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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 #:
000182
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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L69 defines the styles of individual film-makers more clearly than the style of oe movement as a whole. I shall therefore confine myself to pointing out broad similarities. Some Impressionist cinema tends to use stylized settings. In Don Juan et Faust, Faust's chamber is expresSlonistically twisted in the Caligari mode, and the garden scene of L'Inhumaine includes some projecting tusklike shapes reminiscent of the fronds in: many shots of Caligari. Similarly,,.the scientist's, laboratory in Paris Qui Dort, with its huge circular tympanum and two angled rods striking it, resembles the decor of, Metropolis., In other settings, Art Deco style is more prominent: Robert MalletSevens designed the striking sets for Clare's house in L'Inhumaine, and similar Art fecc influences may Gan ts in the mansions in Six et, .Demi-Onze and LidArgent,. Einar's laboratory in L'Inhumaine is of another design altogether-the cubistic machine-style of Fernand Léger--that is somewhat akin to the bizarre, rigidly mechanized set of the detective bureau_in Le Brasier Ardent. Different still is the simple grandiosity of the huge map-rooms in L'Argent, the giant toyshop in La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes, and the fairyland decor of Voyage Imaginaire. Twenty-seven out of thirty-five Impressionist films, however, utilize natural, undistorted decors: villages,