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04.16 | April 2016: Classic Hollywood of the 30s & 40s

April 2016: This month we will watch films from the Classic Hollywood Studio System Era of the 30s and 40s. 

The old Hollywood studio system, its style, its dominance, and the future of film it paved are and were, in many ways, a terrible thing for both artists and workers. Particularly of note to the cinephile, is the way in which the Hollywood style of this period came to become synonymous with film itself. This of course has long hindered any sort of mainstream acceptance of a more expansive understanding cinema or its possibilities. Despite this, Hollywood of the time was also home to many great artists of all kinds, some recognized immediately (and still known to this day) some "re-discovered" later, most famously through proponents of the la politique des Auteurs, which in short posited that in spite of the often industrial conditions of the film-making process, true artist directors could shine through and still make unique works of art, although sometimes you really had to dig into meanings behind the meanings. And sometimes too it was admittedly this very system which allowed for some of these great films to be made in a way that some could perhaps not have been otherwise. Regardless of one's political, moral, or aesthetic positions on classic Hollywood, one cannot deny the importance of the cultural behemoth on film past, present, and probably forever more.

We will be looking at what is sometimes called The Golden Age of Hollywood, although we will start it post Silent Cinema (as we already did that) and start with the talkies of the 30s up until the late 40s, stopping short of (although perhaps including a few) Film Noirs (as we already had that as a theme as well).

We will not be including every single film made during this period, as that would be silly and also far too many. We will instead be focusing on many of the great Auteur directors (and sometimes cinematographers, writers, producers, choreographers, and actors) a list that will include names of many of the greatest in history. We will also include other films by lesser known talents of the time. It will largely not include many of the more well known and mainstream films of the period, although there will definitely be some (i.e. Citizen Kane = Yes, Gone With the Wind = No).

We will watch Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932) together as our “Mass Dip”. Choose at least one other (but try more!) of the suggested films below to watch on your own.

The recommended films for this month can be found at two different lists on Letterboxd:

Click Here for the short list.

For those overwhelmed by too much choice. A few top picks from each director. These films are either generally acknowledged as greats of the category, vouched for by Cine-Dippers in the know, or something we just really wanna see.

Click here for the full list.

Anything goes here! 54 films directed by these four directors during the Golden Age period.

Some articles which may help you better appreciate and understand the films and directors:

What Makes Hollywood Run? | Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell @ Observations on Film Art

A Golden Age of Hollywood Primer, pt. 1 | Michael Glover Smith @ White City Cinema

American Triptych: Vidor, Hawks and Ford | Tag Gallagher @ Senses of Cinema

George Cukor | Andrew Sarris @ Film Comment

John Ford, or The Eloquence of Gesture | Shigehiko Hasumi @ Rouge

Transatlantic Auteur: Ernst Lubitsch’s Self-reflexive Comedies of Misunderstanding | Michael J. Anderson @ Senses of Cinema

Make Way for Tomorrow: We Laugh, and Our Hearts Ache | Bertrand Tavernier @ Criterion Collection

Frank Borzage | Kent Jones @ Film Comment

William Wyler | David Carns @ Senses of Cinema

Preston Sturges: 10 essential films | Matthew Thrift @ BFI

Other Resources:

'Classical Hollywood Cinema': history, poetics, narratology, and beyond | Catherine Grant @ Film Studies for Free

As usual, Catherine Grant slathers on the links

Classical Hollywood Cinema | Wikipedia

It's Wikipedia, me lad.

Studio System | Wikipedia

more wiki wiki.

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Meghe Dhaka Tara / The Cloud-Capped Star (Ritwik Ghatak, 1960)

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A River Called Titas (Ritwik Ghatak, 1973)

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A River Called Titas (Ritwik Ghatak, 1973)

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Jonathan Rosenbaum on Ritwik Ghatak for Rouge

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Ajantrik, The Unmechanical/Pathetic Fallacy (1958)

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03.16 | March 2016: The Big Four of Bengali Cinema

March 2016: This month we will watch the films of four of the greatest filmmakers in Bengali Cinema history: Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, and Tapan Sinha.

India is a vast place with many, many people, and home to one of the world's largest film industries. It also has a long history of cinema. Although these days perhaps best known for the popular song and dance films of Bollywood, India has and has had many active regional cinemas and film movements. Tollywood, the lesser known nickname (which actually predates Bollywood) for the Bengali film industry located in the Tollygunge area of Kolkata, West Bengal, is perhaps the most critically acclaimed of India's Cinemas, at least in the Art Film and Independent Film worlds.

And from this great tradition of Bengali cinema, we've chosen 4 of it's (and India's) greatest film artists. These filmmakers were inspired by both Indian sources and international movements such as Italian neo-realism and not only helped make the Golden Age golden, but spurred on the Indian New Wave and helped to both inspire and start the Indian Parallel Cinema Movement. We've also arbitrarily limited the scope of the films of these filmmakers to only those made during what is often called the Golden Age of Indian Cinema, which we've chosen to demarcate as 1952-1975.

Although Satyajit Ray (and his Apu Trilogy) is perhaps the most well known outside of India, these four filmmakers have all earned their place in world cinema history. So let's dig in!

We will watch Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (1955) together as our "Mass Dip". Choose at least one other (but try more!) of the suggested films below to watch on your own.

The recommended films for this month can be found at two different lists on Letterboxd:

Click Here for the short list.

For those overwhelmed by too much choice. A few top picks from each director. These films are either generally acknowledged as greats of the category, vouched for by Cine-Dippers in the know, or something we just really wanna see.

Click here for the full list.

Anything goes here! 54 films directed by these four directors during the Golden Age period.

Some articles which may help you better appreciate and understand the films and directors:

Satyajit Ray | Helen Goritsas @ Senses of Cinema

Satyajit Ray | They Shoot Pictures Don't They

Master of the House: Satyajit Ray | Nicolas Rapold @ Film Comment

1968 Interview: Satyajit Ray | James Blue @ Film Comment

Satyajit Ray: five essential films | Samuel Wigley @ BFI

Ritwik Ghatak | Megan Carrigy @ Senses of Cinema

Ritwik Ghatak | They Shoot Pictures Don't They

Ritwik Ghatak: Reinventing the Cinema | Jonathan Rosenbaum @ Rouge

A River Called Titas: River of No Return | Adrian Martin @ Criterion

Introducing Mrinal Sen | Udayan Gupta @ Jump Cut

Chasing the Truth: The Films of Mrinal Sen | Book Review by Acquarello @ Filmref

Why Mrinal Sen is India's most important filmmaker ever | Anindita Acharya @ Hindustan Times

Incomplete Testimonies : Tapan Sinha | Moinak Biswas @ Journal of the Moving Image

The Films of Tapan Sinha | Subhajit Ghosh @ Boloji.com

Tapan Sinha | Lalit Mohan Joshi @ The Guardian

Other Resources:

"Born in a dream": studies of Ritwik Ghatak | Catherine Grant @ Film Studies for Free

As usual, Catherine Grant hits us with a busload of links, here about Ritwik Ghatak Mrinal Sen Website Information and whatnot about Mrinal Sen

Cinema of West Bengal | Wikipedia

It's Wikipedia, Son.

Satyajit Ray | Wikipedia

Yessir.

Ritwik Ghatak | Wikipedia

Yep.

Mrinal Sen | Wikipedia

Right.

Tapan Sinha | Wikipedia

Uh Huh.

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Kate Kennely discusses Night and Fog and Hiroshima Mon Amour for Bright Lights Film Journal

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Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog) 1955, France 32 min - Documentary | Short | History Director: Alain Resnais

The history of Nazi Germany’s death camps of the Final Solution and the hellish world of dehumanization and death contained inside.

Watch the full documentary here, here and here.

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Phillip Lopate on Night and Fog for Criterion

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“You’ve got to remember that the cinema of the 1950s specialized all but exclusively in escapist entertainment. And we, I mean my generation of French film-makers, sought precisely to escape from that escapism. We were young and ambitious and we wanted to address the big issues from which the cinema preferred to avert its eyes – in my own case, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, the Algerian war. Now, in France, 230 films are released every year and I would say that fully 60% consciously set out to expose some social or political abuse. It’s become almost the norm. Well, I dislike norms. Blissfully liberated from the pressure to compete, I’m free to play with what Orson Welles called the biggest electric train set in the world.”

– Alain Resnais on the change in tone of his films over the years

  Top photo of Resnais on the set of Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Second photo of Resnais by Bertrand Carrière

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[Riva's] acting takes the same direction as the film. It is a tremendous effort of composition. I think that we are again locating the schema I was trying to draw out just now: an endeavor to fit the pieces together again; within the consciousness of the heroine, an effort on her part to regroup the various elements of her persona and her consciousness in order to build a whole out of these fragments, or at least what have become interior fragments through the shock of that meeting at Hiroshima.

Jacques Rivette, Cahiers du cinéma in 1959