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101 Cinema Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Cinema has always been a powerful medium for storytelling, entertainment, and exploring various aspects of society and culture. Whether you are a film student, a cinema enthusiast, or simply someone who appreciates the magic of the silver screen, writing essays on cinema can be an exciting and thought-provoking exercise. To help you get started, here are 101 cinema essay topic ideas and examples that cover a wide range of genres, themes, and perspectives.

• The evolution of special effects in cinema: From practical effects to CGI.
• The influence of Hollywood on global cinema.
• Analyzing the portrayal of mental illness in contemporary films.
• The impact of streaming services on the cinema industry.
• The representation of gender roles in classic film noir.
• The role of music in enhancing the cinematic experience.
• The depiction of war in anti-war movies.
• Exploring the use of symbolism in Alfred Hitchcock's films.
• The representation of race and ethnicity in superhero movies.
• The influence of European art cinema on American filmmaking.
• The rise of independent cinema and its impact on mainstream films.
• The portrayal of LGBTQ+ characters in modern cinema.
• Analyzing the portrayal of historical events in biographical films.
• The impact of censorship on cinematic creativity.
• The portrayal of mental health issues in horror films.
• The role of female directors in shaping contemporary cinema.
• The representation of disability in cinema: Breaking stereotypes.
• Analyzing the use of color in Wes Anderson's films.
• The portrayal of addiction in films: Substance abuse and recovery.
• The influence of literature on cinematic adaptations.
• The role of the auteur theory in film criticism.
• The portrayal of aging and mortality in cinema.
• The representation of indigenous cultures in cinema.
• Analyzing the use of non-linear storytelling in Quentin Tarantino's films.
• The impact of the internet on film distribution and piracy.
• The depiction of technology in science fiction films: Dystopia or utopia?
• The role of the film industry in promoting social change.
• Analyzing the portrayal of mental health in animation films.
• The representation of war veterans in post-war films.
• The influence of Italian neorealism on contemporary cinema.
• The portrayal of the American Dream in Hollywood films.
• Analyzing the use of silence in silent films.
• The representation of disability in animated films.
• The role of film festivals in promoting independent cinema.
• The impact of globalization on the diversity of cinematic content.
• The depiction of crime and justice in film noir.
• Analyzing the portrayal of addiction in mainstream cinema.
• The representation of indigenous women in cinema.
• The influence of French New Wave on modern filmmaking.
• The role of sound design in creating suspense in horror films.
• The portrayal of LGBTQ+ history in cinema.
• Analyzing the use of long takes in contemporary films.
• The representation of mental health issues in documentaries.
• The impact of product placement on cinema and consumerism.
• The depiction of post-apocalyptic worlds in science fiction films.
• The role of costume design in historical epics.
• Analyzing the portrayal of political corruption in cinema.
• The representation of women in action films.
• The influence of German expressionism on horror cinema.
• The role of cinematography in capturing emotions in romantic films.
• The portrayal of disability in superhero movies.
• Analyzing the use of lighting in film noir.
• The representation of LGBTQ+ relationships in romantic comedies.
• The impact of film remakes on audience reception.
• The depiction of mental health institutions in cinema.
• The influence of Asian cinema on Western filmmaking.
• The role of film soundtracks in shaping the narrative.
• Analyzing the portrayal of addiction in biographical films.
• The representation of masculinity in action films.
• The impact of the Hollywood studio system on film production.
• The depiction of supernatural phenomena in horror films.
• The influence of silent cinema on contemporary filmmaking.
• The role of production design in creating immersive cinematic worlds.
• Analyzing the portrayal of mental health in coming-of-age films.
• The representation of disability in romantic dramas.
• The impact of 3D technology on cinema.
• The depiction of dystopian societies in science fiction films.
• The role of makeup and prosthetics in transforming actors.
• Analyzing the portrayal of political leaders in historical films.
• The representation of women in film criticism.
• The influence of African cinema on global filmmaking.
• The role of voice-over narration in enhancing storytelling.
• The portrayal of mental health in animated children's films.
• The impact of film marketing on audience expectations.
• The depiction of artificial intelligence in science fiction films.
• The representation of LGBTQ+ youth in coming-of-age films.
• Analyzing the use of handheld camera in contemporary cinema.
• The influence of Mexican cinema on American filmmaking.
• The role of editing in creating suspense in thrillers.
• The portrayal of disability in war films.
• The impact of film censorship on artistic freedom.
• The depiction of the future in science fiction films.
• The representation of women in the horror genre.
• Analyzing the portrayal of mental health in period dramas.
• The influence of African-American cinema on representation.
• The role of sound effects in creating tension in horror films.
• The portrayal of disability in sports films.
• The impact of film ratings on audience perception.
• The depiction of time travel in science fiction films.
• The role of animation in addressing social issues.
• Analyzing the portrayal of mental health in science fiction films.
• The influence of Iranian cinema on international filmmaking.
• The representation of women in science fiction films.
• The impact of film criticism on the success of movies.
• The depiction of artificial intelligence in thriller films.
• The role of documentary filmmaking in raising awareness.
• Analyzing the portrayal of mental health in war films.
• The influence of Japanese cinema on Western animation.
• The representation of women in historical epics.
• The impact of film festivals on the recognition of independent filmmakers.
• The depiction of virtual reality in science fiction films.

These essay topic ideas and examples should provide you with a solid foundation to start exploring the fascinating world of cinema. Remember to choose a topic that genuinely interests you and allows you to express your own thoughts and analysis. Happy writing, and enjoy the journey through the magic of cinema!

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Heterodoxy in the Stacks

"Am I Racist?" (Film Essay)

Matt walsh’s devastating exposé of the dei industry offers important insights into current approaches to social justice in librarianship..

[ Warning: contains major spoilers ].

To the uninitiated observer, the profession of librarianship in the 21 st Century might appear to be only tangentially concerned with the acquisition, description, organization, and provision of documents for use by the public. Instead, such an observer could easily be forgiven for concluding that the purpose of librarianship was to locate systems of oppression , to destroy white supremacy , to confront biases , and to commit itself to anti-racism and opposing fascism .

Such, at any rate, might be their conclusion based on a perusal of our professional literature, curricula, professional development training, and conference programs , which have in recent years—like much of higher education and the corporate sector —become thoroughly dominated with the imperatives associated with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion . The mainstream acceptance of DEI ideology in librarianship is such that its lexicon thoroughly permeates our official documents, most recently illustrated with the release of the Ontario Library Association’s “ Commitment Towards Inclusive Librarianship ”, (previously analyzed on this Substack ), a text replete with such concepts as “anti-oppression”, “intersectionality”, and “dismantling systemic oppressive practices”.

However, the drafters of this document could hardly have anticipated that these very words—delivered with such earnest solemnity—would soon be eliciting howls of uproarious (if uneasy) laughter from audiences at multiplexes across the continent attending the new Matt Walsh documentary “ Am I Racist ?” in which the deadpan conservative podcaster brilliantly trolls DEI trainers and the field’s leading luminaries, including none other Robin ( White Fragility ) DiAngelo. On the surface, there is nothing in the film that has anything whatever to do with librarianship, apart from (at a stretch) the fact that it is a stack of anti-racist books purchased at a bookstore that launches Walsh’s journey. Yet, the extent to which DEI ideology has been integrated into almost every aspect of our work means that this film is directly concerned with what has become a major focus of our profession.

Framed as a “personal journey” on the part of Walsh to discover what the present cultural and political obsession with race and racism is all about, the film moves from one cringe-inducing encounter to the next, as Walsh adopts the persona (and appearance) of a woke anti-racist “expert” complete with ill-fitting blazer, “man bun” wig, and proof of DEI certification—the latter purchased online for less than $30.  Going simply by “Matt”, he insinuates himself into a number of anti-racist trainings, ultimately hosting at the climax of the film his own (disastrous) DEI workshop.

Currently scoring an audience rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes —despite having garnered in its first ten days not a single review from major media critics—the film earned $4.75 million in its opening weekend , coming in 5 th place in North American box office, right behind the Marvel/Sony hit Deadpool & Wolverine . Produced by the conservative media website The Daily Wire (which hosts Walsh’s podcast) and directed by Justin Folk (who also directed Walsh’s 2022 broadside against gender identity ideology What is a Woman ?), Am I Racist? plays very much like a cross between a Michael Moore film and the 2006 mockumentary film Borat . However, where the latter saw its star Sasha Baron Cohen dupe, hoax and humiliate many of the everyday Americans encountered in the film, Walsh’s targets are the leaders of the DEI industry, while his “people on the street” interviews are often sympathetic and touching, even if his subjects are befuddled by his ridiculous persona.

Much of the online commentary regarding Am I Racist? has been (in my view) undertaken in fairly bad faith by those who haven’t even seen the movie, or refuse to do so, yet still condemn it as “right wing” or racist. This is why it has garnered no mainstream reviews while those YouTubers who have posted reviews have themselves been subject to online accusations of racism . Yes, Matt Walsh is a conservative Christian, but his personal political and religious convictions play no role in the film’s content.

Before proceeding, it’s important to stress that the current headline-making reactions against the excesses of DEI are not only coming from conservatives like Walsh or Republican governors like Ron DeSantis ; in fact, they are also being articulated by DEI practitioners themselves, some of whom are pointing out that the current training practices related to such concepts of “unconscious bias” are based on no reliable metrics and appear to be ineffective on their own terms. As DEI consultant Lily Zheng writes in the Harvard Business Review , the “big, poorly kept secret” in the industry is that

[u]nconscious bias training rarely changes actual behaviors and has little impact on explicit biases. A meta-analysis of hundreds of prejudice-reduction interventions found few that unambiguously achieved their goals. Many popular interventions run the risk of backlash, strong adverse reactions that sustain or even worsen the inequity that practitioners attempt to eliminate. Even “the business case for diversity,” a decades-old rhetorical framing and justification for DEI work, has been found to backfire on marginalized groups’ feelings of belonging and weaken support for diversity programs when organizational performance drops.

She argues that current practices may “purport[] to end inequity but instead sustain[] it at great cost to marginalized populations.” Conor Friedersdorf concurs, arguing in The Atlantic , that there is a level of cynicism at work in the DEI industry:

A more jaded appraisal is that many kinds of DEI spending symbolize not a real commitment to diversity or inclusion, let alone equity, but rather the instinctive talent that college-educated Americans have for directing resources to our class in ways that make us feel good. In that telling, the DEI-consulting industry is social-justice progressivism’s analogue to trickle-down economics: Unrigorous trainings are held, mostly for college graduates with full-time jobs and health insurance, as if by changing us, the marginalized will somehow benefit. But in fact, the poor, or the marginalized, or people of color, or descendants of slaves, would benefit far more from a fraction of the DEI industry’s profits.

These views also align with that of radical LIS scholar Eino Sierpe, who critiques DEI regimes as being little more than “ liberal illusions” disguising the “white supremacy” in the profession.

In other words, it would be a mistake to view Am I Racist? in isolation from many mainstream—event radical—objections to DEI regimes.

There are four main themes in the film: one, that the ideology and precepts taught by DEI literature and educators are incoherent and place their intended audience (i.e., white people) in an endless series of no-win and morally-freighted scenarios in which they can never escape their racism, but must nonetheless continuously “do the work” to confront and “de-center” their whiteness; second, because well-intentioned white people agree they must “do the work” for the rest of their lives, this leaves them vulnerable to those seeking to take economic advantage of their guilt—in other words, the ideology of DEI has led to the creation of a veritable “racism industry” which is little more than a grift; and, third, that many of those in the DEI industry often engage in hypocrisy.

The fourth revelation is far more troubling: that, carried to their logical conclusion, the imperatives of anti-racism are nothing short of dehumanizing, and have the very real potential to drive people to do terrible things to one another.

A scene early on in the film (before Walsh adopts his “Matt” disguise) perfectly illustrates the no-win scenario. In the course of interviewing DEI educator Dr. Katie Slater, the topic of Disney princesses is raised, with Walsh saying (to Slater’s approval) that his 3-year old daughter likes Moana ; but since she also wants to be Moana for Halloween, Walsh asks, would dressing her in South Sea Islander costume be cultural appropriation? Slater replies yes, that she “wouldn’t f***ing do it.” Walsh points out that the choices—that white children can either like and emulate only white Disney princesses, or engage in cultural appropriation—both lead back to racism. That this manufactured moral conundrum is being imposed on small children is only one of the many troubling issues raised by the film.

The second theme—the nature of the grift—is highlighted throughout, with price tags placed on the screen indicating the amounts paid to the DEI educators to have them speak in the film (DiAngelo proposed and was paid $15,000, which, she has announced on social media , was donated to the NAACP legal fund). The film suggests that the financial temptations are such that some people will make extraordinary accusations of racism, such as the black mother who complained that her children were snubbed on camera by a Sesame Place mascot character , and sued the theme park for $25 million despite not even knowing if the actor in the suit was white; or engage in outright hate crime hoaxes, as did actor Jussie Smollett, for which he was convicted, sentenced to 150 days in prison and ordered to pay more than $145,000 in fines and in restitution to the city of Chicago . (One shortcoming of the film is that its re-enactment of the “incident” with “Matt” assuming the Smollett role doesn’t make it entirely clear that it never happened, which might confuse some viewers).

Hypocrisy—or, at the very least, a total lack of self-awareness—was also on display in the awkward “ race to dinner ” scene, in which consultants Regina Jackson and Saira Rao are invited to a high-end dinner party with a table of white women (for which “Matt” acts as a server) in order to berate them for their complicity in white supremacy. At one point (in a scene included in the film’s trailer ) Rao declares that “the entire system has to burn. This country is not worth saving, this country is a piece of s***”—all the while enjoying fine dining and (presumably) expensive wine.   

Where the dark side of DEI is truly exposed is the film’s climax, in which “Matt” takes everything he’s learned and puts on his own public workshop entitled, “Do the Work Workshop” (the event included an absurd website intended to promote the film). What follows is a shocking scenario in which he introduces his own proverbial “racist uncle” Frank—an elderly and apparently helpless man bent over in a wheelchair, whom he proceeds to verbally abuse and yell at for the better part of a minute, excoriating him for having told a racist joke about Mexicans 20 years previously. Not only do his participants do nothing whatever to intervene and defend the unresponsive victim of this tirade, but two of the attendees are actually inspired to follow his lead and spew their own hatred at “Uncle Frank.”

After “Frank” is wheeled out, “Matt” brings out a box of whips and paddles for the participants to literally flagellate themselves. With this, two people storm out, one sputtering “this is ridiculous!” but the remaining class members accept the devices and appear to be contemplating actually using the instruments on themselves. At this point, however,  “Matt” brings the event to an abrupt close, “realizing” he has gone too far.

That supposedly progressive convictions can lead to cruelty towards others was also revealed by James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian in their famous “grievance affair” hoax academic papers , one of which argued that

privileged students shouldn’t be allowed to speak in class at all and should just listen and learn in silence,” and that they would benefit from “experiential reparations” that include “sitting on the floor, wearing chains, or intentionally being spoken over.” The [peer] reviewers complained that this hoax paper took an overly compassionate stance toward the “privileged” students who would be subjected to this humiliation, and recommended that they be subjected to harsher treatment. 

If anything, the outcome of Walsh’s “social experiment” bears more than a passing resemblance to the notorious Stanley Milgram experiments in the early 1960s, which saw subjects (under the belief they were a confederate of the researcher) continue to press buttons to (supposedly) administer electric shocks to an unseen—and increasingly agitated and desperate—person in the next room, even to the point of believing they were “killing” them, all because the researcher instructed them to do so. Am I Racist? forwards similarly disturbing conclusions about deference to authority, but perhaps with even with greater intensity because it is imbued with a moral and ideological imperative.

What, then, might librarianship learn from Am I Racist ? I see four takeaways:

1.      The abstruse, theoretical language of DEI and Critical Social Justice may not be the best approach to communicating with the public. 

Much of the humor in the film comes from the confused reaction of everyday people to “Matt’s” attempts to engage them using the lexicon of DEI, strongly suggesting that while these ideas comprise the core vocabulary in scholarly LIS journals and within a small bubble of academia, they may have little resonance among the general public. This calls into question the pragmatic and community-relations value of the sorts of documents characterized by the OLA Commitment Towards Inclusive Librarianship : are they in fact intended to connect with stakeholders in the community, or are they actually performative virtue-signalling within the profession and the academy? This question becomes more troubling when we consider that…

2.      The lexicon of Critical Social Justice includes socially toxic connotations which are incompatible with the values of librarianship. 

That so many of the “Do the Work Workshop” participants in the film did nothing to defend a helpless old man or were eager to vent their own vitriol against him before picking up whips to flagellate themselves is a pretty good indication that the concepts associated with DEI may not what they appear to be. Most reasonable people would probably agree that principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (as generally understood) sound positive and benign—who could possibly object to them? Yet when one examines them more closely according to the lexicon of Critical Social Justice they convey deeper and quite illiberal meanings. As James Lindsay writes at his New Discourses website ,

“Diversity”…tends to mean uniformity of viewpoint about ideological matters … Where equality means that citizen A and citizen B are treated equally, equity means “adjusting shares in order to make citizens A and B equal.” In that sense, equity is something like a kind of “social communism” …[inclusion] means to create a welcoming environment specifically for groups considered marginalized, and this entails the exclusion of anything that could feel unwelcoming to any identity groups …Thus, inclusion is an expansive concept that could apply to silencing certain ideas like conservatism, meritocracy, or support for freedom of speech , usually in the name of safety and preventing the “trauma” or “violence” that such ideas could inflict upon progressives who see them as ideologies that perpetuate systemic harm (emphasis added) . 1

Ideological uniformity, administering equal outcomes rather than creating equal opportunities, and the forbidding or elimination of ideas, speakers, groups, or books to which particular groups may object: these are distinctly illiberal values quite at odds with what we have traditionally held to be the goals of librarianship. The Jefferson Council at the University of Virginia puts it this way: “DEI programs chill free speech and undermine a culture of civil dialogue, the free exchange of competing ideas, and intellectual diversity throughout the University.”

The film also suggests that DEI initiatives not only fail on their own terms but actually exacerbate racism: in one memorable scene, a young man on the street tells “Matt” after listening to him for a few minutes that he’s the most racist person he’s ever met. As Matt Osborne notes at The Distance , “Matt Walsh does not start out racist: he becomes racist by applying his DEI ‘education.’…At the end of the film, Walsh performs the realization that he has made his ‘students’ more hateful.”

For these reasons and more—and as we saw above—DEI training programs are increasingly the subject of controversy, and not because their critics are “bigots”.

3.     There are other ways beside DEI regimes to ensuring that organizations can meet the needs of diverse clientele.

In a genuinely touching moment, Walsh interviews an older black gentleman who immigrated to the U.S. years ago from (if I recall correctly) French Guiana, and who tells Walsh that he never really experienced racism. When Walsh asks him what Americans should do about racism, he replies simply, “love one another.”

This speaks to, I think, our commitment as library workers and administrators to “meet library users where they are,” to respond to diverse needs whether our users are experiencing a disability, are newly-arrived immigrants with minimal English language skills, or are students (of whatever racial or ethnic background) struggling in poorly-funded schools. We are more than prepared and willing to comply with accessibility legislation (such as the Americans with Disabilities Act , or in Canada, disability-related legislation at the Provincial levels), and to design and deliver programming aimed at specific and identified needs in the community. Nobody disputes this. However, where such efforts part ways with the critical ideology of DEI is that they are oriented to meeting the needs of individuals , not essentializing entire groups of people according to immutable characteristics or notions of self-identification. This is the difference between liberal conceptions of social justice, and Critical Social Justice. As such…

4.      Librarians should not be promulgating DEI through our institutions and professional associations as the only acceptable lens through which to view or approach matters of social justice.

We need to understand that 21 st century DEI regimes are not the inheritors of the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, which sought to extend the promise of the American way of life to African Americans, women, and same-sex attracted people, stressing our shared humanity and universal human rights. In contrast to the tenets of Critical Social Justice, those earlier movements championed liberal social justice premised on Enlightenment values, including individual liberty, evidence-based decision making, free speech, freedom of thought, and equality before the law. Instead, DEI is essentialist regarding social categories and therefore polarizing—one is either an oppressor or among the oppressed—and seeks to “disrupt and dismantle” institutions rather than improving their integrity and resilience (recall Saira Rao’s remark, “the entire system has to burn”). This message is driven home in the film’s final moments when Walsh (in something of a fantasy sequence) stands up in a coffee shop and declares that we should all treat each other as fellow human beings, regardless of race, and refuse to let ideologues divide us—a message that would hardly have been out of place at a 1960s Civil Rights rally.

I sincerely hope that this sentiment may once again soon become common currency in librarianship.

To promote viewpoint diversity, Heterodoxy in the Stacks invites constructive dissent and disagreement in the form of guest posts. While articles published on Heterodoxy in the Stacks are not peer- or editorially-reviewed, all posts and comments must model the HxA Way . Content is attributed to the individual contributor(s).

To submit an article for Heterodoxy in the Stacks, submit the Heterodoxy in the Stacks Guest Submission form in the format of a Microsoft Word document, PDF,  or a Google Doc. Unless otherwise requested, posts will include the author’s name and the commenting feature will be on. We understand that sharing diverse viewpoints can be risky, both professionally and personally, so anonymous and pseudonymous posts are allowed.

Thank you for joining the conversation!

Respective definitions excerpted from the “ Translations from the Wokish ” part of the site.

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Main Characteristics of The American Film Industry

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Film Industry Five Forces Analysis, Essay Example

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The film industry is one of the most robust industries in the world, let alone the United States. The industry generated US$ 564 billion in revenue as of December 2014 (Parnell). Considering the figures provided, the film industry is at the center of the entertainment industry as a whole. In order to get a clear picture of the film industry, it is essential that we apply analysis to the industry. This will be completed with the help of Michael Porter “Five Competitive Forces” for industry analysis.

Threat of New Entrants

This is one of the currently growing forces within the industry. There has been a considerable increase in the number of entrants into the industry. This is largely owing to the increasing number of on-demand streaming sites. Most of the existing market players have faced increasing competition from on-demand streaming suppliers.

A salient example would be that of Time Warner Inc. The company has faced increasing competition from streaming film providers, it has opted to get into operations with such provider. About 5% of the revenue generated by Time Warner Inc. originates from licensing services as well as subscription services to these on-demand streaming websites (Hill and Jones). Time Warner Inc. foregoes the opportunity to advertise through its own TV and Film networks every time it receives revenue from on-demand media streaming sites such as Netflix.

Some of the on-demand streaming sites like Amazon and Netflix have ventured into their own film production. However, this is on a small scale. Regardless of the scale of production of films that these on-demand streaming sites have been able to realize, it provides the existing industry players competition.

One considerable barrier to entry prevails within the film industry, costs. The cost of producing films has increased over the years, creating the need for considerable capital and cash flows to sustain consecutive film projects. As such, most of the new entrants were deterred by the general high costs of operations as well as state-of-the-art equipment.

Threat of Substitutes

The threat of substitutes is a slowly growing but currently moderate. This is because as the film industry grows and expands, technological advancements and developments allow for the growth and development of alternative methods of content delivery (Parnell). Most of the film industry’s new entrants and competitors act as substitutes. Their economies of scope allows them to provide a diverse mix of delivery channels.

One of the growing trends in modern-day culture is the appreciation of live-art. As such theatre has become considerably popular, especially in Europe and the United States. A general increase in the number of people watching opera stems from efforts by new entrants and competitors to offer an alternative delivery channel for media content. With the dwindling in the number of world-class theatre performances, the prospect of watching high quality shows becomes more appealing to the market. This depicts a growing threat within the industry.

Diversity in the delivery channel creates considerable product differentiation. When customers find it difficult to compare products from players within the same industry, the market becomes clearly stratified. This is a positive aspect within the film industry.

Customers’ Bargaining Power

Customers have moderate power for bargaining on which product to use within the film industry. Consumers have the option of selecting to pay for or subscribe to services from any of the available film providers. This is limited by their ability to spend or disposable income. However, customers are only willing to pay for the highest quality material or content. As such, film producers and suppliers have to considerably invest in film projects to realize the highest possible quality in the finished product.

Customers can choose from a wide-range of products from the numerous film providers and suppliers. The preference of these customers is influenced by a number of elements. One of the most important element is the film genre. Customers can be broadly categorized to the film genres available (Fleisher and Bensoussan). Owing to the existence of a wide-variety of products to choose from, customers tend to rate films. As such, film producers and suppliers would tend to produce content that a desirable target market would respond to. This highlights one aspect on the bargaining power that customers wield.

Owing to the fact that a film’s success is directly related to the rating it receives from customers, producers and suppliers, advertising is of essence. The depth and scope of advertisement is essential for the success of any film within the industry. The level of advertising has a considerable influence on the rating a film would receive. By creating a rapport with the market, prior to release, producers and suppliers create anticipation within the market to ensure optimal sales and profits.

There has been an increase in the delivery methods of media content. While some customers would be willing to pay for movie tickets and watch the movie at a theatre, most customers prefer to buy the DVD copy of the movie while others prefer to either stream it online or download it. Most film companies would prefer to take advantage of all possible delivery channels. As such, film companies have to offer their finished product through all existing and developing delivery channels.

Suppliers’ Bargaining Power

This is a very low force within the industry. There are three main type of suppliers within the film industry; sports and celebrity agents, Intellectual property licensing creative and performing artists and fine arts schools. Most of the suppliers within the industry maintain some level of control as far as the supply for quality is concerned. However, the major industry players also have a considerable amount of control, far much more than suppliers.

Intensity of Existing Rivalry

This is the highest of the five forces. The film industry is a considerably large industry. This allows for the development of numerous players who can prosper without necessarily causing a change in market share. This allows for increased profitability for all players relative to the performance of their products within the market.

There are low exit barriers within the industry. This allows for smaller and weaker firms to exit the market, increasing profits for the remaining players. Weak players can easily liquidate fixed assets with minimal closure and redundancy costs.

The industry is currently growing at a fast rate. This is largely owing to the increase amounts of revenue that film companies and business realize per project. As a result of growing revenue across the board, the total size of the film industry also grows. This eliminated the need for competition from the existing players as the market share does not significantly influence the profitability one player compared to another.

In conclusion, according to the analysis provided above, I believe that the film industry is an attractive industry. This is because of the underlying potential for a new entry into the market with all the required resources and a rich and continuous flow of talent and ideas. A new entry into the market with such qualities could potentially thrive in this market.

Works Cited

Fleisher, Craig S and Bebbette E Bensoussan. Strategic and competitive analysis . Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.

Hill, Charles W and Gareth R Jones. Strategic Management : Theory . Mason: South-Western, Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.

Parnell, John A. Strategic Management : Theory and Practice . Los Angeles: SAGE, 2014. Print.

Wheelan, Thomas L and David J Hunger. Strategic management and business policy : achieving sustainability . Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.

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Film Research Paper Topics: Tips & Ideas to Use as Inspiration

Updated 30 Aug 2024

The most challenging part of writing a research paper might be picking the right topic. Choosing one that’s interesting, compelling, and thought-provoking is critical for engaging the reader and showcasing your knowledge.

Thanks to decades of moviemaking, there are tons of film research paper topics to choose from, so it can be a bit overwhelming to lock in on a single one.

That’s why we’ve put together a comprehensive list of ideas that you can use for inspiration. Let’s dive in.

Most Interesting Film Essay Topics

When brainstorming a topic for your film research paper, it’s vital to pick something you’re passionate about. That’s how you’ll be able to put your best foot forward.

These are some of the most exciting topics that are certain to summon your inspiration muse.

• The Evolution of Female Protagonists in Action Films
• The Impact of Global Cinema on Hollywood
• Analyzing the Auteur Theory in Modern Cinema
• The Role of Soundtracks in Defining Movie Genres
• The Influence of Neo-Noir Aesthetics on Contemporary Filmmaking
• Virtual Reality in Cinema: A New Frontier or a Passing Trend?
• The Representation of Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction Movies
• Cultural Stereotypes and Their Perpetuation in Animated Films
• The Psychological Effects of Horror Films on Audiences
• The Renaissance of Musical Films in the 21st Century
• Exploring the Cinematic Portrayals of Historical Events
• The Rise of Independent Films in the Streaming Era
• Color Theory in Film: How Palette Choices Affect Emotion
• The Depiction of Mental Illness in Modern Cinema
• The Use of Long Takes and Their Impact on Storytelling
• The Evolution of Superhero Movies: From Niche to Mainstream
• The Significance of Costume Design in Character Development
• Analyzing the Shift from Film to Digital Cinematography
• The Role of Propaganda Films in Shaping Public Opinion
• The Ethics of Documentary Filmmaking: Truth vs. Narrative
• The Influence of French New Wave on Contemporary Directors
• The Portrayal of LGBTQ+ Characters in Mainstream Cinema
• The Cultural Impact of Biographical Films
• The Art of the Film Sequel: Expansion or Exploitation?
• Cinema as a Tool for Social Change: Case Studies
• The Representation of Race and Ethnicity in Hollywood
• The Phenomenon of Cult Films and Their Dedicated Fanbases
• The Impact of Censorship on Creative Freedom in Film
• Exploring the Use of Non-Linear Narratives in Storytelling
• The Role of Film Festivals in Discovering New Talent
• The Challenges and Triumphs of Adapting Literature into Film
• The Dynamics of On-Screen Chemistry: What Makes It Work?
• The Influence of Cinema on Fashion Trends
• The Significance of Opening and Closing Shots in Films
• The Evolution of the Teen Movie Genre
• The Role of Archetypes in Film Genres
• The Impact of Global Locations on Film Production and Storytelling
• The Use of Silence as a Narrative Tool in Cinema
• The Portrayal of Villainy and Moral Ambiguity in Film
• The Legacy of Silent Films and Their Influence on Modern Cinema
• The Depiction of Space and Time Travel in Science Fiction Movies
• The Art and Technique of Film Editing: Creating Rhythm and Pace
• The Representation of War in Cinema: Glory vs. Horror
• The Influence of Social Media on Film Marketing and Audience Engagement
• The Role of Animation in Adult Storytelling
• The Impact of 3D Technology on the Viewer's Experience
• The Portrayal of Relationships and Love in Romantic Comedies
• The Use of Allegory and Symbolism in Film to Reflect Society
• The Challenges of Filming in Extreme Conditions
• The Future of Cinema in the Age of Streaming Services

Top Film History Research Paper Topics

The history of cinema is vast, so there are countless film history research topics that can captivate your reader. These are some of the most relevant you can use.

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• The Birth of Cinema: Exploring the Lumière Brothers' Contribution to Film
• George Méliès and the Invention of Narrative Cinema
• The Evolution of Silent Film Techniques and Their Modern Legacy
• Charlie Chaplin: The Impact of The Tramp on Global Cinema
• The Role of Women in Early Cinema: Pioneers Behind and in Front of the Camera
• The Transition from Silent to Sound Films: Technological and Artistic Challenges
• Expressionism in German Cinema: A Study of Visual Style and Its Influence
• The Rise and Fall of the Studio System in the Silent Era
• Early Animation Techniques: From Gertie the Dinosaur to Steamboat Willie
• Cross-Cultural Influences: How Early Cinema Traveled Across Continents
• The Hays Code: Censorship and Its Impact on Hollywood Storytelling
• Technicolor Dreams: The Introduction of Color in Hollywood Cinema
• Film Noir: Origins, Characteristics, and Key Figures
• The McCarthy Era: Blacklisting and Its Effects on Hollywood
• The Rise of the Director: Auteur Theory and Its Proponents
• New Hollywood: The 1970s Renaissance and Its Lasting Influence
• The Blockbuster Era: Jaws, Star Wars, and the New Business of Cinema
• Independent Cinema Movement: Breaking Away from Hollywood Norms
• The Digital Revolution: CGI and the Transformation of Film Production
• Global Cinema: The Influence of Hollywood on World Cinema and Vice Versa

Research Paper Topics on Music in Films

Music in films can tell a captivating story, evoke a world of emotions, and create a unique experience that lingers on long after you’ve watched the end credits. It often becomes as iconic as the films themselves, especially when it comes to musicals. Here are some captivating film research paper topics on music.

• The Evolution of Film Scores: From Silent Cinema to the Digital Age
• The Role of Music in Establishing Film Genres
• Iconic Film Composers: The Musical Styles of John Williams and Ennio Morricone
• The Impact of Jazz on Film Noir Soundtracks
• Musical Motifs in Cinema: Creating Character and Narrative Depth
• The Influence of Classical Music on Modern Film Scores
• Diegetic vs. Non-Diegetic Music: Shaping Viewer Perception
• The Use of Popular Music in Films: Cultural Context and Impact
• Music as a Narrative Device in Animated Films
• The Psychological Effects of Film Music on Audiences
• The Art of the Film Musical: Evolution from Stage to Screen
• World Music in Cinema: Exploring Cross-Cultural Soundscapes
• The Rise of the Film Soundtrack: From Background to Bestseller
• The Function of Silence: When the Absence of Music Tells the Story
• The Process of Scoring for Film: Collaboration Between Directors and Composers
• Adapting Opera and Ballet for the Film Medium
• Horror Film Scores: Techniques for Creating Tension and Fear
• The Legacy of Disney's Musical Films: Shaping Generations
• Music Video Aesthetics in Narrative Filmmaking
• The Role of Music in Documentary Films: Enhancing Realism and Emotion

Riveting Horror Film Research Paper Topics

There are quite a few scary and suspenseful horror movies that can keep viewers at the edge of their seats. Analyzing the overall genre or some of the greatest directors’ masterpieces and techniques is certain to enthrall your reader. Here are some gripping horror film research paper topics you can use.

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• The Evolution of Horror Cinema: From Gothic to Modern Psychological Thrillers
• Monsters and Myths: Cultural Significance of Horror Film Antagonists
• The Impact of German Expressionism on American Horror Films
• Social Fears and Horror Films: Reflecting Societal Anxieties Through Cinema
• The Final Girl Trope: Gender Dynamics in Slasher Films
• Horror and Comedy: Analyzing the Success of Horror-Comedy Hybrids
• The Rise of Found Footage: Authenticity and Fear in a Digital Age
• Censorship in Horror: The Battle Between Artistic Freedom and Social Responsibility
• The Influence of Literature on Horror Cinema: From Mary Shelley to Stephen King
• Horror Film Festivals: Cultivating Communities and Defining the Genre
• Sound Design in Horror Films: Crafting Fear with Audio
• Lighting and Color in Horror Cinema: Setting the Mood Without a Word
• The Art of Suspense: Building Tension in Horror Films
• Practical Effects vs. CGI in Horror: Preserving the Tangibility of Terror
• The Role of Setting: Isolated Cabins and Urban Nightmares in Horror Films
• Auteur Theory in Horror: The Signature Styles of Hitchcock, Carpenter, and Craven
• The Psychology of Jump Scares: Manipulating the Viewer's Anticipation and Fear
• Horror Film Sequels and Remakes: Innovation or Exploitation?
• The Use of First-Person Perspective in Horror Films: Immersion and Disorientation
• Horror Across Cultures: How Different Societies Scare Their Audiences

Compelling Monster Essay Topics

Movie monsters are often terrifying fictional creatures, but they sometimes represent human nature and our deepest fears as well. Let’s explore some of the more fascinating film essay topics on monsters.

• The Evolution of the Vampire Myth in Literature and Popular Culture
• Monsters as Metaphors: Analyzing the Symbolism Behind Literary Monsters
• Frankenstein's Monster: A Reflection on Humanity and Creator Responsibility
• The Role of Dragons in Eastern vs. Western Mythology
• Hybrid Monsters in Mythology: Exploring the Fear of the Unknown
• Duality of Werewolves: Exploring the Beast Within Human Nature
• The Influence of Greek Mythology's Monsters on Modern Fantasy Literature
• Grendel in "Beowulf": Monster as a Social Outcast
• The Loch Ness Monster: Myth, Hoax, or Unexplained Phenomenon?
• Monsters in Children's Literature: Fears, Morals, and Imagination
• The Psychology of Horror: Why Do We Enjoy Being Scared by Movie Monsters?
• Zombies as a Cultural Phenomenon: From Haitian Folklore to Global Apocalypse Obsession
• The Representation of Artificial Intelligence as Monstrous in Science Fiction
• Kaiju Films: The Appeal of Giant Monsters in Japanese Cinema and Beyond
• The Monster's Perspective: Sympathy for the Devil in Modern Media
• Aliens and the Fear of Invasion: Analyzing Extraterrestrial Monsters in Film
• The Role of Monsters in Video Games: Beyond the Antagonist
• Body Horror: The Monstrosity of the Human Form Transformed
• The Slasher Villain: Serial Killers as Monsters in Horror Films
• Monsters and Heroes: The Thin Line Between Antagonist and Protagonist in Comic Books

How to Pick a Good Topic for a Film Research Paper

If none of these film research paper topics have inspired you to write your paper, here’s what you can do to find new ideas:

• Make a list of your favorite films or filmmakers - Movies you’re passionate about or filmmakers you admire the most are a great place to start.
• Choose a specific historical period - If you’re interested in a specific period in film history, you can analyze that time’s movies, themes, techniques, etc.
• Pick a film genre - Focusing on a specific genre from the get-go might help you narrow down your list of ideas.
• Research different ideas - The more ideas you research, the higher your chances of finding the right topic. You should conduct thorough research on all the ideas, exploring the available literature, media platforms, published research papers, and other credible sources.
• Come up with a specific topic - Armed with relevant information, come up with a specific topic that interests you the most. Make sure it isn’t too broad so that you can go into detail and provide real value.
• Narrow down your focus - Narrowing down your topic to one or two ideas is key to writing a high-quality paper. Make sure it’s not too narrow so that you can keep the reader engaged.

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At EduBirdie, we have an expert team of professionals who can assist you with research and help you write a brilliant movie research paper. They have Ph.D. and Master’s degrees in Film Studies and years of experience under their belt.

Choosing the right film research paper topics can be overwhelming, so if you're struggling, you might consider the option to pay someone to write my paper to ensure a well-researched and compelling essay. We offer plagiarism-free research paper writing services with outline writing, formatting, citations, unlimited free revisions, and no delays. Contact us today and get original, unique, high-quality content that will exceed your expectations!

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174 Film Research Paper Topics To Inspire Your Writing

Also known as a moving picture or movie, the film uses moving images to communicate or convey everything from feelings and ideas to atmosphere and experiences. The making of movies, as well as the art form, is known as cinematography (or cinema, in short). The film is considered a work of art. The first motion pictures were created in the late 1880s and were shown to only one person at a time using peep show devices. By 1985, movies were being projected on large screens for large audiences.

Film has a rich and interesting history, as well as a bright future given the current technological advancements. This is why many professors will really appreciate it if you write a research paper on movies. However, to write a great paper, you need a great topic.

In this blog post, we will give you our latest list of 174 film research paper topics. They should be excellent for 2023 and should get you some bonus points for originality and creativity. As always, our topics are 100% free to use as you see fit. You can reword them in any way you like and you are not required to give us any credit.

Writing Good Film Research Paper

Before we get to the film topics for research papers in our list, you need to learn how you can write the best possible film research paper. It’s not overly complicated, don’t worry. Here are some pointers to get you started:

Start as early as possible Start your project with an outline that will keep you focused on what’s important Spend some time to find a great topic (or just use one of ours) Research every angle of the topic Spend some time composing the thesis statement Always use information from reliable sources Make sure you cite and reference properly Edit and proofread your work to make it perfect. Alternatively, you can rely on our editors and proofreaders to help you with this.

Now it’s time to pick your topic. We’ve made things easy for you, so all you have to do is go through our neatly organized list and select the topic you like the most. If you already know something about the topic, writing the paper shouldn’t take you more than 1 or 2 days, however if you have no desire to spend a lot of time on your assignment, thesis writing help from our professionals is on its way. Pick your topic now:

Easy Film Research Topics

We know most students are not too happy about spending days working on their research papers. This is why we have compiled a list of easy film research topics just for our readers:

• What was the Electrotachyscope?
• Research the history of film
• Describe the first films ever made
• Talk about the Kinetoscope
• Who were Auguste and Louis Lumière?
• An in-depth look at film during World War I
• Talk about the evolution of sound in motion pictures
• Most popular movie actors of all time
• The life and works of Charles Chaplin
• The life and works of Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein
• Discuss the Mutoscope device
• Talk about the introduction of natural color in films

Film Topics To Write About In High School

If you are a high school student, you probably want some topics that are not overly complicated. Well, the good news is that we have plenty of film topics to write about in high school. Check them out below:

• An in-depth analysis of sound film
• Research the shooting of Le Voyage dans la Lune
• Talk about the Technicolor process
• Research the film industry in India
• The growing popularity of television
• Discuss the most important aspects of film theory
• The drawbacks of silent movies
• Cameras used in 1950s movies
• The most important cinema movie of the 1900s
• Research the montage of movies in the 1970s
• The inception of film criticism
• Discuss the film industry in the United States

Interesting Film Paper Topics

Are you looking for the most interesting film paper topics so that you can impress your professor and your fellow students? We are happy to say that you have arrived at just the right place. Here are our latest ideas:

• Are digital movies much different from films?
• Research the evolution of cinematography
• Research the role of movies in Indian culture
• The principles of a cinema camera
• Technological advancements in the film industry
• The use of augmented reality in movies
• Talk about the role of film in American culture
• An in-depth look at the production cycle of a film
• The role of the filming crew on the set
• Latest cameras for cinematography
• An in-depth look at the distribution of films
• How are animated movies made?

Controversial Movie Topics

Why would you be afraid to write your paper on a controversial topic? Perhaps you didn’t know that most professors really appreciate the effort and the innovative ideas. Below, you can find a whole list of controversial movie topics for students:

• An in-depth look at Cannibal Holocaust
• Controversies behind Fifty Shades of Gray
• A Clockwork Orange: the banned movie
• All Quiet on the Western Front: a controversial war movie
• Discuss The Texas Chain Saw Massacre movie
• Apocalypse Now: one of the most banned movies
• Brokeback Mountain and the controversies surrounding it
• Talk about The Last Temptation of Christ
• The Birth of a Nation: the movie that was banned in America

Movie Topics Ideas For College

As you probably know already, college students should choose topics that are a bit more complex than those picked by high school students. The good news is that we have compiled a list of the best movie topics ideas for college students below:

• Methods to bring your sketches to life
• Discuss problems with documentary filming
• War movies and their impact on society
• What does a director actually do on the set?
• Talk about state-sanctioned movies in China
• Research cinematography in North Korea
• Talk about psychological reactions to films
• Research the good versus evil theme
• African Americans in the 1900s cinematography in the US
• Discuss the creation of sound for films

Hottest Film Topics To Date

Our writers and editors did their best to compile a list of the hottest film topics to date. You can safely pick any of the topics below and write your essay or research paper on it. You should be able to find plenty of information online about each and every topic:

• The life and works of Alfred Hitchcock
• Talk about racial discrimination in war movies
• The psychology behind vampire movies
• The life and works of Samuel L. Jackson
• Classic opera versus modern movie soundtracks
• Hollywood versus Bollywood
• The life and works of tom Hanks
• Research the Frankenstein character
• Major contributions by women in cinematography
• The life and works of Harrison Ford
• The 3 most popular topics for a moving picture

Good Movie Topics For 2023

We know, you probably want some topics that relevant today. You want to talk about something new and exciting. Well, we’ve got a surprise for you. This list of good movie topics for 2023 has just been added to the blog post, and you can use it for free:

• The life and works of Will Smith
• Why do people love movie monsters?
• Talk about the popularity of fan movies
• The life and works of Morgan Freeman
• Gender inequality in UK films
• Research movies that were produced because of video games
• The life and works of Anthony Hopkins
• The importance of the Golden Raspberry Award
• Outer space: the future of cinematography
• Compare today’s filming techniques to those in the 1950s
• The importance of winning a Golden Globe Award

Fascinating Film Topics

Are you looking for some of the most fascinating film topics one can ever find online? Our experts have outdone themselves this time. Check out our list of ideas below and choose the topic you like the most:

• Talk about the development of Star Wars
• Talk about spaghetti western movies
• Discuss the filming of Pride and Prejudice
• Research fantasy films
• The most popular movie genre in 2023
• What makes a movie a blockbuster?
• Filming for the Interstellar movie
• Peculiarities of Bollywood cinema
• Talk about the era of Hitchcock
• Discuss the role of motion pictures in society
• Talk about Neo-realism in Italian movies
• Research the filming of A Fistful of Dollars

The History Of Film Topics

Writing about the history of film and cinematography can be a good way to earn some bonus points from your professor. However, it’s not an easy thing to do. Fortunately, we have a list of the history of film topics right here for you, so you don’t have to waste any time searching:

• Research the first ever motion picture
• Discuss the idea behind moving images
• Research the Pioneer Era
• Talk about the introduction of sound in movies
• Talk about the Silent Era
• Who created the first ever movie?
• Discuss the Golden Era of cinematography
• The era of changes in 2023
• The rise of Hollywood cinematography
• Discuss the first color movie
• Research the first horror movie
• Discuss the phrase “No one person invented cinema”

Famous Cinematographers Topics

You can, of course, write your next research paper on the life and works of a famous or popular cinematographer. You have plenty to choose from. However, we’ve already selected the best famous cinematographers topics for you right here:

• The life and works of Sir Roger Deakins
• Research the cinematographer Vittorio Storaro
• An in-depth look at Bill Pope
• Research the cinematographer Gordon Willis
• The life and works of Wally Pfister
• An in-depth look at Robert Burks
• Research the cinematographer Stanley Cortez
• The life and works of Conrad Hall
• An in-depth look at Rodrigo Prieto
• The life and works of Claudio Miranda
• Emmanuel Lubezki
• An in-depth look at Jack Cardiff
• Research the cinematographer Michael Ballhaus
• The life and works of Kazuo Miyagawa

Famous Films Topic Ideas

The easiest and fastest way to write an essay or research paper about movies is to write about a famous movie. Take a look at these famous films topic ideas and start writing your paper today:

• Research A Space Odyssey
• Research the movie Seven Samurai
• Cinematography techniques in There Will Be Blood
• Discuss the film The Godfather
• An in-depth look at La Dolce Vita
• Research the movie Citizen Kane
• Cinematography techniques in Goodfellas
• An in-depth look at the Aliens series
• Cinematography techniques in Singin’ in the Rain
• Research the movie Mulholland Drive
• An in-depth look at In The Mood For Love
• Research the movie City Lights

The Future Of Movies Topic Ideas

Did you ever wonder what the movies of the future will look like? We can guarantee that your professor has thought about it. Surprise him by writing your paper on one of these the future of movies topic ideas:

• The future of digital films
• Discuss animation techniques of the future
• The future of cinematography cameras
• How do you view the actors of the future?
• Will digital releases eliminate the need for DVDs?
• The role of streaming services in the future
• Talk about the direct-to-consumer distribution concept
• Is cinematography a good career for the future?
• Will movie theaters disappear?
• Virtual reality in future films
• The rise of Pixar Studios

Awesome Cinema Topic Ideas

Our experts have just finished completing this section of the topics list. Here, you will find some of the most awesome cinema topic ideas. These should all work great in 2023, so give them a try today:

• The concept of the Road Movie
• Review the film “Donnie Brasco”
• The popularity of musical movies
• A comprehensive history of cinematography
• Discuss the A Beautiful Mind movie
• Compare watching movies now and in the 1990s
• Talk about film narrative
• The importance of the main characters in a movie
• The process of selecting the right actor for the role
• Well-known produces in the United States
• The most popular actors in 2023
• Research Nazi propaganda films

Simple Cinema Essay Ideas

If you want to write about cinematography but don’t want to spend too much time researching the topic, you could always choose one of our simple cinema essay ideas. New ideas are added to this list periodically:

• Discuss the concept of limited animation
• War movies during World War II
• The importance of James Bond for Americans
• What is docufiction?
• The traits of a filmophile
• The success of early crime movies
• An in-depth look at Hanna-Barbera
• The transition from VHS tape to DVD
• Best comedy movies ever made
• Discuss the Film Noir genre
• What is a Blaxploitation?
• The best samurai film ever produced

Movies And The Internet Topics

• How does piracy affect the movie industry?
• An in-depth look at Netflix
• Research the top 3 movie streaming websites
• Compare and contrast Netflix and Amazon Prime
• Should movies be shared for free online?
• The effects of online streaming on piracy
• Is pirating movies illegal everywhere?
• Illegal downloads of movies in North Korea
• Piracy: a form of film preservation
• The most pirated movies of the 21st century
• Research the best ways to stop film piracy
• The economic impact of movie piracy in the United States

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Film Extended Essay Ideas

Welcome to the world of film studies and the extended essay! If you have a passion for movies and want to delve deeper into the world of cinema, then you have come to the right place. In this guide, we will introduce you to the extended essay and its significance in the film field.

The extended essay is an independent research project that allows you to explore a specific topic in depth. It is a mandatory component of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, and it offers you the opportunity to demonstrate your research and writing skills, as well as your ability to think critically and analytically.

So, why is the extended essay important in the film field? Firstly, it provides you with an avenue to pursue your passion for film and develop your understanding of its various aspects. By conducting thorough research and analysis, you will gain a deeper appreciation for the artistry involved in filmmaking.

Furthermore, the extended essay allows you to showcase your knowledge and expertise in a specific area of film studies. Whether it is exploring the cinematography techniques used in a particular film or analyzing the cultural significance of a director’s body of work, the extended essay enables you to delve into the complexities of the film industry.

Besides its academic benefits, the extended essay can also have practical implications for your future career. If you aspire to work in the film industry or pursue film studies at the university level, the extended essay can serve as a valuable portfolio piece that showcases your research and analytical skills to potential employers or admissions committees.

In addition, the extended essay in film opens doors to further exploration and research. By igniting your curiosity and encouraging you to ask bold questions about cinematic practices and theories, it lays the foundation for a lifelong interest in film and the critical analysis of visual media.

Overall, the extended essay is an opportunity for you to immerse yourself in film studies and contribute to the ever-evolving field. It allows you to combine your passion for movies with academic rigor, propelling you towards a deeper understanding of the medium and fostering your intellectual growth.

Now that we have introduced you to the extended essay in film and its significance, it’s time to move on to the next step: choosing a relevant topic that sets the stage for your research journey. Remember, the journey of a thousand words begins with just one idea!

• An exploration of how the portrayal of female characters in Disney movies has changed over time, reflecting social attitudes towards gender roles.
• A study on how the musical choices in Nolan’s films contribute to the emotional engagement of the audience.
• Investigating how the city landscape and cultural background serve as more than just a setting in Allen’s movies.
• Analyzing how mental illness is portrayed in horror films and its impact on social stigma.
• A look at the elements of postmodernism in Pulp Fiction and how they contribute to the film’s unique storytelling techniques.
• Discussing how the depiction of friendships, family, and romance in Studio Ghibli films convey broader themes about Japanese culture.
• Tracing the impact of Italian Neorealistic techniques on the development of independent cinema in the United States.
• A focused study on how the film portrays the devastating effects of war through the perspective of its young protagonists.
• Investigating the use of montage and other techniques to create a persuasive political narrative.
• Examining whether the techniques and philosophies of the French New Wave hold significance in today’s digital filmmaking landscape.
• A detailed look at how location and set design contribute to the unique aesthetic and storytelling in Anderson’s films.
• Studying the use of horror tropes to comment on racism and social inequality in modern America.
• An analysis of how Kurosawa’s films serve as both entertainment and a reflection of traditional Japanese values.
• Investigating the techniques used by Alfred Hitchcock to create suspense and engage audiences.
• A look at the film’s use of mythological elements to enrich its narrative and themes.
• An analysis of how Bollywood blends realism and fantasy, and the cultural significance of this mixture.
• Investigating how the film uses visual elements to enhance its narrative and emotional impact.
• A study on how New Wave Queer Cinema has contributed to the visibility and portrayal of LGBTQ+ characters in film.
• An examination of recurring themes of loneliness and social disconnection in Sofia Coppola’s body of work.
• Comparing how Scorsese approaches the theme of violence and its moral implications in two of his seminal works.

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Importance of choosing a relevant topic.

When embarking on your extended essay journey in film, one of the most crucial decisions you’ll make is choosing a strong and relevant topic. This choice can significantly impact the research process and ultimately dictate the success of your essay. So why is it so important to select an appropriate topic?

1. Motivation and Engagement:

Choosing a topic that aligns with your interests and passions will naturally motivate and engage you throughout the research and writing process. When you have a genuine curiosity and enthusiasm for the subject matter, it becomes easier to invest time and effort into producing a high-quality extended essay.

2. Research Direction:

A relevant topic will provide clarity and direction to your research. It will guide you in identifying the key areas to explore, the specific films to analyze, and the appropriate research methods to employ. Conversely, a vague or unfocused topic can lead to aimless research and may result in a lackluster essay with inconsistent arguments.

3. Rich Content and Deeper Understanding:

A well-selected topic ensures that you delve into rich content and develop a deep understanding of the specific aspects you are exploring. By focusing on a narrow aspect of film, such as a particular genre or director’s body of work, you can analyze and interpret the films in-depth, contributing unique insights and perspectives to your essay.

4. Contributing to the Field:

An excellent extended essay not only demonstrates your understanding of film but also adds value to the field of study. By selecting a relevant and under-researched topic, you have the opportunity to present original ideas and contribute new knowledge. This can make your essay stand out and have a lasting impact on the broader film community.

5. Appeals to the Assessor:

Remember, your extended essay will be assessed by an examiner who may have limited knowledge of your chosen topic. By selecting a relevant topic, you ensure that your essay appeals to the assessor and demonstrates your expertise in film studies. A compelling topic can capture the attention of readers and provoke their interest, leading to a favorable evaluation.

To make a strong start on your extended essay in film, take the time to brainstorm and explore different topics that genuinely intrigue you. Consider your personal interests, emerging trends in the film industry, or concepts that challenge established ideas. And remember, a relevant topic can unleash your creativity and passion for film, leading to an insightful and impactful extended essay.

Creating an Engaging Research Question

Formulating a focused and compelling research question is crucial when embarking on an extended essay in film. The research question is the foundation upon which your entire essay rests, so it needs to both capture readers’ interest and provide a clear direction for your investigation. Here are some tips to help you create an engaging research question:

• Choose a topic that genuinely intrigues you: Selecting a topic that sparks your curiosity and passion will naturally make the research process more enjoyable and productive. Think about genres, directors, or films that have captivated your attention, and brainstorm ideas around them.
• Narrow down your focus: Be specific when framing your research question. A broad question may result in scattered research and a lack of depth. Consider narrowing your topic by focusing on a particular aspect of film, such as the use of visual effects in sci-fi films or the portrayal of gender roles in romantic comedies.
• Ensure feasibility: While it’s essential to pursue a unique research question, make sure it is feasible within the parameters of your extended essay. Take into account the available resources, time constraints, and access to relevant literature and films.
• Consider the significance and relevance: Evaluate the importance of your research question in relation to the broader field of film. Is it a question that has not been thoroughly explored? Does it address a current cinematic trend or challenge existing theories? Showing the significance and relevance of your research question can increase its appeal.
• Formulate it as a question: Instead of making a statement, frame your research question as an open-ended query. This allows for a deeper exploration and analysis of different perspectives and interpretations. For example, rather than stating, “The impact of film festivals on emerging filmmakers,” pose the question, “How do film festivals contribute to the visibility and career advancement of emerging filmmakers?”

Your research question should be concise, precise, and strategic. It should generate interest and highlight the unique contribution your essay will make to the field of film studies. Remember, your research question is not set in stone, and it may evolve and refine as you delve deeper into your research. Stay open to adjustments that arise during your investigation.

By creating an engaging research question, you lay the groundwork for a captivating extended essay in film. A well-crafted research question keeps your focus sharp and entices readers to explore your research findings. It is the first step in embarking on a fascinating journey through the world of film.

Choosing Suitable Films for Analysis

When it comes to selecting films for your extended essay in film, you have a variety of options that can lead to engaging and insightful analysis. Here are some different types of films that you can consider exploring:

• Specific Genre: You can choose to focus on a specific genre and analyze its characteristics, themes, and impact on the film industry. For example, you could explore the evolution of horror in cinema or examine how comedy films reflect social and cultural attitudes.
• Director’s Body of Work: Another option is to delve into the filmography of a particular director and study their artistic style, recurring themes, or directorial techniques. This approach allows you to explore the individual creative vision and impact of a specific filmmaker, such as analyzing the films of Alfred Hitchcock or Quentin Tarantino.
• Cultural Significance: Films often provide a lens through which we can view and understand cultures and societies. You can choose a film that holds significant cultural importance and delve into its representation of a specific culture, historical event, or social issue. For instance, you could examine the portrayal of gender roles and societal norms in a foreign film or analyze the depiction of a specific historical event in a biographical drama.

It is important to select a film that genuinely interests you and aligns with your research question. Your passion for the subject matter will drive your motivation throughout the research and writing process, resulting in a more engaging and compelling extended essay. Additionally, consider the availability of resources and materials related to the chosen film. Ensure that there are sufficient scholarly articles, books, and interviews that can support your analysis.

Remember, the aim of choosing a suitable film for analysis is to find a balance between accessibility and depth of investigation. The selected films should allow you to explore various film techniques, elements, and critical perspectives relevant to your research question.

Once you have identified potential films for analysis, it is recommended to narrow down your options by critically evaluating their relevance and their potential to contribute to your research. Consider seeking input from your supervisor or mentor to ensure that your film choices align with the parameters of an extended essay in film.

In the next section, we will discuss the importance of conducting thorough research, using various credible sources to gather information for your extended essay in film.

Conducting Thorough Research

When embarking on your film extended essay, conducting thorough research is crucial to ensure that your essay is well-informed and supported by credible sources. Here are some guidelines to help you navigate the research process:

• Utilize diverse sources: In order to gather a comprehensive range of information, it is important to explore various credible sources. These include scholarly articles, books written by film experts, interviews with filmmakers or critics, and online databases dedicated to film studies. By consulting these different sources, you will gain multiple perspectives and enrich your understanding of the topic.
• Start with scholarly articles: Scholarly journals are excellent resources for in-depth analysis and critical perspectives on films. They provide rigorous academic research and interpretations that can enhance your own analysis. When searching for articles, consider using databases like JSTOR or Film Quarterly that focus specifically on film studies.
• Immerse yourself in film literature: Books written by film scholars and theorists offer valuable insights into various aspects of cinema. From major film studies classics to recent publications, you have access to a wealth of knowledge. Pay attention to the reputation of the author and the relevance of the book to your chosen topic. Take notes and keep track of key arguments and theories that you can incorporate into your essay.
• Interview industry professionals: Conducting interviews with filmmakers, actors, or critics can provide unique perspectives and insider knowledge. Read up on interviews conducted by reputable film journalists; they often reveal behind-the-scenes information and shed light on the intentions behind certain creative choices.
• Explore online databases: With the advent of the internet, a vast amount of film-related information is now readily available online. Websites like the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the Criterion Collection, or academic platforms like Project MUSE can offer valuable resources for research. Remember to evaluate the credibility of the sources before using them in your essay.

As you research, take detailed notes and document your sources carefully. This will help you avoid plagiarism and facilitate proper citation later on. Cross-reference your findings from different sources to gather a comprehensive understanding of your chosen film topic.

Remember, conducting thorough research is not a one-time activity but an ongoing process throughout your extended essay. As you delve deeper into your research, new questions may arise, leading you to new sources and perspectives. Embrace the journey of exploration and use the research phase as a foundation for an insightful and well-supported essay on film.

Analyzing Film Techniques and Elements: Unlocking the Secrets of the Silver Screen

Lights, camera, action! When it comes to crafting a compelling extended essay in film, analyzing the intricate techniques and elements employed by filmmakers is a key ingredient for success. In this section, we will delve into the fascinating world of analyzing film techniques, including cinematography, editing, sound, and mise-en-scène, and explore how it can enrich your research and contribute to a rock-solid essay.

Capturing the Visual Poetry: Cinematography

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then cinematography is the language of the silver screen. It is through the lens of the camera that filmmakers evoke emotion, heighten tension, and create visual masterpieces. By analyzing various aspects of cinematography, such as framing, camera angles, and lighting choices, you can uncover hidden meanings, thematic motifs, and artistic intent lurking within the frames of your chosen films.

The Art of Seamless Storytelling: Editing

The magic of film lies not only in what is captured on camera but also in the way those captured moments are stitched together. Editing plays a vital role in shaping narrative structure, pacing, and meaning. By dissecting the editing choices made by filmmakers, including shot transitions, continuity, and emphasis, you can unearth fresh perspectives on storytelling devices and explore how they contribute to the overall impact and reception of the film.

A Symphony of Sound: Audio Elements

Sound, often an underestimated aspect of filmmaking, has a profound impact on our emotional response and interpretation of a movie. By examining the sound design, dialogue, music, and other auditory components, you can unravel a rich tapestry of subtext, character development, and atmosphere. This analysis can deepen your understanding of how sound contributes to the overall audiovisual experience and the storytelling prowess of the filmmakers.

Peeling Back Layers: Mise-en-scène

Mise-en-scène encompasses all the visual elements within a frame, including set design, costumes, props, and actor positioning. Analyzing these factors can reveal subliminal messages and artistic choices made by the filmmakers. By dissecting mise-en-scène, you can explore themes of identity, symbolism, and social commentary, shining a light on hidden meanings in the visual tapestry presented on screen.

A comprehensive analysis of film techniques and elements not only showcases your critical thinking skills but also helps unlock the hidden depth and complexities within movies. Whether you are exploring a classic example of Auteur cinema or dissecting the technical prowess of modern blockbusters, delving into the world of cinematography, editing, sound, and mise-en-scène will undoubtedly add layers of richness to your extended essay in film.

Evaluating the Historical and Cultural Context

When delving into the world of film analysis, it is crucial to consider the historical and cultural context in which films were created. The historical setting and the prevailing cultural influences have a significant impact on the themes, messages, and visual elements depicted in movies. Understanding these contextual factors brings a deeper understanding of the films and enhances the interpretation and analysis of their content.

Historical Context:

Examining the historical context helps to situate films within specific time periods, societal changes, and events that shape their narratives and production. Films serve as reflections of the era in which they were made, portraying the political, social, and artistic climate. For example, a film set during World War II will provide insights into the impact of war on individuals and societies, showcasing struggles, resilience, and changing cultural values.

A critical analysis of a film’s historical context can unveil powerful representations of historical events, shedding light on their impact and long-term effects on people’s lives. By offering a perspective informed by the socio-political climate of the past, students can analyze how filmmakers present historical moments, ideologies, or controversies.

Cultural Context:

The cultural context plays an equally integral role in film analysis. Cultural aspects encompass a broad range of influences, including societal norms, customs, belief systems, and artistic movements. It is essential to explore the films within the framework of the cultures they portray, as well as the cultural background of the filmmakers themselves.

By evaluating the cultural context, students gain insights into why certain topics, symbols, or narratives resonate with audiences. Different societies may respond differently to the same film due to variations in cultural practices and perspectives. Moreover, considering cultural implications helps discover hidden meanings and subtexts, deepening the understanding of a film’s intentions and challenges to established societal norms.

Overall, evaluating the historical and cultural context allows for a comprehensive analysis of films. By situating movies within their relevant time periods and cultural landscapes, students can critically examine their socio-political commentary, artistic choices, and thematic explorations. This contextual approach enriches the theoretical analysis of films, motivating thought-provoking interpretations and inspiring new perspectives on their meaning.

Examining Film Theory and Critical Perspectives

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the films being analyzed in your extended essay, it is essential to explore prominent film theories and critical perspectives. These theoretical frameworks allow you to delve into various aspects of films, uncover hidden meanings, and provide a solid foundation for your analysis.

Feminist film theory: Feminist film theory examines how gender roles and representations are portrayed within films. It explores how women are depicted, their agency in storytelling, and the marginalization or empowerment of female characters. By applying this theory, you can analyze how gender biases manifest themselves, challenge societal norms, and highlight the stories and experiences of women within the film medium.

Psychoanalytical approaches: Psychoanalytical approaches focus on the psychological elements present within a film. This perspective considers the unconscious desires, motivations, and fears depicted by the characters and how they reflect societal realities. By analyzing the use of symbolism, dreams, and underlying psychological conflicts, you can gain insight into the created world of the film and its impact on viewers.

Structuralism and semiotics: Structuralism examines the structure and underlying systems in a film. Semiotics analyzes how meaning is conveyed through signs and symbols. Both theoretical frameworks enable you to understand the relationships between different elements within a film, such as shot composition, color schemes, and editing techniques. By decoding these visual and auditory cues, you can unravel the intended meanings and messages embedded within the film.

Postcolonial theory: Postcolonial theory explores the impacts of colonialism, imperialism, and the legacy of colonial powers within the film industry. It delves into issues of representation, cultural appropriation, and the subversion or perpetuation of stereotypes relating to colonized peoples or cultures. Through this critical perspective, you can analyze how films reflect or challenge power dynamics and highlight the voices and experiences of marginalized communities.

When applying these film theories and critical perspectives to your extended essay, it is crucial to consider the strengths and limitations of each theory within the specific context of your chosen films. Moreover, it is essential to engage with different scholarly viewpoints and use them as tools to enhance your analysis.

By incorporating film theory and critical perspectives, you deepen your understanding of the films under investigation and establish a robust foundation for your essay. This allows you to explore broader themes and concepts within the film medium and unravel the unique insights that come with a critical exploration of different theoretical lenses.

Structuring the Extended Essay

When it comes to writing an extended essay in film, having a clear and organized structure is crucial for presenting your research effectively. This section will outline a recommended structure that you can follow to ensure a coherent and well-structured essay.

1. Introduction: Begin your essay with a strong introduction that provides an overview of the topic and presents your research question. This section should also outline the significance and relevance of your chosen topic in the realm of film studies.

2. Body Paragraphs: The main body of your essay should consist of several paragraphs that delve deep into your research. Each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect or argument related to your topic. Make sure to provide evidence and examples to support your points, whether it’s through film analysis, critical perspectives, or academic theories.

• Paragraph 1: Start by introducing your first main point and provide supporting evidence from your research.
• Paragraph 2: Move on to your second main point and link it back to your overall research question. Again, provide evidence to back up your claims.
• Paragraph 3: Continue with additional main points, expanding on each one and making sure each paragraph flows logically from the previous one.

3. Conclusion: Conclude your essay by summarizing your main arguments and findings. Reflect on the significance of your research question and discuss any implications or unanswered questions that may arise from your study. This section should leave the reader with a sense of closure and reinforce the main points of your essay.

4. Additional Sections: Depending on your research topic and the scope of your study, you may need to include additional sections within your essay. For example, if you conducted interviews or surveys for primary research, you may have a section dedicated to presenting and analyzing your findings. Be sure to consider what additional sections are necessary to present your research effectively.

By following this recommended structure, you will provide a clear roadmap for your readers to navigate through your extended essay. Remember to use appropriate headings and subheadings to assist in organizing your content, making it easier for readers to locate specific information. Additionally, use topic sentences at the start of each paragraph to clearly outline the main point that will be discussed. This helps to maintain a cohesive flow of ideas throughout your essay.

A well-structured extended essay not only showcases your understanding of the topic but also enhances the overall readability and coherence of your work. By investing time in planning and organizing your essay effectively, you can ensure that your arguments are presented logically and coherently while providing a solid foundation for your research findings.

(Note: Potential resource links can support the section further).

Research Methodology and Data Collection

In order to conduct a comprehensive extended essay in film, it is crucial to employ appropriate research methodologies and methods of data collection. These methodologies and methods will vary depending on the scope and nature of the research question and the type of data needed to support the arguments.

One common research method in film studies is textual analysis. This involves closely examining the content of films, including dialogues, actions, visual elements, and underlying themes. By analyzing specific scenes or sequences from a film, one can gain insights into the director’s artistic choices and how they contribute to the overall impact of the film. To effectively analyze films through textual analysis, it is important to develop strong observation and interpretation skills.

Another research method is conducting interviews. This can involve interviewing filmmakers, scholars, experts, or audience members who have insights or opinions related to the chosen topic. Interviews provide firsthand accounts and personal perspectives, allowing for a deeper understanding of the films being studied. When conducting interviews, it is essential to prepare well-thought-out questions and actively listen to the responses to gather valuable qualitative data.

Surveys are another valuable data collection method in film studies. Surveys allow researchers to collect large amounts of quantifiable data from a diverse group of respondents. For example, surveys can be used to gauge public opinion about certain films, to assess the impact of specific cinematic techniques or to measure the effectiveness of film marketing strategies. When constructing surveys, it is important to ensure that the questions are clear, concise, and unbiased to elicit accurate responses.

Quantitative data analysis can be employed when dealing with numerical data related to films, such as box office revenue, ratings, or audience demographics. This method involves using statistical techniques to interpret and analyze data. Quantitative data can provide valuable insights into trends, patterns, or correlations, helping to support or challenge arguments and hypotheses.

When collecting and analyzing data in film studies, it is essential to ensure ethical considerations. It is important to obtain informed consent from any participants involved in interviews or surveys and to maintain the confidentiality and anonymity of the data collected. Additionally, it is crucial to accurately document and cite all sources and to use reputable and reliable data sources.

Overall, the choice of research methodology and methods of data collection will depend on both the research question and the availability of resources. By employing appropriate methodologies and methods, researchers can conduct rigorous and insightful extended essays in film.

Incorporating Visual Evidence

When writing an extended essay in film, it is crucial to include visual evidence to support your arguments and enhance the overall visual appeal of your essay. Visual evidence can come in various forms, such as film stills or screenshots, and it serves several important purposes.

• Supporting Arguments: Visual evidence helps to provide concrete examples and support for your analysis and interpretation of the films. By including relevant film stills or screenshots, you can illustrate specific scenes or moments that showcase the techniques or elements you are discussing. This visual evidence adds depth to your arguments and helps readers understand your points more effectively.
• Enhancing Engagement: Incorporating visual evidence can greatly enhance the overall visual appeal of your extended essay. Images capture attention and make your essay more visually engaging. They break up large blocks of text and add visual interest, making the content more appealing and easier to read. Visual evidence can create a more immersive experience for your readers, allowing them to visually connect with your analysis.
• Bolstering Credibility: Using visual evidence demonstrates thorough research and attention to detail. It shows that you have conducted a close analysis of the films and can accurately support your claims with tangible evidence. Including relevant film stills or screenshots not only strengthens your arguments but also lends credibility to your essay. It gives readers confidence in the validity and depth of your analysis.

Remember, when incorporating visual evidence, it is important to choose images strategically. Select film stills or screenshots that are relevant to your analysis and effectively demonstrate the techniques or elements you are discussing. Clearly label and explain the significance of each visual example in relation to your arguments.

To ensure that your visual evidence is of high quality, consider using reputable sources or capturing your own screenshots directly from the film if possible. Pay attention to image resolution and ensure that the visual evidence is clear and easily understood.

Always remember to properly credit the sources of your visual evidence in accordance with the chosen citation style. Include captions or figure labels that clearly identify the film, scene, and relevant details. This not only highlights your ethical responsibility but also allows readers to locate the specific scene or moment within the film.

Incorporating visual evidence not only adds credibility to your arguments but also enhances the visual appeal of your extended essay. By selecting appropriate images, you can provide concrete examples, increase engagement, and make your analysis more persuasive. Visual evidence brings your analysis to life, enabling readers to visualize and better understand the films you are discussing.

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Writing and Revising the Extended Essay

When it comes to the extended essay in film, writing a well-crafted and well-structured essay is essential to effectively present your arguments and research findings. Here are some tips for efficient academic writing, structuring coherent arguments, accurately citing sources, and revising your essay for clarity and a strong overall presentation:

• 1. Effective Academic Writing: Start by developing a clear thesis statement that states the main argument of your essay. Use a formal academic tone and avoid vague or ambiguous language. Be concise and focused in your writing, ensuring that each paragraph serves a specific purpose in supporting your overall argument.
• 2. Structuring Arguments: Organize your essay into logical paragraphs and sections that flow smoothly from one idea to another. Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that introduces the main point, followed by supporting evidence and analysis. Use transitional phrases to connect your ideas and create coherence throughout your essay.
• 3. Citing Sources Accurately: When referencing sources, use a recognized citation style such as MLA or APA. Include in-text citations whenever you paraphrase, quote, or use information from a source. Create a separate reference list or bibliography at the end of your essay to provide your readers with the necessary information to find your cited sources.
• 4. Revising for Coherence and Clarity: Review your essay for coherence, making sure that the flow of ideas is logical and easy to follow. Use transition words and phrases to create connections between paragraphs and sections. Check for clarity by reading your essay aloud or getting feedback from others. Edit for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors to ensure a polished final product.

When writing your extended essay in film, it is important to remember that presenting your arguments and research findings effectively is just as crucial as the content itself. By following these tips for effective academic writing, structuring arguments, citing sources accurately, and revising your essay thoroughly, you can create a compelling and well-presented extended essay that will impress your readers and contribute to the field of film studies.

When embarking on your extended essay in film, one of the most important considerations is the selection of suitable films for analysis. The choice of films will greatly influence the depth and scope of your research, as well as the overall quality of your essay.

There are various approaches you can take when selecting films for analysis. You may choose to focus on a specific genre, such as film noir or sci-fi, and delve into its characteristics, themes, and historical context. Alternatively, you could opt to explore the work of a particular director, analyzing their cinematic style and artistic vision throughout their filmography.

Another fascinating avenue to consider is examining the cultural significance of a particular film. You can explore how it shaped societal perceptions, influenced popular culture, or addressed significant social issues of its time. Such an approach allows for a comprehensive analysis of not only the film itself but also its broader impact and reception.

It is crucial to conduct a thorough evaluation of potential films before making your final selection. Consider their accessibility and availability, as access to viewing and analyzing the chosen films is imperative for conducting detailed research. Additionally, choose films that offer rich visual and narrative substance, keeping in mind the level of complexity they can provide for analysis.

Remember, your goal is to select films that offer ample scope for exploration and critical analysis. At the same time, it is essential to choose films that have received sufficient attention from scholars and film theorists. A wealth of existing research and critical perspectives will enrich your essay and facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of your chosen topic.

In some cases, it may be beneficial to choose films that share thematic or stylistic similarities. Comparing and contrasting multiple films within a specific context or subject matter can provide unique insights and create a more dynamic and engaging extended essay.

Finally, when choosing suitable films, always consider your own interests and preferences. Selecting films that you find genuinely captivating and exciting will undoubtedly enhance your motivation and enjoyment throughout the research and writing process.

In the next section, we will explore how to conduct thorough research, laying the groundwork for a robust and well-informed extended essay in film.

Nick Radlinsky

Nick Radlinsky is a devoted educator, marketing specialist, and management expert with more than 15 years of experience in the education sector. After obtaining his business degree in 2016, Nick embarked on a quest to achieve his PhD, driven by his commitment to enhancing education for students worldwide. His vast experience, starting in 2008, has established him as a reputable authority in the field.

Nick's article, featured in Routledge's " Entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe: Development through Internationalization ," highlights his sharp insights and unwavering dedication to advancing the educational landscape. Inspired by his personal motto, "Make education better," Nick's mission is to streamline students' lives and foster efficient learning. His inventive ideas and leadership have contributed to the transformation of numerous educational experiences, distinguishing him as a true innovator in his field.

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IB CAS Projects. The Importance of Reflection

By reflecting on your CAS projects, you learn more about your strengths and flaws. This lets you make smart choices and changes as you work on your project. This process of self-reflection ensures that your CAS experience is more than just a list of things to do; it’s a valuable path of growth.

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Essay on Impact of Cinema in Life for Students and Children

500 words essay on impact of cinema in life.

Cinema has been a part of the entertainment industry for a long time. It creates a massive impact on people all over the world. In other words, it helps them give a break from monotony. It has evolved greatly in recent years too. Cinema is a great escape from real life.

Furthermore, it helps in rejuvenating the mind of a person. It surely is beneficial in many ways, however, it is also creating a negative impact on people and society. We need to be able to identify the right from wrong and make decisions accordingly.

Advantages of Cinema

Cinema has a lot of advantages if we look at the positive side. It is said to be a reflection of the society only. So, it helps us come face to face with the actuality of what’s happening in our society. It portrays things as they are and helps in opening our eyes to issues we may have well ignored in the past.

Similarly, it helps people socialize better. It connects people and helps break the ice. People often discuss cinema to start a conversation or more. Moreover, it is also very interesting to talk about rather than politics and sports which is often divided.

Above all, it also enhances the imagination powers of people. Cinema is a way of showing the world from the perspective of the director, thus it inspires other people too to broaden their thinking and imagination.

Most importantly, cinema brings to us different cultures of the world. It introduces us to various art forms and helps us in gaining knowledge about how different people lead their lives.

In a way, it brings us closer and makes us more accepting of different art forms and cultures. Cinema also teaches us a thing or two about practical life. Incidents are shown in movies of emergencies like robbery, fire, kidnapping and more help us learn things which we can apply in real life to save ourselves. Thus, it makes us more aware and teaches us to improvise.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Disadvantages of Cinema

While cinema may be beneficial in many ways, it is also very damaging in various areas. Firstly, it stereotypes a lot of things including gender roles, religious practices, communities and more. This creates a false notion and a negative impact against that certain group of people.

People also consider it to be a waste of time and money as most of the movies nowadays are not showing or teaching anything valuable. It is just trash content with objectification and lies. Moreover, it also makes people addicts because you must have seen movie buffs flocking to the theatre every weekend to just watch the latest movie for the sake of it.

Most importantly, cinema shows pretty violent and sexual content. It contributes to the vulgarity and eve-teasing present in our society today. Thus, it harms the young minds of the world very gravely.

Q.1 How does cinema benefit us?

A.1 Cinema has a positive impact on society as it helps us in connecting to people of other cultures. It reflects the issues of society and makes us familiar with them. Moreover, it also makes us more aware and helps to improvise in emergency situations.

Q.2 What are the disadvantages of cinema?

A.2 Often cinema stereotypes various things and creates false notions of people and communities. It is also considered to be a waste of time and money as some movies are pure trash and don’t teach something valuable. Most importantly, it also demonstrates sexual and violent content which has a bad impact on young minds.

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In a new essay, Martin Scorsese calls out the modern film industry for devaluing cinema

“in the movie business, which is now the mass visual entertainment business, the emphasis is always on the word ‘business,’ the director wrote.

By Nate Schwartz

An essay written by Martin Scorsese decrying the modern movie industry was published in Harper’s Magazine on Tuesday.

While the lengthy essay, titled “ Il Maestro ,” was written to praise the work of the late Italian director Federico Fellini , Scorsese devoted ample space to his thoughts regarding why he thinks major corporations and streaming services are devaluing cinema as an art form. 

The problem he sees

The director took particular aim at one word that is often used while discussing the modern entertainment industry: Content.

“The art of cinema is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator, ‘content,’” Scorsese wrote (via Harper’s Magazine ).

He added : “As recently as fifteen years ago, the term ‘content’ was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted with and measured against ‘form.’ Then, gradually, it was used more and more by the people who took over media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think that they should.”

The director went on to explain that “content” has become a catch-all term for any moving image thusly placing prestige cinema on the same playing field as cat videos, superhero movies, and Super Bowl commercials.

The director said streaming services and their algorithms — built to guide viewers to new material — are responsible for the devalorization.

“If further viewing is ‘suggested’ by algorithms based on what you’ve already seen, and the suggestions are based only on subject matter or genre, then what does that do to the art of cinema?” he wrote . “Algorithms, by definition, are based on calculations that treat the viewer as a consumer and nothing else”

The director pointed out, however, that the advent of streaming services also comes with certain benefits. He personally benefitted from a streaming services when his violent 2019 gangster epic “ The Irishman ” was both financed and distributed by Netflix, FilmUp reports.

His proposed solution

Scorsese writes that individuals and streaming services would be wise to explore curated collections in their efforts to share and discover movies.

“Curating isn’t undemocratic or ‘elitist,’” the director wrote . “It’s an act of generosity — you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you. (The best streaming platforms, such as the Criterion Channel and MUBI and traditional outlets such as TCM , are based on curating — they’re actually curated.)”

His concluding argument is that the movie business in its current state is disinterested in taking care of cinema and people who love the art form have a responsibility to share their passion with others.

“In the movie business, which is now the mass visual entertainment business, the emphasis is always on the word ‘business,’ and value is always determined by the amount of money to be made from any given property,” he wrote . Those of us who know the cinema and its history have to share our love and our knowledge with as many people as possible.”

In one of the essay’s final sentences the director raises a call to action stating that movie owners need to be held accountable for the way they handle their products.

“We have to make it crystal clear to the current legal owners of these films that they...are among the greatest treasures of our culture, and they must be treated accordingly.”

Scorsese’s past remarks

The director made headlines in October 2019 for stating in an Empire magazine interview that Marvel superhero movies had more in common with amusement park rides than traditional cinema.

Less than a month later, Scorsese doubled down on his remark as he wrote an essay published in The New York Times that explained his opinion in more detail.

“There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema,” he wrote . “They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare. ... And I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other. For anyone who dreams of making movies or who is just starting out, the situation at this moment is brutal and inhospitable to art. And the act of simply writing those words fills me with terrible sadness.”

What’s next for the director

According to Deadline , Scorsese is currently working on a new movie titled “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a true crime story based on David Grann’s 2017 bestselling book of the same name. The film is being produced by Apple Studios will star Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio alongside Jesse Plemons.

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history of film , history of cinema , a popular form of mass media , from the 19th century to the present.

(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)

Early years, 1830–1910

The illusion of films is based on the optical phenomena known as persistence of vision and the phi phenomenon . The first of these causes the brain to retain images cast upon the retina of the eye for a fraction of a second beyond their disappearance from the field of sight, while the latter creates apparent movement between images when they succeed one another rapidly. Together these phenomena permit the succession of still frames on a film strip to represent continuous movement when projected at the proper speed (traditionally 16 frames per second for silent films and 24 frames per second for sound films). Before the invention of photography, a variety of optical toys exploited this effect by mounting successive phase drawings of things in motion on the face of a twirling disk (the phenakistoscope , c. 1832) or inside a rotating drum (the zoetrope, c. 1834). Then, in 1839, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre , a French painter, perfected the positive photographic process known as daguerreotype , and that same year the English scientist William Henry Fox Talbot successfully demonstrated a negative photographic process that theoretically allowed unlimited positive prints to be produced from each negative. As photography was innovated and refined over the next few decades, it became possible to replace the phase drawings in the early optical toys and devices with individually posed phase photographs, a practice that was widely and popularly carried out.

There would be no true motion pictures, however, until live action could be photographed spontaneously and simultaneously. This required a reduction in exposure time from the hour or so necessary for the pioneer photographic processes to the one-hundredth (and, ultimately, one-thousandth) of a second achieved in 1870. It also required the development of the technology of series photography by the British American photographer Eadweard Muybridge between 1872 and 1877. During that time, Muybridge was employed by Gov. Leland Stanford of California, a zealous racehorse breeder, to prove that at some point in its gallop a horse lifts all four hooves off the ground at once. Conventions of 19th-century illustration suggested otherwise, and the movement itself occurred too rapidly for perception by the naked eye, so Muybridge experimented with multiple cameras to take successive photographs of horses in motion. Finally, in 1877, he set up a battery of 12 cameras along a Sacramento racecourse with wires stretched across the track to operate their shutters. As a horse strode down the track, its hooves tripped each shutter individually to expose a successive photograph of the gallop, confirming Stanford’s belief. When Muybridge later mounted these images on a rotating disk and projected them on a screen through a magic lantern, they produced a “moving picture” of the horse at full gallop as it had actually occurred in life.

The French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey took the first series photographs with a single instrument in 1882; once again the impetus was the analysis of motion too rapid for perception by the human eye . Marey invented the chronophotographic gun, a camera shaped like a rifle that recorded 12 successive photographs per second, in order to study the movement of birds in flight. These images were imprinted on a rotating glass plate (later, paper roll film), and Marey subsequently attempted to project them. Like Muybridge, however, Marey was interested in deconstructing movement rather than synthesizing it, and he did not carry his experiments much beyond the realm of high-speed, or instantaneous, series photography. Muybridge and Marey, in fact, conducted their work in the spirit of scientific inquiry; they both extended and elaborated existing technologies in order to probe and analyze events that occurred beyond the threshold of human perception. Those who came after would return their discoveries to the realm of normal human vision and exploit them for profit.

In 1887 in Newark, New Jersey , an Episcopalian minister named Hannibal Goodwin developed the idea of using celluloid as a base for photographic emulsions. The inventor and industrialist George Eastman , who had earlier experimented with sensitized paper rolls for still photography, began manufacturing celluloid roll film in 1889 at his plant in Rochester, New York . This event was crucial to the development of cinematography : series photography such as Marey’s chronophotography could employ glass plates or paper strip film because it recorded events of short duration in a relatively small number of images, but cinematography would inevitably find its subjects in longer, more complicated events, requiring thousands of images and therefore just the kind of flexible but durable recording medium represented by celluloid. It remained for someone to combine the principles embodied in the apparatuses of Muybridge and Marey with celluloid strip film to arrive at a viable motion-picture camera .

Such a device was created by French-born inventor Louis Le Prince in the late 1880s. He shot several short films in Leeds, England, in 1888, and the following year he began using the newly invented celluloid film. He was scheduled to show his work in New York City in 1890, but he disappeared while traveling in France. The exhibition never occurred, and Le Prince’s contribution to cinema remained little known for decades. Instead it was William Kennedy Laurie Dickson , working in the West Orange , New Jersey, laboratories of the Edison Company, who created what was widely regarded as the first motion-picture camera.

Essays About Films: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Get ready to binge-watch some of the best films of all time and write essays about films with our essay examples and prompts. 

Films are an exciting part of the entertainment industry. From romance to science fiction, there is a film genre for everyone. Films are a welcome escape from reality, providing a few hours of immersive entertainment that anyone can enjoy. Not only are films masterful works of art, but they are also great sources of employment for many. As a work of intellectual property, films can promote job creation and drive economic growth while advancing a country’s cultural esteem. With such a vast library of films available to us, many topics of discussion are available for your next essay.

5 Intriguing Film Essays

1. scream therapy: the mental health benefits of horror movies by michael varrati, 2. reel truth: is film school worth it by jon gann, 3. why parasite’s success is forcing a reckoning in japan’s film industry by eric margolis, 4. streaming services want to fill the family movie void by nicole sperling, 5. church, critics say new movie on marcos family distorts philippine history by camille elemia, 10 engaging writing prompts on essays about films, 1. the best film that influenced me, 2. the evolution of animated films, 3. women in modern films, 4. creating short films, 5. diversity in films, 6. film critique of my favorite film, 7. how covid-19 changed the film industry, 8. promoting independent films , 9. importance of marketing strategies in films’ success, 10. how to combat film piracy.

“Galvanized by the genre’s ability to promote empathy and face down the ineffable monsters of our daily lives, Barkan’s exploration of how others use horror to heal and grow speaks to the wider impact of our engagement with these movies that are so often dismissed as having little moral value.”

Initially criticized for enabling sadistic tendencies, horror films are now proven to provide a relieving experience and psychological ease to their audience. Numerous theories about the mental health benefits of watching horror films have emerged. But beyond these profound reasons, horror films could be a great source of thrilling fun. You might also be interested in these essays about The Great Gatsby .

 “These programs are great at selling the dream of filmmaking, but rarely the realities of the business, so students graduate with few real-world skills, connections, or storytelling ability. Unable to get a job out of school, newly minted “filmmakers” go back into the system for a higher graduate degree… The cycle is self-perpetuating, and rarely benefits anyone, except the institution’s bottom line.”

One has to weigh several personal and external factors in determining whether a full degree would be worth the leap and their pockets. Directors spill the beans on their thoughts and experiences with film school to help the lost find their way. 

“Japanese cinema was trending on Japanese Twitter right after the Oscars, with cinephiles and film directors alike airing grievances about a film industry that is deeply flawed despite ample talent and a global appetite for Japanese goods.”

The Japanese lamented their lackluster film industry and waning cultural influence worldwide as the first Korean film took home the Oscars. Reminiscing its golden years of film in the mid-20th century, Japan is stricken with nostalgia. But for the industry to see a renaissance, Japan has to end exploitative labor conditions for creators and censorship.

“The decline today is due to a combination of factors: a hangover from the pandemic, efforts by studios like Disney and Paramount to bolster their own streaming services with fresh content and the risks of greenlighting family films that aren’t based on well-known intellectual property.”

The latest trend in the race to rule film streaming compensates for the lack of family movies in theaters. Giant video-on-demand platforms have started rolling their production and investments into the genre plans for animation and even expensive live-action.

“The film… has amplified existing online narratives that portray the elder Marcos’ presidency as the “golden era” of the Philippines rather than as the darkest chapter of the Southeast Asian country’s recent history, as critics allege.”

A film in the Philippines draws crowds and criticisms for revising facts in one of the country’s most painful periods. But, overall, the movie paints a positive image of the dictator’s family, whose two-decade reign was marked by murders and an economic crisis that was among the worst to hit the country.

Beyond being a source of entertainment, films have the power to shape how we lead our lives and view the world. In this essay, talk about the film that etched an indelible mark on you. First, provide a summary and specify what drew you to the story or its storytelling. Next, narrate the scenes that moved you the most. Finally, explain how you relate to this film and if you would have wanted a similar or different ending to your story and personal life. 

Animated films used to be a treat mainly for children. But now, their allure cuts across generations. For your essay, look into the history of animated films. Find out which countries are the biggest influencers in animated films and how they have fostered these intellectual properties to thrive in global markets. Research how the global direction of animation is heading, both in theatrical releases and streaming, and what animation fans can expect in the next few months.

Have the roles of women progressed in modern films? Or do they remain to be damsels in distress saved by a prince? Watch recent popular films, explain how they depict women, and answer these questions in your essay. Take note of apparent stereotypes and the depth of their character. Compare how they differ from the most popular films in the 90s. You can also compare original films and remakes and focus on the changes in women characters.  

Short films are great starting points for budding directors. They could require much less financing than those in theater releases and still deliver satisfactory quality content. For this essay, brief the readers through the stages of short film production — writing the script, choosing the cast, production, marketing, and so on. To go the extra mile in your essay, interview award-winning short filmmakers to gain tips on how they best optimize their limited budget and still bag an award.  

Has the film industry promoted diversity and inclusivity in its cast selection? Explore recent diverse films and analyze whether they have captured the true meaning of diversity. One example is when people from underrepresented backgrounds take on the leading roles, not just the story’s sidekicks. You can also build on this research by the Center for Scholars and Storytellers to show the revenue challenges non-diverse films face at the box office.

Watch your favorite film and write a critique by expressing opinions on various aspects of the film. For example, you can have comments on the plot, execution, effects, cinematography, actors, and dialogue. Take time to relay your observations and analysis, as these will be the foundations that will determine the strength or weakness of your comments. 

As it has impacted many of us, COVID-19 accelerated how we watch films. Explore the exodus to streaming during the pandemic and how theater operators cope with this shift. In addition, you can look into how the competition among content producers has shifted and intensified. 

Independent films can be a hidden treasure, but it could be difficult to sell them, given how niche their concepts can be. So, find out the best strategies that have worked wonders for now successful independent filmmakers. Specifically, learn how they marketed their content online and in film festivals. Then, find out what forms of support the government is extending to high-caliber independent filmmakers and what could be done to help them thrive.

The biggest mistake made by filmmakers and producers is not marketing their films when marketing is the best way to reach a bigger audience and gain profits to make more films. This essay should provide readers with the best practices filmmakers can adopt when marketing a film. For example, directors, producers, and actors should aggressively attend events for promotion. Developing viral movie campaigns also provide a big boost to exposure. 

As more films are released digitally, filmmakers must better protect their intellectual property. First, write about the needed measures before the film release, such as adopting a digital rights management strategy. Next, lay down what production companies need to do to deter piracy activities immediately. Some good responses include working closely with enforcement authorities.

Don’t forget to proofread your essay with Grammarly , the best grammar checker. 

For more related topic ideas, you can also check our guide for writing essays about cinema .

The History of Film Timeline — All Eras of Film History Explained

M otion pictures have enticed and inspired artists, audiences, and critics for more than a century. Today, we’re going to explore the history of film by looking at the major movements that have defined cinema worldwide. We’re also going to explore the technical craft of filmmaking from the persistence of vision to colorization to synchronous sound. By the end, you’ll know all the broad strokes in the history of film.

Note: this article doesn’t cover every piece of film history. Some minor movements and technical breakthroughs have been left out – check out the StudioBinder blog for more content.

• Pre-Film: Photographic Techniques and Motion Picture Theory
• The Nascent Film Era (1870s-1910): The First Motion Pictures
• The First Film Movements: Dadaism, German Expressionism, and Soviet Montage Theory
• Manifest Destiny and the End of the Silent Era
• Hollywood Epics and the Pre-Code Era
• The Early Golden Age and the Introduction of Color
• Wartime Film and Cinematic Propaganda
• Post-War Film Movements: French New Wave, Italian Neorealism, Scandinavian Revival, and Bengali Cinema
• The Golden Age of Hollywood: The Studio System and Censorship
• New Hollywood: The Emergence of Global Blockbuster Cinema
• Dogme 95 and the Independent Movement
• New Methods of Cinematic Distribution and the Current State of Film

When Were Movies Invented?

Pre-film techniques and theory.

Movies refer to moving pictures and moving pictures can be traced all the way back to prehistoric times. Have you ever made a shadow puppet show? If you have, then you’ve made a moving picture.

To create a moving picture with your hands is one thing, to utilize a device is another. The camera obscura (believed to have been circulated in the fifth century BCE) is perhaps the oldest photographic device in existence. The camera obscura is a device that’s used to reproduce images by reflecting light through a small peephole.

Here’s a picture of one from Gemma Frisius’ 1545 book De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica :

When Did Movies Start?  •  Camera Obscura in ‘De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica’

Through the camera obscura, we can trace the principles of filmmaking back thousands of years. But despite the technical achievement of the camera obscura, it took many of those years to develop the technology needed to capture moving images then later display them. 

When Was Film Invented?

The first motion pictures.

When were movies invented ? The first motion pictures were incredibly simple – usually just a few frames of people or animals. Eadweard Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion is perhaps the most famous of these early motion pictures. In 1878, Muybridge set up a racing track with 24 cameras to photograph whether horses gallop with all four hooves off the ground at any time

The result was sensational. Muybridge’s pictures set the stage for all coming films; check out a short video on Muybridge and his work below.

When Did the First Movie Come Out?  •  Eadweard Muybridge’s ‘The Horse in Motion’ by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Muybridge’s job wasn’t done after taking the photographs though; he still had to produce a projection machine to display them. So, Muybridge built a device called the zoopraxiscope, which was regarded as a breakthrough device for motion picture projecting.

Muybridge’s films (and tech) inspired Thomas Edison to study motion picture theory and develop his own camera equipment.

Films as we know them today emerged globally around the turn of the century, circa 1900. Much of that development can be attributed to the works of the Lumière Brothers, who together pioneered the technical craft of moviemaking with their cinematograph projection machine. The Lumière Brothers’ 1895 shorts are regarded as the first commercial films of all-time; though not technically true (remember Muybridge’s work).

French actor and illusionist Georges Méliès attempted to buy a cinematograph from the Lumière Brothers in 1895, but was denied. So, Méliès ventured elsewhere; eventually finding a partner in Englishman Robert W. Paul.

Over the following years, Méliès learned just about everything there was to know about movies and projection machines. Here’s a video on Méliès’ master of film and the illusory arts from Crash Course Film History.

When Were Movies Invented?  •  Georges Méliès – Master of Illusion by Crash Course

Méliès’ shorts The One Man Band (1900) and A Trip to the Moon (1902) are considered two of the most trailblazing films in all of film history. Over the course of his career, Méliès produced over 500 films. His contemporary mastery of visual effects , multiple exposure , and cinematography made him one of the greatest filmmakers of all-time .

Movie History

The first film movements.

War and cinema go together like two peas in a pod. As we continue on through our analysis of the history of film, you’ll start to notice that just about every major movement sprouted in the wake of war. First, the movements that sprouted in response to World War I:

DADAISM AND SURREALISM

History of Motion Pictures  •  Still From ‘Un Chien Andalou’ by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí

Major Dadaist filmmakers: Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Germaine Dulac.

Major Dadaist films: Return to Reason (1923), The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928), U n Chien  Andalou (1929).

Dadaism – an art movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland during World War I (1915) – rejected authority; effectively laying the groundwork for surrealist cinema . 

Dadaism may have begun in Zurich circa 1915, but it didn’t take off until years later in Paris, France. By 1920, the people of France had expressed a growing disillusionment with the country’s government and economy. Sound familiar?

That’s because they’re the same points of conflict that incited the French Revolution. But this time around, the French people revolted in a different way: with art. And not just any art: bonkers, crazy, absurd, anti-this, anti-that art. 

It’s important to note that Paris wasn’t the only place where dadaist art was being created. But it was the place where most of the dadaist, surrealist film was being created. We’ll get to dadaist film in a short bit, but first, let’s review a quick video on Dada art from Curious Muse.

Where Did Film Originate?  •  Dadaism in 8 Minutes by Curious Muse

Salvador Dalí, Germaine Dulac, and Luis Buñuel were some of the forefront faces of the surrealist film movement of the 1920s. French filmmakers, such as Jean Epstein and Jean Renoir experimented with surrealist films during this era as well.

Dalí and Buñuel’s 1929 film Un Chien Andalou is undoubtedly one of the most influential surrealist/dadaist films. Let’s check out a clip:

History of Movies  •  ‘Un Chien Andalou’ Clip

The influence of Un Chien Andalou on surrealist cinema can’t be quantified; key similarities can be seen between the film and the works of Walt Disney, David Lynch , Terry Gilliam , and other surrealist directors.

Learn more about surrealism in film →

GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM 

The Creation of Film and German Expressionism  •  Still From ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ by Robert Wiene

• German Expressionism – an art movement defined by monumentalist structures and ideas – began before World War I but didn’t take off in popularity until after the war, much like the Dadaist movement.
• Major German Expressionist filmmakers: Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Robert Wiene 
• Major German Expressionist films: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), and Metropolis   (1927).

German Expressionism changed everything for the “look” and “feel” of cinema. When you think of German Expressionism, think contrast, gothic, dark, brooding imagery and colored filters. Here’s a quick video on the German Expressionist movement from Crash Course:

History of Film Timeline  •  German Expressionism Explained

The great works of the German Expressionist movement are some of the earliest movies I consider accessible to modern audiences. Perhaps no German Expressionist film proves this point better than Fritz Lang’s M ; which was the ultimate culmination of the movement’s stylistic tenets. Check out the trailer for M below.

Most Important Film in History of German Expressionism  •  ‘M’ (1931) Trailer, Restored by BFI

M not only epitomized the “monster” tone of the German Expressionist era, it set the stage for all future psychological thrillers. The film also pioneered sound engineering in film through the clever use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound . Fun fact: it was also one of the first movies to incorporate a leitmotif as part of its soundtrack.

Over time, the stylistic flourishes of the German Expressionist movement gave way to new voices – but its influence lived on in monster-horror and chiaroscuro lighting techniques. 

Learn more about German Expressionism →

SOVIET MONTAGE THEORY

Film History 101  •  The Odessa Steps in ‘Battleship Potemkin’

• Soviet Montage Theory – a Soviet Russian film movement that helped establish the principles of film editing – took place from the 1910s to the 1930s. 
• Major Soviet Montage Theory filmmakers: Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein , Dziga Vertov.
• Major Soviet Montage Theory films: Kino-Eye (1924), Battleship Potemkin (1925), Man With a Movie Camera (1929).

Soviet Montage Theory was a deconstructionist film movement, so as to say it wasn’t as interested in making movies as it was taking movies apart… or seeing how they worked. That being said, Soviet Montage Theory did produce some classics.

Here’s a video on Soviet Montage Theory from Filmmaker IQ:

Eras of Movies  •  The History of Cutting in Soviet Montage Theory by Filmmaker IQ

The Bolshevik government set-up a film school called VGIK (the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography) after the Russian Revolution. The practitioners of Soviet Montage Theory were the OG members of the “film school generation;” Kuleshov and Eisenstein were their teachers.

Battleship Potemkin was the most noteworthy film to come out of the Soviet Montage Theory movement. Check out an awesome analysis from One Hundred Years of Cinema below.

History of Film Summary  •  How Sergei Eisenstein Used Montage to Film the Unfilmable by One Hundred Years of Cinema

Soviet Montage Theory begged filmmakers to arrange, deconstruct, and rearrange film clips to better communicate emotional associations to audiences. The legacy of Soviet Montage Theory lives on in the form of the Kuleshov effect and contemporary montages .

Learn more about Soviet Montage Theory →

When Did Movies Become Popular?

The end of the silent era.

There was no Hollywood in the early years of American cinema – there was only Thomas Edison’s Motion Picture Patents Company in New Jersey.

Ever wonder why Europe seemed to dominate the early years of film? Well it was because Thomas Edison sued American filmmakers into oblivion. Edison owned a litany of U.S. patents on camera tech – and he wielded his stamps of ownership with righteous fury. The Edison Manufacturing Company did produce some noteworthy early films – such as 1903’s The Great Train Robbery – but their gaps were few and far between.

To escape Edison’s legal monopoly, filmmakers ventured west, all the way to Southern California. 

Fortunate for the nomads: the arid temperature and mountainous terrain of Southern California proved perfect for making movies. By the early 1910s, Hollywood emerged as the working capital of the United States’s movie industry.

Director/actors like Charlie Chaplin , Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton became stars – but remember, movies were silent, and people knew there would be an acoustic revolution in cinema. Before we move on from the Silent Era, check out this great video from Crash Course.

When Did Movies Become Popular?  •  The Silent Era by Crash Course

The Silent Era holds an important place in film history – but it was mostly ushered out in 1927 with The Jazz Singer . Al Jolson singing in The Jazz Singer is considered the first time sound ever synchronized with a feature film . Over the next few years, Hollywood cinema exploded in popularity. This short period from 1927-1934 is known as pre-Code Hollywood.

When Did Hollywood Start?

Pre-code hollywood.

In our previous section, we touched on the rise of Hollywood, but not the Hollywood epic. The Hollywood epic, which we regard as longer in duration and wider in scope than the average movie, set the stage for blockbuster cinema. So, let’s quickly touch on the history of Hollywood epics before jumping into pre-code Hollywood.

It’s impossible to talk about Hollywood epics without bringing up D.W. Griffith. Griffith was an American film director who created a lot of what we consider “the structure” of feature films. His 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation brought the technique of cinematic storytelling into the future, while consequently keeping its subject matter in the objectionable past.

For more on Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (and its complicated legacy), check out this poignant interview clip with Spike Lee . 

History of Filmmaking  •  Spike Lee on ‘The Birth of a Nation’

As Lee suggests, it’s important to acknowledge the technical achievement of films like The Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind without condoning their horrid subject matter. 

As another great director once said: “tomorrow’s democracy discriminates against discrimination. Its charter won’t include the freedom to end freedom.” – Orson Welles.

Griffith made more than a few Hollywood epics in his time, but none were more famous than The Birth of a Nation .

Okay, now that we reviewed the foundations of the Hollywood epic, let’s move on to pre-code Hollywood.

PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD

A History of Film  •  James Cagney in ‘The Public Enemy’

• Pre-Code Hollywood – a period in Hollywood history after the advent of sound but before the institution of the Hays Code – circa ~1927-1934.
• Major Pre-Code stars: Ruth Chatterton, Warren William, James Cagney.
• Major Pre-Code films: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), Baby Face (1933).

Pre-Code Hollywood was wild. Not just wild in an uninhibited sense, but in a thematic sense too. Films produced during the pre-Code era often focused on illicit subject matter, like bootlegging, prostitution, and murder – that wasn't the status quo for Hollywood – and it wouldn’t be again until 1968.

We’ll get to why that year is important for film history in a bit, but first let’s review pre-Code Hollywood with a couple of selected scenes from Kevin Wentink on YouTube.

Movie Film History  •  Pre-Code Classic Clips

Pre-Code movies were jubilant in their creativity; largely because they were uncensored . But alas, their period was short-lived. In 1934, MPPDA Chairman William Hays instituted the Motion Picture Production Code banning explicit depictions of sex, violence, and other “sinful” deeds in movies. 

Learn more about Pre-Code Hollywood →

Development of Movies

The early golden age and color in film.

The 1930s and early 1940s produced some of the greatest movies of all-time – but they also changed everything about the movie-making process. By the end of the Pre-Code era, the free independent spirit of filmmaking had all but evaporated; Hollywood studios had vertically integrated their business operations, which meant they conceptualized, produced, and distributed everything “in-house.”

That doesn’t mean movies made during these years were bad though. Quite the contrary – perhaps the two greatest American films ever made, Citizen Kane and Casablanca , were made between 1934 and 1944.

But despite their enormous influence, neither Citizen Kane nor Casablanca could hold a candle to the influence of another film from this decade: The Wizard of Oz .

The Wizard of Oz wasn’t the first film to use Technicolor , but it was credited with bringing color to the masses. For more on the industry-altering introduction of color, check out this video on The Wizard of Oz from Vox.

When Was Color Movies Invented?  •  How Technicolor Changed Movies

Technicolor was groundbreaking for cinema, but the dye-transfer process of its colorization was hard… and cost prohibitive for studios. So, camera manufacturers experimented with new processes to streamline color photography. Overtime, they were rewarded with new technologies and techniques.

Learn more about Technicolor →

Cinema Eras

Wartime and propaganda films.

In 1937, Benito Mussolini founded Cinecittà , a massive studio that operated under the slogan “Il cinema è l'arma più forte,” which translates to “the cinema is the strongest weapon.” During this time, countries all around the world used cinema as a weapon to influence the minds and hearts of their citizens.

This was especially true in the United States – prolific directors like Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, George Stevens, and William Wyler enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces to make movies to support the U.S. war cause. 

Documentarian Laurent Bouzereau made a three-part series about the war films of Capra, Ford, Huston, Stevens, and Wyler. Check out the trailer for Five Came Back below.

A History of Film  •  Five Came Back Trailer

Wartime film is important to explore because it teaches us about how people interpret propaganda. For posterity’s sake, let’s define propaganda as biased information that’s used to promote political points.

Propaganda films are often regarded with a negative connotation because they sh0w a one-sided perspective. Films of this era – such as those commissioned for the US Department of War’s Why We Fight series – were one-sided because they were made to counter the enemy’s rhetoric. It’s important to note that “one-sided” doesn’t mean “wrong” – in the case of the Why We Fight series, I think most people would agree that the one-sidedness was appropriate. 

Over time, wartime film became more nuanced – a point proven by the 1966 masterwork The Battle of Algiers .

History of Movies

Post-war film movements.

Global cinema underwent a renaissance after World War II; technically, creatively, and conceptually. We’re going to cover a few of the most prominent post-war film movements, starting with Italian Neorealism.

ITALIAN NEOREALISM

Movie Film History  •  Still from Vittorio De Sica’s ‘Umberto D.’

• Italian Neorealism (1944-1960) – an Italian film movement that brought filmmaking to the streets; defined by depictions of the Italian state after World War II.
• Major Italian Neorealist film-makers: Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini .
• Major Italian Neorealist films: Rome, Open City (1945), Bicycle Thieves (1948), La Strada (1954), Il Posto (1961).

Martin Scorcese called Italian Neorealism “the rehabilitation of an entire culture and people through cinema.” World War II devastated the Italian state: socially, economically, and culturally.

It took people’s lives and jobs, but perhaps more importantly, it took their humanity. After the War, the people needed an outlet of expression, and a place to reconstruct a new national identity. Here’s a quick video on Italian Neorealism.

Movie History  •  How Italian Neorealism Brought the Grit of the Streets to the Big Screen by No Film School

Italian Neorealism produced some of the greatest films ever made. There’s some debate as to when the movement started and ended – some say 1943-1954, others say 1945-1955 – but I say it started with Rome, Open City and ended with Il Posto . Why? Because those movies perfectly encompass the defining arc of Italian Neorealism, from street-life after World War II to the rise of bureaucracy. Rome, Open City shows Italy in the thick of chaos, and Il Posto shows Italy on the precipice of a new era.

The legacy of Italian Neorealism lives on in the independent filmmaking of directors like Richard Linklater, Steven Soderbergh, and Sean Baker.

Learn more about Italian Neorealism →

FRENCH NEW WAVE

Development of Movies  •  Still From Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless

• French New Wave (1950s onwards) – or La Nouvelle Rogue, a French art movement popularized by critics, defined by experimental ideas – inspired by old-Hollywood and progressive editing techniques from Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.
• Major French New Wave filmmakers: Jean-Luc Godard , François Truffaut , Agnes Varda.
• Major French New Wave films: The 400 Blows (1959), Breathless (1960), Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962).

The French New Wave proliferated the auteur theory , which suggests the director is the author of a movie; which makes sense considering a lot of the best French New Wave films featured minimalist narratives. Take Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless for example: the story is secondary to audio and visuals. The French New Wave was about independent filmmaking – taking a camera into the streets and making a movie by any means necessary. 

Here’s a quick video on The French New Wave by The Cinema Cartography.

History of Filmmaking  •  Breaking the Rules With the French New Wave by The Cinema Cartography

It’s important to note that the pioneers of the French New Wave weren’t amateurs – most (but not all) were critics at Cahiers du cinéma , a respected French film magazine. Writers like Godard, Rivette, and Chabrol knew what they were doing long before they released their great works. 

Other directors, like Agnes Varda and Alain Resnais, were members of the Left Bank, a somewhat more traditionalist art group. Left Bank directors tended to put more emphasis on their narratives as opposed to their Cahiers du cinéma counterparts.

The French New popularized (but did not invent) innovative filmmaking techniques like jump cuts and tracking shots . The influence of the French New Wave can be seen in music videos, existentialist cinema, and French film noir .

Learn more about the French New Wave → 

Learn more about the Best French New Wave Films →

SCANDINAVIAN REVIVAL

A History of Film  •  Still from Ingmar Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal’

• Scandinavian Revival (1940s-1950s) – a filmmaking movement in Scandinavia, particularly Denmark and Sweden, defined by monochrome visuals, philosophical quandaries, and reinterpretations of religious ideals.
• Major Scandinavian Revival filmmakers: Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman.
• Major Scandinavian Revival films: Day of Wrath (1943), The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957).

Swedish, Danish, and Finnish films have played an important role in cinema for more than 100 years. The Scandinavian Revival – or renaissance of Scandinavian-centric films from the 1940s-1950s – put the films of Sweden, Denmark, and Finland in front of the world stage.

Here’s a quick video on the works of the most famous Scandinavian director of all-time: Ingmar Bergman .

History of Cinema  •  Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema by The Criterion Collection

The influence of Scandinavian Revival can be seen in the works of Danish directors like Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier , as well as countless other filmmakers around the world.

BENGALI CINEMA

History of Motion Pictures  •  Still from Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’

• Bengali Cinema – or the cinema of West Bengal; also known as Tollywood, helped develop arthouse films parallel to the mainstream Indian cinema.
• Major Bengali filmmakers: Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen.
• Major Bengali films: Pather Panchali (1955) and Bhuvan Shome (1969).

The Indian film industry is the biggest film industry in the world. Each year, India produces more than a thousand feature-films. When most people think of Indian cinema, they think of Bollywood “song and dance” masalas – but did you know the country underwent a New Wave (similar to France, Italy, and Scandinavia) after World War II? The influence of the Indian New Wave, or classic Bengali cinema, is hard to quantify; perhaps it’s better expressed by the efforts of the Academy Film Archive, Criterion Collection, and L'Immagine Ritrovata film restoration artists. Here's an introduction to one of India's greatest directors, Satyajit Ray.

Evolution of Cinema  •  How Satyajit Ray Directs a Movie

In 2020, Martin Scorsese said, “In the relatively short history of cinema, Satyajit Ray is one of the names that we all need to know, whose films we all need to see.” Ray is undoubtedly one of the preeminent masters of international cinema – and his name belongs in the conversation with Hitchcock, Renoir, Kurosawa, Welles, and all the other trailblazing filmmakers of the mid-20th century.

Learn more about Indian Cinema →

OTHER POST-WAR & NEW WAVE MOVEMENTS

How Has Film Changed Over Time?  •  Still from Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Stray Dog’

Italy, France, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and India weren’t the only countries that underwent “New Waves” after World War II; Japan, Iran, Great Britain, and Russia had minor film revolutions as well.

In Japan, directors like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu introduced new filmmaking techniques to the masses; their 1940s-1950s films were great, but some filmmakers, like Hiroshi Teshigahara and Nagisa Ōshima felt they were better suited to make films about “modern” Japan. 

Here’s a quick video on the Japanese New Wave from Film Studies for YouTube.

Cinema Eras  •  Japanese New Wave Video Essay by Film Studies for YouTube

Some cinema historians combine the Japanese New Wave with the post-war era. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll do the same: the major films of this era (1940s-1960s) include Rashomon (1950), Tokyo Story (1953), and Seven Samurai (1954).

The Iranian New Wave began about fifteen years after the end of World War II, circa 1960-onwards. Iranian cinema is an important part of Iranian culture. Here’s a quick video on Iranian cinema from BBC News.

Important Dates in Film History  •  Spotlight on Iran’s Film Industry via BBC News

Cinema historians widely consider Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow (1969) to be a foundational film for the movement. Abbas Kiarostami is perhaps the most famous Iranian filmmaker of all-time. His film Close-Up (1990) is regarded as one of the greatest films ever produced in Iran.

The British New Wave was a minor film movement that was defined by kitchen-sink realism – or depictions of ordinary life. Many filmmakers of the British New Wave were critics before they were directors; and they wanted to depict the average life of Britain through a filmic eye.

Here’s a lecture on the British New Wave from Professor Ian Christie at Gresham College. 

History of Filmmaking  •  Street-Life and New Wave British Cinema by Gresham College

The British New Wave became synonymous with Cinéma vérité (cinema of truth) over the course of its brief existence. Some of the major pictures of the movement include: Look Back in Anger (1959) and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960).

Russian cinema is complex… probably just as complex as American cinema. We could spend 100 pages talking about Russian cinema – but that’s not the focus of this article. We already talked about Soviet Montage Theory, so let’s skip ahead to post World War II Soviet cinema. 

When I think of post-war Soviet cinema, I think of one name: Andrei Tarkovsky . Tarkovsky directed internationally-renowned films like Andrei Rublev (1969), Solaris (1972), and Stalker (1979) in his brief career as the Soviet Union’s pre-eminent maestro. 

Here’s a deep dive into the works of Tarkovsky by “Like Stories of Old.”

Film Industry Timeline  •  Praying Through Cinema – Understanding Andrei Tarkovsky by Like Stories of Old

Tarkovsky wasn’t the only great filmmaker in the post-war Soviet Union – but he was probably the best. I’d be remiss if I didn’t use this section to focus on him. 

History of Film Timeline

The golden age of hollywood.

The Hollywood Golden Age began with the fall of pre-Code Hollywood (1934) and lasted until the birth of New Hollywood (1968).

• Major stars of the Hollywood Golden Age: Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Fonda, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, Grace Kelly, James Dean, Marlon Brando.
• Major filmmakers of the Hollywood Golden Age: Cecil B. DeMille , Orson Welles , Billy Wilder , Frank Capra , John Huston , Alfred Hitchcock , John Ford , Elia Kazan , David Lean , Joseph Manckiewicz.

Notice how many names we included? It’s ridiculous – it would be wrong to omit any of them; and still, there are probably dozens of iconic figures missing. The Hollywood Golden Age was all about stars. Stars sold pictures and the studios knew it. “Hepburn” could sell a movie every time; it didn’t matter which Hepburn – or what the movie was about.

Here’s a breakdown of the Hollywood Golden Age from Crash Course.

History of Movies  •  The Golden Age of Hollywood by Crash Course

There are a few sub-eras within the Hollywood Golden Age era; let’s break them down in detail.

Important Dates in Film History  •  Photo of MPPDA Chairman William Hays

In 1934, Chairman William Hays of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America instituted a production code that banned graphic cinematic depictions of sex, violence, and other illicit deeds. 

The “Production Code” or “ Hays Code ” was responsible for the censorship of Hollywood films for 34 years. 

For more on the history of Hollywood censorship and movie ratings, check out the video from Filmmaker IQ below.

How Has Film Changed Over Time?  •  History of Hollywood Censorship by Filmmaker IQ

The Hays Code kept cinema tame, which led to Hollywood romanticism. But it also made cinema unrealistic, which made the American public yearn for improbable outcomes. Not to mention that it set race relations back an indeterminable amount of years. The Hays Code specifically forbade miscegenation, or “the breeding of people of different races.” 

Ultimately, the censorship of Hollywood films was about keeping power in the hands of people with power. It had some positive unintended outcomes – but it wasn’t worth the cost of suppression.

Learn more about the Hays Code →

Learn more about the history of movie censorship →

Film Industry Timeline  •  Still from Nicholas Ray’s ‘In a Lonely Place’

Film noir is a style of film that’s defined by moralistic themes, high contrast lighting, and mysterious plots. Oftentimes, film noirs feature hardboiled protagonists . It’s important to note that film noir is a style, not a film movement. As such, we won’t list “film noir directors,” but we will list some iconic examples of film noir.

Major Hollywood film noirs: The Maltese Falcon (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950).

Hollywood film noirs were inspired by classic detective fiction stories, like those of Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. Over time, film noir was adopted as a style around the world – most famously in Great Britain with Carol Reed’s The Third Man .

Here’s a video on defining film noir from Jack’s Movie Reviews.

Eras of Movies  •  Defining Film Noir by Jack’s Movie Reviews

We could spend another 50 pages on film noir (like many other topics in this compendium) – but instead, let’s continue on.

Learn more about film noir →

How Movies Have Changed Over Time  •  Still from John Ford’s ‘The Searchers’

Hollywood westerns were incredibly popular during the Golden Age. Why? Because the American people loved stories of lawlessness and expansion, dating all the way back to Erastus Beadle’s dime novels – making the western the perfect subgenre for vicarious cinema.

Major Hollywood westerns: Stagecoach (1939), High Noon (1952), The Searchers (1956). 

Westerns, much like film noirs, allowed repressed audiences to feel alive at the movie theater. Remember: Hollywood films were censored during the Golden Age, which meant you couldn’t find graphic violence or pornography at the theaters. So, audiences took what they could get – which was usually film noirs and Westerns.

Here’s a video on the history of Westerns in Hollywood cinema. 

Evolution of Film  •  Western Movies History by Ministry of Cinema

Hollywood westerns inspired a global fascination with cowboys, mercenaries, and gunslingers, directly leading to samurai cinema, spaghetti westerns, zapata westerns, and neo-westerns.

Learn more about Spaghetti Westerns →

Learn more about Neo-Westerns →

McCARTHYISM & THE BLACKLIST

How Movies Have Changed Over Time  •  Bryan Cranston as Blacklisted Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo

In 1947, the state of Wisconsin elected notorious fear-monger Joseph McCarthy as senator of their state. McCarthy hated free-speech – that’s not a one-sided perspective, that’s the truth. McCarthy spent his entire career demagoguing, and his legacy shows that. 

In 1950, ten Hollywood screenwriters were summoned to appear before the United States Congress House of Un-American Activities, largely because of McCarthy's divisive rhetoric against communist sympathizers. The screenwriters were cited for contempt of congress and fired from their jobs, and thus, the blacklist was born.

For more on McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist , check out the video from Ted-Ed below.

The History of Film  •  McCarthyism and the Blacklist by Ted-Ed

The Hollywood blacklist derailed the careers of hundreds of writers, directors, and producers from 1950-1960. The blacklist ended when Kirk Douglas credited Dalton Trumbo – one of the most famous blacklisted screenwriters – as the screenwriter of Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus , effectively taking back control of Hollywood.

Learn more about the Hollywood Blacklist →

THE PARAMOUNT CASE

The History of Film  •  Paramount Studios Classic Style Logo

In 1948, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the five major motion picture studios: Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and RKO violated the U.S. Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.

As a result of the decision, movie studios could no longer solely create and distribute movies to their own theaters.

It may not sound important, but the Paramount Case changed everything for American cinema. Here’s a quick video on the Case and its lasting impact on Hollywood.

The History of Filmmaking  •  Film History 101: The Paramount Decree by Omar Rivera

The Paramount Case opened the door for international films and independent theaters. It also gave businesses more freedom to show movies outside of the MPPDA ratings system.

Evolution of Cinema

New hollywood.

Movie History  •  Still from Arthur Penn’s’ Bonnie and Clyde’

• New Hollywood, otherwise known as the Hollywood New Wave, introduced “the film school generation” to Hollywood. New Hollywood films are defined as larger in scope, darker in subject matter, and overtly more graphic than their Golden Age predecessors.
• Major New Hollywood filmmakers: George Lucas , Steven Spielberg , Martin Scorsese , Brian De Palma , Peter Bogdanovich, Woody Allen , Francis Ford Coppola , James Cameron .
• Major New Hollywood films: Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Graduate (1967), Easy Rider (1969), Midnight Cowboy (1969), The Godfather (1972), American Graffiti (1973).

New Hollywood ushered American filmmaking into a new era by returning to the popular genres of the pre-Code era, such as gangster films and sex-centric films. It also marked the emergence of “film-school” directors like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese. It’s clear from watching New Hollywood films that the writers and directors who produced them were acutely aware of cinema history. 

During this era, writers like Woody Allen employed themes of existentialist cinema found in the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism (among other movements). Directors like Martin Scorsese utilized advanced framing techniques pioneered by masters of the pre-war era.

For more on New Hollywood, check out this feature documentary based Peter Biskind's seminal book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls."

Movie History  •  How New Hollywood Was Born

New Hollywood (and its immediate aftermath) produced some of the greatest films of all-time: such as The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), Chinatown   (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), Network (1976), and Annie Hall (1977).

Somewhat tragically, New Hollywood ended with the emergence of blockbuster films – such as Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) – in the mid to late 1970s.

Learn more about New Hollywood →

Eras of Movies

Dogme 95 and independent movements.

Big-budget movies dominated the movie-scene after New Hollywood ended. Suddenly, cinema became more of a spectacle than an art-form. That’s not to say movies produced during this era (1975-1995) were bad – some big-budget films, like Back to the Future (1985) and   Jurassic Park (1993) were financially successful and critically acclaimed; and writer/directors like John Hughes found enormous success making studio films about seemingly mundane life. 

But despite the financial prospect of making contrived studio films, some filmmakers decided to go back to their roots and make films independently, much in the vein of the artists of the French New Wave. This spirit inspired the Danish Dogme 95 movement and the American Independent movement.

Evolution of Film  •  Photo Still from ‘Festen’ by Thomas Vinterberg

D0gme 95 – a Danish film movement that brought filmmaking back to its primal roots: no non-diegetic sound, no superficial action, and no director credit. 

Major Dogme 95 filmmakers: Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier

Major Dogme 95 films: Dogme #1 – Festen (1998), Dogme #2 – The Idiots (1998), Dogme #12 – Italian for Beginners (2000).

It’s ironic that Dogme 95 , which states the director must not be credited, is perhaps best known for the fame of two of its founders: Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier. Dogme 95 sought to rid cinema of extravagant special effects and challenging productions by making the filmmaking process as simple as possible. To do this, its founders created the Vows of Chastity: a ten-part manifesto for Dogme 95 filmmaking.

Check out a video on the Vows of Chastity and Dogme 95 below.

History of Cinema  •  Vows of Chastity – Films of Dogme 95 by FilmStruck

Ultimately, the Vows of Chastity proved too limiting for filmmakers – but their influence lives on in New Danish cinema and independent films all over the world.

Learn more about Dogme 95 →

History of Cinema  •  Still from Kevin Smith’s ‘Clerks’

Indie film – or late 80s, early 90s cinema produced outside of the major motion picture system – was about experimenting with new cinematic forms, pushing the Generation Next agenda, and making art by any means necessary. 

Major indie filmmakers: Richard Linklater , Wes Anderson , Steven Soderbergh , Jim Jarmusch . 

Major indie films: Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), Slacker (1990), and Bottle Rocket (1994).

The American indie movement launched the careers of a myriad of great directors. It also marked the beginning of a major decline for film. The advent of digital cameras and DVDs meant film was becoming a luxury. Conversely, it meant procuring the necessary equipment needed to make movies was easier than ever.

Indie-films introduced the idea that anybody could make movies. For better or worse, the point proved to be true. The '90s and early 2000s were littered with independently produced, scarcely funded movies. It was unrestrained, but it was also liberating.

Check out this video on no-budget filmmaking from The Royal Ocean Film Society to learn more about the indie movement.

Evolution of Cinema  •  Lessons for the No-Budget Feature by The Royal Ocean Film Society

The indie movement (as it was known then) ended when the major studios (like Disney and Turner) bought the independent studios (like Miramax and New Line). Today, we often refer to minimalist, low-budget movies as independent, but the truth is just about every production studio is owned by a conglomerate.

How Has the Film Industry Changed?

New distribution methods.

The current state of cinema is in flux due to a wide array of issues, including (but not limited to) the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the wide-adoption of new streaming services from first-party producers, i.e. Netflix, Disney, Paramount, etc., and the growth of new media forms.

Over the last few years, big-budget epics like Marvel’s The Avengers and Star Wars have performed well at the U.S. and Chinese box-office, but their success has often come at the expense of medium-budget movies; the result being a deeper lining of the pockets of exorbitantly wealthy corporations.

Still, there’s a lot of money to be made – a point perhaps best proven by the rise of the Chinese film industry. In 2020, China overtook North America as the world’s biggest box-office market, per THR. Check out a video on Hengdian, China’s largest film studio from South China Morning Report.

Movie History  •  Inside China’s Largest Film Studio by South China Morning Report

Movies seem to get bigger and bigger every year but the development of computer-generated-imagery and compositing techniques has given filmmakers the technology to create vast worlds in limited spaces.

So: what’s next for film? Who’s to say for certain? The future of the industry looks cloudy – but there’s definite promise on the horizon. More people have cinema-capable cameras in their pocket today than ever before. Perhaps the next great movement will take off soon.

Related Posts

• What is CinemaScope  →
• When Was the Camera Invented →
• What Was the First Movie Ever Made  →

100 Years of Cinematography

The history of film includes a lot more than what we went over here. In 2019, the American Society of Cinematographers celebrated 100 years of great cinematography with a list of legendary works. In our next article, we break down some of the ASC’s choices with video examples. Follow along as we look at the work of Conrad Hall, Vittorio Storaro, and more.

Up Next: Best Cinematography of All-Time →

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Modern Theatre and Film Industry Essay

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The modern theatre and film industry have helped familiarize people with the reality of the world, emotions people go through and happy, as well as sad situations. Historically, one of the first forms of entertainment which evolved into movies today was theatre.

People went to all the plays that were in their towns and greatly valued this form of art. At the same time, there were many prejudices that were a part of the society, which today might seem harsh and unacceptable. One of these is the way gender and races were viewed by the theatrical population and people viewing the plays.

The present society has seen many advances in the way people are treated and how the differences between individuals are viewed. Today, people are given an equal opportunity to participate in theatre and media, but even though there are laws that prohibit discrimination due to race or gender, there is still prejudice and stereotyping.

In the past, women were not allowed to perform plays. Men would play their parts and from one perspective, this enforced the common views that were abusive towards a certain group. Even though it changed the atmosphere of the theatre, people were not aware that anything could be different, so they accepted it as it was.

It would be reasonable to assume that women realized how unfair and humorous it was that men had to play women’s roles, but the dominant social views could not allow anything different. The same can be said about different races, as people were not used to people who stood out from the crowd. Their own insecurities and fear led them to believe that they must not allow anyone who looked different into the industry.

Right now, the world has changed and the theatres, as well as other forms of entertainment have become greatly “colorblind”. It is obvious that the theatre culture is more old fashioned, so prejudices still exist there, but other forms of media and entertainment, especially in the western world, are a clear example that people from all cultures can become successful and accepted.

Hollywood has seen many prosperous and world famous people from other races, who are loved and respected all over the world. The theatre is slowly adjusting to the change and this is most obviously seen in relation to gender. Women’s roles are played by women and it would be ridiculous to even image a man playing a woman’s role in the modern world. The society needs diversity in all its parts of entertainment, as people should realize that everyone is equal and there are no real differences between people.

Everyone wants to do what they love and have a talent for, and entertainment industry has shown that there are many actors who are of same or even greater talent in relation to “white only” population. The mixing of all societies into one will allow for greater acceptance and cooperation, and because theatre and other media are viewed by so many people, it would be most beneficial to display the unity there.

Even though the times are changing slowly, it is clear that gender or race should not matter in theatre or films. The whole world must see that entertainment comes from emotions and people’s soul and looks are unimportant, as people should be judged by their character and not how they appear to be.

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"Modern Theatre and Film Industry." IvyPanda , 17 Jan. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/theatre/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Modern Theatre and Film Industry'. 17 January.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Modern Theatre and Film Industry." January 17, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/theatre/.

1. IvyPanda . "Modern Theatre and Film Industry." January 17, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/theatre/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Modern Theatre and Film Industry." January 17, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/theatre/.

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The essay film

In recent years the essay film has attained widespread recognition as a particular category of film practice, with its own history and canonical figures and texts. In tandem with a major season throughout August at London’s BFI Southbank, Sight & Sound explores the characteristics that have come to define this most elastic of forms and looks in detail at a dozen influential milestone essay films.

Andrew Tracy , Katy McGahan , Olaf Möller , Sergio Wolf , Nina Power Updated: 7 May 2019

from our August 2013 issue

Le camera stylo? Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

I recently had a heated argument with a cinephile filmmaking friend about Chris Marker’s Sans soleil (1983). Having recently completed her first feature, and with such matters on her mind, my friend contended that the film’s power lay in its combinations of image and sound, irrespective of Marker’s inimitable voiceover narration. “Do you think that people who can’t understand English or French will get nothing out of the film?” she said; to which I – hot under the collar – replied that they might very well get something, but that something would not be the complete work.

The Sight & Sound Deep Focus season Thought in Action: The Art of the Essay Film runs at BFI Southbank 1-28 August 2013, with a keynote lecture by Kodwo Eshun on 1 August, a talk by writer and academic Laura Rascaroli on 27 August and a closing panel debate on 28 August.

To take this film-lovers’ tiff to a more elevated plane, what it suggests is that the essentialist conception of cinema is still present in cinephilic and critical culture, as are the difficulties of containing within it works that disrupt its very fabric. Ever since Vachel Lindsay published The Art of the Moving Picture in 1915 the quest to secure the autonomy of film as both medium and art – that ever-elusive ‘pure cinema’ – has been a preoccupation of film scholars, critics, cinephiles and filmmakers alike. My friend’s implicit derogation of the irreducible literary element of Sans soleil and her neo- Godard ian invocation of ‘image and sound’ touch on that strain of this phenomenon which finds, in the technical-functional combination of those two elements, an alchemical, if not transubstantiational, result.

Mechanically created, cinema defies mechanism: it is poetic, transportive and, if not irrational, then a-rational. This mystically-minded view has a long and illustrious tradition in film history, stretching from the sense-deranging surrealists – who famously found accidental poetry in the juxtapositions created by randomly walking into and out of films; to the surrealist-influenced, scientifically trained and ontologically minded André Bazin , whose realist veneration of the long take centred on the very preternaturalness of nature as revealed by the unblinking gaze of the camera; to the trash-bin idolatry of the American underground, weaving new cinematic mythologies from Hollywood detritus; and to auteurism itself, which (in its more simplistic iterations) sees the essence of the filmmaker inscribed even upon the most compromised of works.

It isn’t going too far to claim that this tradition has constituted the foundation of cinephilic culture and helped to shape the cinematic canon itself. If Marker has now been welcomed into that canon and – thanks to the far greater availability of his work – into the mainstream of (primarily DVD-educated) cinephilia, it is rarely acknowledged how much of that work cheerfully undercuts many of the long-held assumptions and pieties upon which it is built.

In his review of Letter from Siberia (1957), Bazin placed Marker at right angles to cinema proper, describing the film’s “primary material” as intelligence – specifically a “verbal intelligence” – rather than image. He dubbed Marker’s method a “horizontal” montage, “as opposed to traditional montage that plays with the sense of duration through the relationship of shot to shot”.

Here, claimed Bazin, “a given image doesn’t refer to the one that preceded it or the one that will follow, but rather it refers laterally, in some way, to what is said.” Thus the very thing which makes Letter “extraordinary”, in Bazin’s estimation, is also what makes it not-cinema. Looking for a term to describe it, Bazin hit upon a prophetic turn of phrase, writing that Marker’s film is, “to borrow Jean Vigo’s formulation of À propos de Nice (‘a documentary point of view’), an essay documented by film. The important word is ‘essay’, understood in the same sense that it has in literature – an essay at once historical and political, written by a poet as well.”

Marker’s canonisation has proceeded apace with that of the form of which he has become the exemplar. Whether used as critical/curatorial shorthand in reviews and programme notes, employed as a model by filmmakers or examined in theoretical depth in major retrospectives (this summer’s BFI Southbank programme, for instance, follows upon Andréa Picard’s two-part series ‘The Way of the Termite’ at TIFF Cinémathèque in 2009-2010, which drew inspiration from Jean-Pierre Gorin ’s groundbreaking programme of the same title at Vienna Filmmuseum in 2007), the ‘essay film’ has attained in recent years widespread recognition as a particular, if perennially porous, mode of film practice. An appealingly simple formulation, the term has proved both taxonomically useful and remarkably elastic, allowing one to define a field of previously unassimilable objects while ranging far and wide throughout film history to claim other previously identified objects for this invented tradition.

Las Hurdes (1933)

It is crucial to note that the ‘essay film’ is not only a post-facto appellation for a kind of film practice that had not bothered to mark itself with a moniker, but also an invention and an intervention. While it has acquired its own set of canonical ‘texts’ that include the collected works of Marker, much of Godard – from the missive (the 52-minute Letter to Jane , 1972) to the massive ( Histoire(s) de cinéma , 1988-98) – Welles’s F for Fake (1973) and Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), it has also poached on the territory of other, ‘sovereign’ forms, expanding its purview in accordance with the whims of its missionaries.

From documentary especially, Vigo’s aforementioned À propos de Nice, Ivens’s Rain (1929), Buñuel’s sardonic Las Hurdes (1933), Resnais’s Night and Fog (1955), Rouch and Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961); from the avant garde, Akerman’s Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974), Straub/Huillet’s Trop tôt, trop tard (1982); from agitprop, Getino and Solanas’s The Hour of the Furnaces (1968), Portabella’s Informe general… (1976); and even from ‘pure’ fiction, for example Gorin’s provocative selection of Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909).

Just as within itself the essay film presents, in the words of Gorin, “the meandering of an intelligence that tries to multiply the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected),” so, without, its scope expands exponentially through the industrious activity of its adherents, blithely cutting across definitional borders and – as per the Manny Farber ian concept which gave Gorin’s ‘Termite’ series its name –  creating meaning precisely by eating away at its own boundaries. In the scope of its application and its association more with an (amorphous) sensibility as opposed to fixed rules, the essay film bears similarities to the most famous of all fabricated genres: film noir, which has been located both in its natural habitat of the crime thriller as well as in such disparate climates as melodramas, westerns and science fiction.

The essay film, however, has proved even more peripatetic: where noir was formulated from the films of a determinate historical period (no matter that the temporal goalposts are continually shifted), the essay film is resolutely unfixed in time; it has its choice of forebears. And while noir, despite its occasional shadings over into semi-documentary during the 1940s, remains bound to fictional narratives, the essay film moves blithely between the realms of fiction and non-fiction, complicating the terms of both.

“Here is a form that seems to accommodate the two sides of that divide at the same time, that can navigate from documentary to fiction and back, creating other polarities in the process between which it can operate,” writes Gorin. When Orson Welles , in the closing moments of his masterful meditation on authenticity and illusion F for Fake, chortles, “I did promise that for one hour, I’d tell you only the truth. For the past 17 minutes, I’ve been lying my head off,” he is expressing both the conjuror’s pleasure in a trick well played and the artist’s delight in a self-defined mode that is cheerfully impure in both form and, perhaps, intention.

Nevertheless, as the essay film merrily traipses through celluloid history it intersects with ‘pure cinema’ at many turns and its form as such owes much to one particularly prominent variety thereof.

The montage tradition

If the mystical strain described above represents the Dionysian side of pure cinema, Soviet montage was its Apollonian opposite: randomness, revelation and sensuous response countered by construction, forceful argumentation and didactic instruction.

No less than the mystics, however, the montagists were after essences. Eisenstein , Dziga Vertov and Pudovkin , along with their transnational associates and acolytes, sought to crystallise abstract concepts in the direct and purposeful juxtaposition of forceful, hard-edged images – the general made powerfully, viscerally immediate in the particular. Here, says Eisenstein, in the umbrella-wielding harpies who set upon the revolutionaries in October (1928), is bourgeois Reaction made manifest; here, in the serried ranks of soldiers proceeding as one down the Odessa Steps in Battleship Potemkin (1925), is Oppression undisguised; here, in the condemned Potemkin sailor who wins over his imminent executioners with a cry of “Brothers!” – a moment powerfully invoked by Marker at the beginning of his magnum opus A Grin Without a Cat (1977) – is Solidarity emergent and, from it, the seeds of Revolution.

The relentlessly unidirectional focus of classical Soviet montage puts it methodologically and temperamentally at odds with the ruminative, digressive and playful qualities we associate with the essay film. So, too, the former’s fierce ideological certainty and cadre spirit contrast with that free play of the mind, the Montaigne -inspired meanderings of individual intelligence, that so characterise our image of the latter.

Beyond Marker’s personal interest in and inheritance from the Soviet masters, classical montage laid the foundations of the essay film most pertinently in its foregrounding of the presence, within the fabric of the film, of a directing intelligence. Conducting their experiments in film not through ‘pure’ abstraction but through narrative, the montagists made manifest at least two operative levels within the film: the narrative itself and the arrangement of that narrative by which the deeper structures that move it are made legible. Against the seamless, immersive illusionism of commercial cinema, montage was a key for decrypting those social forces, both overt and hidden, that govern human society.

And as such it was method rather than material that was the pathway to truth. Fidelity to the authentic – whether the accurate representation of historical events or the documentary flavouring of Eisensteinian typage – was important only insomuch as it provided the filmmaker with another tool to reach a considerably higher plane of reality.

Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm (1931)

Midway on their Marxian mission to change the world rather than interpret it, the montagists actively made the world even as they revealed it. In doing so they powerfully expressed the dialectic between control and chaos that would come to be not only one of the chief motors of the essay film but the crux of modernity itself.

Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), now claimed as the most venerable and venerated ancestor of the essay film (and this despite its prototypically purist claim to realise a ‘universal’ cinematic language “based on its complete separation from the language of literature and the theatre”) is the archetypal model of this high-modernist agon. While it is the turning of the movie projector itself and the penetrating gaze of Vertov’s kino-eye that sets the whirling dynamo of the city into motion, the recorder creating that which it records, that motion is also outside its control.

At the dawn of the cinematic century, the American writer Henry Adams saw in the dynamo both the expression of human mastery over nature and a conduit to mysterious, elemental powers beyond our comprehension. So, too, the modernist ambition expressed in literature, painting, architecture and cinema to capture a subject from all angles – to exhaust its wealth of surfaces, meanings, implications, resonances – collides with awe (or fear) before a plenitude that can never be encompassed.

Remove the high-modernist sense of mission and we can see this same dynamic as animating the essay film – recall that last, parenthetical term in Gorin’s formulation of the essay film, “multiply[ing] the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected)”. The nimble movements and multi-angled perspectives of the essay film are founded on this negotiation between active choice and passive possession; on the recognition that even the keenest insight pales in the face of an ultimate unknowability.

The other key inheritance the essay film received from the classical montage tradition, perhaps inevitably, was a progressive spirit, however variously defined. While Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) amply and chillingly demonstrated that montage, like any instrumental apparatus, has no inherent ideological nature, hers were more the exceptions that proved the rule. (Though why, apart from ideological repulsiveness, should Riefenstahl’s plentifully fabricated ‘documentaries’ not be considered as essay films in their own right?)

The overwhelming fact remains that the great majority of those who drew upon the Soviet montagists for explicitly ideological ends (as opposed to Hollywood’s opportunistic swipings) resided on the left of the spectrum – and, in the montagists’ most notable successor in the period immediately following, retained their alignment with and inextricability from the state.

Progressive vs radical

The Grierson ian documentary movement in Britain neutered the political and aesthetic radicalism of its more dynamic model in favour of paternalistic progressivism founded on conformity, class complacency and snobbery towards its own medium. But if it offered a far paler antecedent to the essay film than the Soviet montage tradition, it nevertheless represents an important stage in the evolution of the essay-film form, for reasons not unrelated to some of those rather staid qualities.

The Soviet montagists had created a vision of modernity racing into the future at pace with the social and spiritual liberation of its proletarian pilot-passenger, an aggressively public ideology of group solidarity. The Grierson school, by contrast, offered a domesticated image of an efficient, rational and productive modern industrial society based on interconnected but separate public and private spheres, as per the ideological values of middle-class liberal individualism.

The Soviet montagists had looked to forge a universal, ‘pure’ cinematic language, at least before the oppressive dictates of Stalinist socialist realism shackled them. The Grierson school, evincing a middle-class disdain for the popular and ‘low’ arts, sought instead to purify the sullied medium of cinema by importing extra-cinematic prestige: most notably Night Mail (1936), with its Auden -penned, Britten -scored ode to the magic of the mail, or Humphrey Jennings’s salute to wartime solidarity A Diary for Timothy (1945), with its mildly sententious E.M. Forster narration.

Night Mail (1936)

What this domesticated dynamism and retrograde pursuit of high-cultural bona fides achieved, however, was to mingle a newfound cinematic language (montage) with a traditionally literary one (narration); and, despite the salutes to state-oriented communality, to re-introduce the individual, idiosyncratic voice as the vehicle of meaning – as the mediating intelligence that connects the viewer to the images viewed.

In Night Mail especially there is, in the whimsy of the Auden text and the film’s synchronisation of private time and public history, an intimation of the essay film’s musing, reflective voice as the chugging rhythm of the narration timed to the speeding wheels of the train gives way to a nocturnal vision of solitary dreamers bedevilled by spectral monsters, awakening in expectation of the postman’s knock with a “quickening of the heart/for who can bear to be forgot?”

It’s a curiously disquieting conclusion: this unsettling, anxious vision of disappearance that takes on an even darker shade with the looming spectre of war – one that rhymes, five decades on, with the wistful search of Marker’s narrator in Sans soleil, seeking those fleeting images which “quicken the heart” in a world where wars both past and present have been forgotten, subsumed in a modern society built upon the systematic banishment of memory.

It is, of course, with the seminal post-war collaborations between Marker and Alain Resnais that the essay film proper emerges. In contrast to the striving culture-snobbery of the Griersonian documentary, the Resnais-Marker collaborations (and the Resnais solo documentary shorts that preceded them) inaugurate a blithe, seemingly effortless dialogue between cinema and the other arts in both their subjects (painting, sculpture) and their assorted creative personnel (writers Paul Éluard , Jean Cayrol , Raymond Queneau , composers Darius Milhaud and Hanns Eisler ). This also marks the point where the revolutionary line of the Soviets and the soft, statist liberalism of the British documentarians give way to a more free-floating but staunchly oppositional leftism, one derived as much from a spirit of humanistic inquiry as from ideological affiliation.

Related to this was the form’s problems with official patronage. Originally conceived as commissions by various French government or government-affiliated bodies, the Resnais-Marker films famously ran into trouble from French censors: Les statues meurent aussi (1953) for its condemnation of French colonialism, Night and Fog for its shots of Vichy policemen guarding deportation camps; the former film would have its second half lopped off before being cleared for screening, the latter its offending shots removed.

Night and Fog (1955)

Appropriately, it is at this moment that the emphasis of the essay film begins to shift away from tactile presence – the whirl of the city, the rhythm of the rain, the workings of industry – to felt absence. The montagists had marvelled at the workings of human creations which raced ahead irrespective of human efforts; here, the systems created by humanity to master the world write, in their very functioning, an epitaph for those things extinguished in the act of mastering them. The African masks preserved in the Musée de l’Homme in Les statues meurent aussi speak of a bloody legacy of vanquished and conquered civilisations; the labyrinthine archival complex of the Bibliothèque Nationale in the sardonically titled Toute la mémoire du monde (1956) sparks a disquisition on all that is forgotten in the act of cataloguing knowledge; the miracle of modern plastics saluted in the witty, industrially commissioned Le Chant du styrène (1958) regresses backwards to its homely beginnings; in Night and Fog an unprecedentedly enormous effort of human organisation marshals itself to actively produce a dreadful, previously unimaginable nullity.

To overstate the case, loss is the primary motor of the modern essay film: loss of belief in the image’s ability to faithfully reflect reality; loss of faith in the cinema’s ability to capture life as it is lived; loss of illusions about cinema’s ‘purity’, its autonomy from the other arts or, for that matter, the world.

“You never know what you may be filming,” notes one of Marker’s narrating surrogates in A Grin Without a Cat, as footage of the Chilean equestrian team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics offers a glimpse of a future member of the Pinochet junta. The image and sound captured at the time of filming offer one facet of reality; it is only with this lateral move outside that reality that the future reality it conceals can speak.

What will distinguish the essay film, as Bazin noted, is not only its ability to make the image but also its ability to interrogate it, to dispel the illusion of its sovereignty and see it as part of a matrix of meaning that extends beyond the screen. No less than were the montagists, the film-essayists seek the motive forces of modern society not by crystallising eternal verities in powerful images but by investigating that ever-shifting, kaleidoscopic relationship between our regime of images and the realities it both reveals and occludes.

— Andrew Tracy

1.   À propos de Nice

Jean Vigo, 1930

Few documentaries have achieved the cult status of the 22-minute A propos de Nice, co-directed by Jean Vigo and cameraman Boris Kaufman at the beginning of their careers. The film retains a spontaneous, apparently haphazard, quality yet its careful montage combines a strong realist drive, lyrical dashes – helped by Marc Perrone’s accordion music – and a clear political agenda.

In today’s era, in which the Côte d’Azur has become a byword for hedonistic consumption, it’s refreshing to see a film that systematically undermines its glossy surface. Using images sometimes ‘stolen’ with hidden cameras, A propos de Nice moves between the city’s main sites of pleasure: the Casino, the Promenade des Anglais, the Hotel Negresco and the carnival. Occasionally the filmmakers remind us of the sea, the birds, the wind in the trees but mostly they contrast people: the rich play tennis, the poor boules; the rich have tea, the poor gamble in the (then) squalid streets of the Old Town.

As often, women bear the brunt of any critique of bourgeois consumption: a rich old woman’s head is compared to an ostrich, others grin as they gaze up at phallic factory chimneys; young women dance frenetically, their crotch to the camera. In the film’s most famous image, an elegant woman is ‘stripped’ by the camera to reveal her naked body – not quite matched by a man’s shoes vanishing to display his naked feet to the shoe-shine.

An essay film avant la lettre , A propos de Nice ends on Soviet-style workers’ faces and burning furnaces. The message is clear, even if it has not been heeded by history.

— Ginette Vincendeau

2. A Diary for Timothy

Humphrey Jennings, 1945

A Diary for Timothy takes the form of a journal addressed to the eponymous Timothy James Jenkins, born on 3 September 1944, exactly five years after Britain’s entry into World War II. The narrator, Michael Redgrave , a benevolent offscreen presence, informs young Timothy about the momentous events since his birth and later advises that, even when the war is over, there will be “everyday danger”.

The subjectivity and speculative approach maintained throughout are more akin to the essay tradition than traditional propaganda in their rejection of mere glib conveyance of information or thunderous hectoring. Instead Jennings invites us quietly to observe the nuances of everyday life as Britain enters the final chapter of the war. Against the momentous political backdrop, otherwise routine, everyday activities are ascribed new profundity as the Welsh miner Geronwy, Alan the farmer, Bill the railway engineer and Peter the convalescent fighter pilot go about their daily business.

Within the confines of the Ministry of Information’s remit – to lift the spirits of a battle-weary nation – and the loose narrative framework of Timothy’s first six months, Jennings finds ample expression for the kind of formal experiment that sets his work apart from that of other contemporary documentarians. He worked across film, painting, photography, theatrical design, journalism and poetry; in Diary his protean spirit finds expression in a manner that transgresses the conventional parameters of wartime propaganda, stretching into film poem, philosophical reflection, social document, surrealistic ethnographic observation and impressionistic symphony. Managing to keep to the right side of sentimentality, it still makes for potent viewing.

— Catherine McGahan

3. Toute la mémoire du monde

Alain Resnais, 1956

In the opening credits of Toute la mémoire du monde, alongside the director’s name and that of producer Pierre Braunberger , one reads the mysterious designation “Groupe des XXX”. This Group of Thirty was an assembly of filmmakers who mobilised in the early 1950s to defend the “style, quality and ambitious subject matter” of short films in post-war France; the signatories of its 1953 ‘Declaration’ included Resnais , Chris Marker and Agnès Varda. The success of the campaign contributed to a golden age of short filmmaking that would last a decade and form the crucible of the French essay film.

A 22-minute poetic documentary about the old French Bibliothèque Nationale, Toute la mémoire du monde is a key work in this strand of filmmaking and one which can also be seen as part of a loose ‘trilogy of memory’ in Resnais’s early documentaries. Les statues meurent aussi (co-directed with Chris Marker) explored cultural memory as embodied in African art and the depredations of colonialism; Night and Fog was a seminal reckoning with the historical memory of the Nazi death camps. While less politically controversial than these earlier works, Toute la mémoire du monde’s depiction of the Bibliothèque Nationale is still oddly suggestive of a prison, with its uniformed guards and endless corridors. In W.G. Sebald ’s 2001 novel Austerlitz, directly after a passage dedicated to Resnais’s film, the protagonist describes his uncertainty over whether, when using the library, he “was on the Islands of the Blest, or, on the contrary, in a penal colony”.

Resnais explores the workings of the library through the effective device of following a book from arrival and cataloguing to its delivery to a reader (the book itself being something of an in-joke: a mocked-up travel guide to Mars in the Petite Planète series Marker was then editing for Editions du Seuil). With Resnais’s probing, mobile camerawork and a commentary by French writer Remo Forlani, Toute la mémoire du monde transforms the library into a mysterious labyrinth, something between an edifice and an organism: part brain and part tomb.

— Chris Darke

4. The House is Black

(Khaneh siah ast) Forough Farrokhzad, 1963

Before the House of Makhmalbaf there was The House is Black. Called “the greatest of all Iranian films” by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who helped translate the subtitles from Farsi into English, this 20-minute black-and-white essay film by feminist poet Farrokhzad was shot in a leper colony near Tabriz in northern Iran and has been heralded as the touchstone of the Iranian New Wave.

The buildings of the Baba Baghi colony are brick and peeling whitewash but a student asked to write a sentence using the word ‘house’ offers Khaneh siah ast : the house is black. His hand, seen in close-up, is one of many in the film; rather than objects of medical curiosity, these hands – some fingerless, many distorted by the disease – are agents, always in movement, doing, making, exercising, praying. In putting white words on the blackboard, the student makes part of the film; in the next shots, the film’s credits appear, similarly handwritten on the same blackboard.

As they negotiate the camera’s gaze and provide the soundtrack by singing, stamping and wheeling a barrow, the lepers are co-authors of the film. Farrokhzad echoes their prayers, heard and seen on screen, with her voiceover, which collages religious texts, beginning with the passage from Psalm 55 famously set to music by Mendelssohn (“O for the wings of a dove”).

In the conjunctions between Farrokhzad’s poetic narration and diegetic sound, including tanbur-playing, an intense assonance arises. Its beat is provided by uniquely lyrical associative editing that would influence Abbas Kiarostami , who quotes Farrokhzad’s poem ‘The Wind Will Carry Us’ in his eponymous film . Repeated shots of familiar bodily movement, made musical, move the film insistently into the viewer’s body: it is infectious. Posing a question of aesthetics, The House Is Black uses the contagious gaze of cinema to dissolve the screen between Us and Them.

— Sophie Mayer

5. Letter to Jane: An Investigation About a Still

Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972

With its invocation of Brecht (“Uncle Bertolt”), rejection of visual pleasure (for 52 minutes we’re mostly looking at a single black-and-white still) and discussion of the role of intellectuals in “the revolution”, Letter to Jane is so much of its time as to appear untranslatable to the present except as a curio from a distant era of radical cinema. Between 1969 and 1971, Godard and Gorin made films collectively as part of the Dziga Vertov Group before they returned, in 1972, to the mainstream with Tout va bien , a big-budget film about the aftermath of May 1968 featuring leftist stars Yves Montand and  Jane Fonda . It was to the latter that Godard and Gorin directed their Letter after seeing a news photograph of her on a solidarity visit to North Vietnam in August 1972.

Intended to accompany the US release of Tout va bien, Letter to Jane is ‘a letter’ only in as much as it is fairly conversational in tone, with Godard and Gorin delivering their voiceovers in English. It’s stylistically more akin to the ‘blackboard films’ of the time, with their combination of pedagogical instruction and stern auto-critique.

It’s also an inspired semiological reading of a media image and a reckoning with the contradictions of celebrity activism. Godard and Gorin examine the image’s framing and camera angle and ask why Fonda is the ‘star’ of the photograph while the Vietnamese themselves remain faceless or out of focus? And what of her expression of compassionate concern? This “expression of an expression” they trace back, via an elaboration of the Kuleshov effect , through other famous faces – Henry Fonda , John Wayne , Lillian Gish and Falconetti – concluding that it allows for “no reverse shot” and serves only to bolster Western “good conscience”.

Letter to Jane is ultimately concerned with the same question that troubled philosophers such as Levinas and Derrida : what’s at stake ethically when one claims to speak “in place of the other”? Any contemporary critique of celebrity activism – from Bono and Geldof to Angelina Jolie – should start here, with a pair of gauchiste trolls muttering darkly beneath a press shot of ‘Hanoi Jane’.

6. F for Fake

Orson Welles, 1973

Those who insist it was all downhill for Orson Welles after Citizen Kane would do well to take a close look at this film made more than three decades later, in its own idiosyncratic way a masterpiece just as innovative as his better-known feature debut.

Perhaps the film’s comparative and undeserved critical neglect is due to its predominantly playful tone, or perhaps it’s because it is a low-budget, hard-to-categorise, deeply personal work that mixes original material with plenty of footage filmed by others – most extensively taken from a documentary by François Reichenbach about Clifford Irving and his bogus biography of his friend Elmyr de Hory , an art forger who claimed to have painted pictures attributed to famous names and hung in the world’s most prestigious galleries.

If the film had simply offered an account of the hoaxes perpetrated by that disreputable duo, it would have been entertaining enough but, by means of some extremely inventive, innovative and inspired editing, Welles broadens his study of fakery to take in his own history as a ‘charlatan’ – not merely his lifelong penchant for magician’s tricks but also the 1938 radio broadcast of his news-report adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds – as well as observations on Howard Hughes , Pablo Picasso and the anonymous builders of Chartres cathedral. So it is that Welles contrives to conjure up, behind a colourful cloak of consistently entertaining mischief, a rueful meditation on truth and falsehood, art and authorship – a subject presumably dear to his heart following Pauline Kael ’s then recent attempts to persuade the world that Herman J. Mankiewicz had been the real creative force behind Kane.

As a riposte to that thesis (albeit never framed as such), F for Fake is subtle, robust, supremely erudite and never once bitter; the darkest moment – as Welles contemplates the serene magnificence of Chartres – is at once an uncharacteristic but touchingly heartfelt display of humility and a poignant memento mori. And it is in this delicate balancing of the autobiographical with the universal, as well as in the dazzling deployment of cinematic form to illustrate and mirror content, that the film works its once unique, now highly influential magic.

— Geoff Andrew

7. How to Live in the German Federal Republic

(Leben – BRD) Harun Farocki, 1990

Harun Farocki ’s portrait of West Germany in 32 simulations from training sessions has no commentary, just the actions themselves in all their surreal beauty, one after the other. The Bundesrepublik Deutschland is shown as a nation of people who can deal with everything because they have been prepared – taught how to react properly in every possible situation.

We know how birth works; how to behave in kindergarten; how to chat up girls, boys or whatever we fancy (for we’re liberal-minded, if only in principle); how to look for a job and maybe live without finding one; how to wiggle our arses in the hottest way possible when we pole-dance, or manage a hostage crisis without things getting (too) bloody. Whatever job we do, we know it by heart; we also know how to manage whatever kind of psychological breakdown we experience; and we are also prepared for the end, and even have an idea about how our burial will go. This is the nation: one of fearful people in dire need of control over their one chance of getting it right.

Viewed from the present, How to Live in the German Federal Republic is revealed as the archetype of many a Farocki film in the decades to follow, for example Die Umschulung (1994), Der Auftritt (1996) or Nicht ohne Risiko (2004), all of which document as dispassionately as possible different – not necessarily simulated – scenarios of social interactions related to labour and capital. For all their enlightening beauty, none of these ever came close to How to Live in the German Federal Republic which, depending on one’s mood, can play like an absurd comedy or the most gut-wrenching drama. Yet one disquieting thing is certain: How to Live in the German Federal Republic didn’t age – our lives still look the same.

— Olaf Möller

8. One Man’s War

(La Guerre d’un seul homme) Edgardo Cozarinsky , 1982

One Man’s War proves that an auteur film can be made without writing a line, recording a sound or shooting a single frame. It’s easy to point to the ‘extraordinary’ character of the film, given its combination of materials that were not made to cohabit; there couldn’t be a less plausible dialogue than the one Cozarinsky establishes between the newsreels shot during the Nazi occupation of Paris and the Parisian diaries of novelist and Nazi officer Ernst Jünger . There’s some truth to Pascal Bonitzer’s assertion in Cahiers du cinéma in 1982 that the principle of the documentary was inverted here, since it is the images that provide a commentary for the voice.

But that observation still doesn’t pin down the uniqueness of a work that forces history through a series of registers, styles and dimensions, wiping out the distance between reality and subjectivity, propaganda and literature, cinema and journalism, daily life and dream, and establishing the idea not so much of communicating vessels as of contaminating vessels.

To enquire about the essayistic dimension of One Man’s War is to submit it to a test of purity against which the film itself is rebelling. This is no ars combinatoria but systems of collision and harmony; organic in their temporal development and experimental in their procedural eagerness. It’s like a machine created to die instantly; neither Cozarinsky nor anyone else could repeat the trick, as is the case with all great avant-garde works.

By blurring the genre of his literary essays, his fictional films, his archival documentaries, his literary fictions, Cozarinsky showed he knew how to reinvent the erasure of borders. One Man’s War is not a film about the Occupation but a meditation on the different forms in which that Occupation can be represented.

—Sergio Wolf. Translated by Mar Diestro-Dópido

9. Sans soleil

Chris Marker, 1982

There are many moments to quicken the heart in Sans soleil but one in particular demonstrates the method at work in Marker’s peerless film. An unseen female narrator reads from letters sent to her by a globetrotting cameraman named Sandor Krasna (Marker’s nom de voyage), one of which muses on the 11th-century Japanese writer  Sei Shōnagon .

As we hear of Shōnagon’s “list of elegant things, distressing things, even of things not worth doing”, we watch images of a missile being launched and a hovering bomber. What’s the connection? There is none. Nothing here fixes word and image in illustrative lockstep; it’s in the space between them that Sans soleil makes room for the spectator to drift, dream and think – to inimitable effect.

Sans soleil was Marker’s return to a personal mode of filmmaking after more than a decade in militant cinema. His reprise of the epistolary form looks back to earlier films such as  Letter from Siberia  (1958) but the ‘voice’ here is both intimate and removed. The narrator’s reading of Krasna’s letters flips the first person to the third, using ‘he’ instead of ‘I’. Distance and proximity in the words mirror, multiply and magnify both the distances travelled and the time spanned in the images, especially those of the 1960s and its lost dreams of revolutionary social change.

While it’s handy to define Sans soleil as an ‘essay film’, there’s something about the dry term that doesn’t do justice to the experience of watching it. After Marker’s death last year, when writing programme notes on the film, I came up with a line that captures something of what it’s like to watch Sans soleil: “a mesmerising, lucid and lovely river of film, which, like the river of the ancients, is never the same when one steps into it a second time”.

10. Handsworth Songs

Black Audio Film Collective, 1986

Made at the time of civil unrest in Birmingham, this key example of the essay film at its most complex remains relevant both formally and thematically. Handsworth Songs is no straightforward attempt to provide answers as to why the riots happened; instead, using archive film spliced with made and found footage of the events and the media and popular reaction to them, it creates a poetic sense of context.

The film is an example of counter-media in that it slows down the demand for either immediate explanation or blanket condemnation. Its stillness allows the history of immigration and the subsequent hostility of the media and the police to the black and Asian population to be told in careful detail.

One repeated scene shows a young black man running through a group of white policemen who surround him on all sides. He manages to break free several times before being wrestled to the ground; if only for one brief, utopian moment, an entirely different history of race in the UK is opened up.

The waves of post-war immigration are charted in the stories told both by a dominant (and frequently repressive) televisual narrative and, importantly, by migrants themselves. Interviews mingle with voiceover, music accompanies the machines that the Windrush generation work at. But there are no definitive answers here, only, as the Black Audio Film Collective memorably suggests, “the ghosts of songs”.

— Nina Power

11.   Los Angeles Plays Itself

Thom Andersen, 2003

One of the attractions that drew early film pioneers out west, besides the sunlight and the industrial freedom, was the versatility of the southern Californian landscape: with sea, snowy mountains, desert, fruit groves, Spanish missions, an urban downtown and suburban boulevards all within a 100-mile radius, the Los Angeles basin quickly and famously became a kind of giant open-air film studio, available and pliant.

Of course, some people actually live there too. “Sometimes I think that gives me the right to criticise,” growls native Angeleno Andersen in his forensic three-hour prosecution of moving images of the movie city, whose mounting litany of complaints – couched in Encke King’s gravelly, near-parodically irritated voiceover, and sometimes organised, as Stuart Klawans wrote in The Nation, “in the manner of a saloon orator” – belies a sly humour leavening a radically serious intent.

Inspired in part by Mark Rappaport’s factual essay appropriations of screen fictions (Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, 1993; From the Journals of Jean Seberg , 1995), as well as Godard’s Histoire(s) de cinéma, this “city symphony in reverse” asserts public rights to our screen discourse through its magpie method as well as its argument. (Today you could rebrand it ‘Occupy Hollywood’.) Tinseltown malfeasance is evidenced across some 200 different film clips, from offences against geography and slurs against architecture to the overt historical mythologies of Chinatown (1974), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and L.A. Confidential (1997), in which the city’s class and cultural fault-lines are repainted “in crocodile tears” as doleful tragedies of conspiracy, promoting hopelessness in the face of injustice.

Andersen’s film by contrast spurs us to independent activism, starting with the reclamation of our gaze: “What if we watch with our voluntary attention, instead of letting the movies direct us?” he asks, peering beyond the foregrounding of character and story. And what if more movies were better and more useful, helping us see our world for what it is? Los Angeles Plays Itself grows most moving – and useful – extolling the Los Angeles neorealism Andersen has in mind: stories of “so many men unneeded, unwanted”, as he says over a scene from Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts (1983), “in a world in which there is so much to be done”.

— Nick Bradshaw

12.   La Morte Rouge

Víctor Erice, 2006

The famously unprolific Spanish director Víctor Erice may remain best known for his full-length fiction feature The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), but his other films are no less rewarding. Having made a brilliant foray into the fertile territory located somewhere between ‘documentary’ and ‘fiction’ with The Quince Tree Sun (1992), in this half-hour film made for the ‘Correspondences’ exhibition exploring resemblances in the oeuvres of Erice and Kiarostami , the relationship between reality and artifice becomes his very subject.

A ‘small’ work, it comprises stills, archive footage, clips from an old Sherlock Holmes movie, a few brief new scenes – mostly without actors – and music by Mompou and (for once, superbly used) Arvo Pärt . If its tone – it’s introduced as a “soliloquy” – and scale are modest, its thematic range and philosophical sophistication are considerable.

The title is the name of the Québécois village that is the setting for The Scarlet Claw (1944), a wartime Holmes mystery starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce which was the first movie Erice ever saw, taken by his sister to the Kursaal cinema in San Sebastian.

For the five-year-old, the experience was a revelation: unable to distinguish the ‘reality’ of the newsreel from that of the nightmare world of Roy William Neill’s film, he not only learned that death and murder existed but noted that the adults in the audience, presumably privy to some secret knowledge denied him, were unaffected by the corpses on screen. Had this something to do with war? Why was La Morte Rouge not on any map? And what did it signify that postman Potts was not, in fact, Potts but the killer – and an actor (whatever that was) to boot?

From such personal reminiscences – evoked with wondrous intimacy in the immaculate Castillian of the writer-director’s own wry narration – Erice fashions a lyrical meditation on themes that have underpinned his work from Beehive to Broken Windows (2012): time and change, memory and identity, innocence and experience, war and death. And because he understands, intellectually and emotionally, that the time-based medium he himself works in can reveal unforgettably vivid realities that belong wholly to the realm of the imaginary, La Morte Rouge is a great film not only about the power of cinema but about life itself.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Essay Film

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Essay Film by Yelizaveta Moss LAST REVIEWED: 24 March 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 24 March 2021 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0216

The term “essay film” has become increasingly used in film criticism to describe a self-reflective and self-referential documentary cinema that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Scholars unanimously agree that the first published use of the term was by Richter in 1940. Also uncontested is that Andre Bazin, in 1958, was the first to analyze a film, which was Marker’s Letter from Siberia (1958), according to the essay form. The French New Wave created a popularization of short essay films, and German New Cinema saw a resurgence in essay films due to a broad interest in examining German history. But beyond these origins of the term, scholars deviate on what exactly constitutes an essay film and how to categorize essay films. Generally, scholars fall into two camps: those who find a literary genealogy to the essay film and those who find a documentary genealogy to the essay film. The most commonly cited essay filmmakers are French and German: Marker, Resnais, Godard, and Farocki. These filmmakers are singled out for their breadth of essay film projects, as opposed to filmmakers who have made an essay film but who specialize in other genres. Though essay films have been and are being produced outside of the West, scholarship specifically addressing essay films focuses largely on France and Germany, although Solanas and Getino’s theory of “Third Cinema” and approval of certain French essay films has produced some essay film scholarship on Latin America. But the gap in scholarship on global essay film remains, with hope of being bridged by some forthcoming work. Since the term “essay film” is used so sparingly for specific films and filmmakers, the scholarship on essay film tends to take the form of single articles or chapters in either film theory or documentary anthologies and journals. Some recent scholarship has pointed out the evolutionary quality of essay films, emphasizing their ability to change form and style as a response to conventional filmmaking practices. The most recent scholarship and conference papers on essay film have shifted from an emphasis on literary essay to an emphasis on technology, arguing that essay film has the potential in the 21st century to present technology as self-conscious and self-reflexive of its role in art.

Both anthologies dedicated entirely to essay film have been published in order to fill gaps in essay film scholarship. Biemann 2003 brings the discussion of essay film into the digital age by explicitly resisting traditional German and French film and literary theory. Papazian and Eades 2016 also resists European theory by explicitly showcasing work on postcolonial and transnational essay film.

Biemann, Ursula, ed. Stuff It: The Video Essay in the Digital Age . New York: Springer, 2003.

This anthology positions Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983) as the originator of the post-structuralist essay film. In opposition to German and French film and literary theory, Biemann discusses video essays with respect to non-linear and non-logical movement of thought and a range of new media in Internet, digital imaging, and art installation. In its resistance to the French/German theory influence on essay film, this anthology makes a concerted effort to include other theoretical influences, such as transnationalism, postcolonialism, and globalization.

Papazian, Elizabeth, and Caroline Eades, eds. The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia . London: Wallflower, 2016.

This forthcoming anthology bridges several gaps in 21st-century essay film scholarship: non-Western cinemas, popular cinema, and digital media.

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