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 #:
000180
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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Log emphasizing the shimmering of sunlight on water, whereas L'tInhumaine, La Glace a Trois Faces, L'Auberge Rouge, L'Argent, and La Chute de la Maison Usher make extensive use of the flatter, more glaring reflections of light striking glass and silverware. A scene from L'Argent Will illustrate the virtuosic play of lighting typical of Impressionism. During the aviator's return, a woman in a glistening metallic dress is watching from a window as the milling Leow below flashes lights across the sky and across her body. There follows a high-angle shot of a table full of glasses and Silverware gleaming against the mirrored tabletop. When the count enters, ne sees the woman shining brilliantly against the backlighting provided by the crowd's moving searchlights. By such lighting, the entire scene gains an ethereal quality. Again and again in Impressionist films, light plays a revelatory role: the lighthouse in Finis Terrae, the lantern that pokes its shaky illumination through the house in Le Brasier Ardent, the curtains that Fred pushes open to brighten the pitch-dark villa in La Deuxieme Symphonie, the skylight that picks out the bare table in Six et DemiOnze, and perhaps most strikingly, in La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes, the light that transforms the rose petals Showering the dead match girl into a stream of showflakes.