included Feyder’s wife Françoise Rosay and Louis Jouvet. The film was produced by the French subsidiary of the German firm Tobis, on the strength of its richly detailed tableaux and the confident manner in which Feyder animated his historical farce, the film enjoyed considerable success in France and elsewhere in the world. Georges Sadoul referred to “this important work, of exceptional beauty”, Feyder won the Best Director Award at the 4th Venice International Film Festival in 1936. It was indeed enthusiastically praised in Germany, and its première in Berlin took place in the presence of Joseph Goebbels. At any rate, the release of the led to brawls in cinemas in Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges. ”Nevertheless. LAvant-scène, cinéma,26, La Kermesse héroïque
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Sacha Guitry
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Alexandre-Pierre Georges Sacha Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre. He was the son of a leading French actor, Lucien Guitry and he became known for his stage performances, often in boulevardier roles, in the many plays he wrote, of which there were more than 120. He was married five times, always to rising actresses whose careers he furthered, probably his best-known wife was Yvonne Printemps to whom he was married between 1919 and 1932. Guitrys plays range from historical dramas to contemporary light comedies, some have musical scores, by composers including André Messager and Reynaldo Hahn. When silent films became popular Guitry avoided them, finding the lack of spoken dialogue fatal to dramatic impact, from the 1930s to the end of his life he enthusiastically embraced the cinema, making as many as five films in a single year. The later years of Guitrys career were overshadowed by accusations of collaborating with the occupying Germans after the capitulation of France in the Second World War, the charges were dismissed, but Guitry, a strongly patriotic man, was disillusioned by the vilification by some of his compatriots. By the time of his death his popular esteem had been restored to the extent that 12,000 people filed past his coffin before his burial in Paris. Guitry was born at No 12 Nevsky Prospect, Saint Petersburg, Russia, the couple had eloped, in the face of family disapproval, and were married at St Martin in the Fields, London, in 1882. They then moved to the Russian capital, where Lucien ran the French theatre company, Guitry senior was a persistent adulterer, and his wife instituted divorce proceedings in 1888. Two of their sons died in infancy, the surviving son, Jean became an actor. The familys Russian nurse habitually shortened Alexandre-Pierres name to the Russian diminutive Sacha, the young Sacha made his stage debut in his fathers company at the age of five. Lucien Guitry, considered the most distinguished actor in France since Coquelin, was immensely successful, when he returned to Paris he lived in a flat in a prestigious spot, overlooking the Place Vendôme. and the Rue de la Paix. The young Sacha lived there, and for his schooling he was first sent to the well-known Lycée Janson de Sailly in the fashionable Sixteenth arrondissement. He did not stay there, and went to a succession of other schools. After giving up school Guitry embarked on a career as a playwright with a musical piece called Le Page, with a score by Ludo Ratz. Eighteen months later he joined his fathers company at the Théâtre de la Renaissance, at first he appeared under the stage name Lorcey, the pseudonym deceived no-one, as the press immediately announced the debutants real identity. His first role was in LEscalier, by Maurice Donnay in November 1904 and he fell out with his father over what the latter saw as Guitrys lack of professionalism. In the aftermath of their quarrel they neither saw nor spoke to one another, a member of Lucien Guitrys company was a young actress, Charlotte-Augustine-Hortense Lejeune, whose stage name was Charlotte Lysès
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