French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style (December 1974)

Record Details:

Title:
French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style
Date:
December 1974
Publisher:
University of Iowa
Volume:
French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style (Dissertation, 1974)
Leaf #:
00021
Language:
English
Collection:
Global Cinema
Format:
dissertations
Contributor:
Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Doctoral dissertation entitled, "French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style," by film scholar David Bordwell. Submitted to the University of Iowa in 1974. Document is scanned from the David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson papers, archived at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.
Date Added:
May 23, 2024
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Most thorough and comprehensive of all is the work on Impressionism done by Jean Mitry.!! Mitry follows Sadoul in his periodization, but he documents his material Somewhat more fully, and he lists two tenets of ImpresSionism: the drama as pretext for visual display and the tendency toward "pure rhythm." Though framed in an overSimplified way, these tenets are a start toward grasping the movement's ideology as a whole. Nonetheless, Mitry's account is brief (twenty pages), biographical and atomistic in approach, and lacking in a detailed consideration of Impressionist visual style and film theory. Previous historians' treatments of the movement, then, substantially agree about several assumptions. Impressionism is assumed to be a movement. As suchiiats films are distinct both from the standard cinema of its day and from the abstract or "pure" cinema of another contemporary avant-garde group. Impressionist film style is characterized by extensive use of "subjective" optical devices and rhythmic editing. Impressionist film theory emphasizes "photogénie" or self-conscious pictorilalism as the essence of cinema. In addition, ImpresSionist film-makers and film theorists played a significant part in the growth of film magazines, avant-garde theatres, and ciné-clubs. Finally, the Impressionist