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ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>Chop Here>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ cinematography -------------------------------- (sin-uh-muh-tahg'-ruh-fee) Cinematography is the technique and art of making motion pictures, which are a sequence of photographs of a single subject that are taken over time and then projected in the same sequence to create an illusion of motion. Each image of a moving object is slightly different from the preceding one. Projector A motion-picture projector projects the sequence of picture frames, contained on a ribbon of film, in their proper order. A claw engages perforations in the film and pulls the film down into the film gate, placing each new frame in exactly the same position as the preceding one. When the frame is in position, it is projected onto the screen by illuminating it with a beam of light. The period of time between the projection of each still image when no image is projected is normally not noticed by the viewer. Two perceptual phenomena--persistence of vision and the critical flicker frequency--cause a continuous image. Persistence of a vision is the ability of the viewer to retain or in some way remember the impression of an image after it has been withdrawn from view. The critical flicker frequency is the minimum rate of interruption of the projected light beam that will not cause the motion picture to appear to flicker. A frequency above about 48 interruptions a second will eliminate flicker. Camera Like a still camera (see CAMERA), a movie camera shoots each picture individually. The movie camera, however, must also move the film precisely and control the shutter, keeping the amount of light reaching the film nearly constant from frame to frame. The shutter of a movie camera is essentially a circular plate rotated by an electric motor. An opening in the plate exposes the film frame only after the film has been positioned and has come to rest. The plate itself continues to rotate smoothly. Photographic materials must be manufactured with great precision. The perforations, or holes in the film, must be precisely positioned. The pitch--the distance from one hole to another--must be maintained by correct film storage. By the late 1920s, a sound-on-film system of synchronous SOUND RECORDING was developed and gained widespread popularity. In this process, the sound is recorded separately on a machine synchronized with the picture camera. Unlike the picture portion of the film, the sound portion is recorded and played back continuously rather than in intermittent motion. Although editing still makes use of perforated film for flexibility, a more modern technique uses conventional magnetic tape for original recording and synchronizes the recording to the picture electronically (see TAPE RECORDER). If the number of photographs projected per unit time (frame rate) differs from the number produced per unit time by the camera, an apparent speeding up or slowing down of the normal rate is created. Changes in the frame rates are used occasionally for comic effect or motion analysis. Cinematography becomes an art when the filmmaker attempts to make moving images that relate directly to human perception, provide visual significance and information, and provoke emotional response. History of Film Technology Several parlor toys of the early 1800s used visual illusions similar to those of the motion picture. These include the thaumatrope (1825); the phenakistiscope (1832); the stroboscope (1832); and the zoetrope (1834). The photographic movie, however, was first used as a means of investigation rather than of theatrical illusion. Leland Stanford, then governor of California, hired photographer Eadweard MUYBRIDGE to prove that at some time in a horse's gallop all four legs are simultaneously off the ground. Muybridge did so by using several cameras to produce a series of photographs with very short time intervals between them. Such a multiple photographic record was used in the kinetoscope, which displayed a photographic moving image and was commercially successful for a time. The kinetoscope was invented either by Thomas Alva EDISON or by his assistant William K. L. Dickson, both of whom had experimented originally with moving pictures as a supplement to the phonograph record. They later turned to George EASTMAN, who provided a flexible celluloid film base to store the large number of images necessary to create motion pictures. The mechanical means of cinematography were gradually perfected. It was discovered that it was better to display the sequence of images intermittently rather than continuously. This technique allowed a greater presentation time and more light for the projection of each frame. Another improvement was the loop above and below the film gate in both the camera and the projector, which prevented the film from tearing. By the late 1920s, synchronized sound was being introduced in movies. These sound films soon replaced silent films in popularity. To prevent the microphones from picking up camera noise, a portable housing was designed that muffled noises and allowed the camera to be moved about. In recent years, equipment, lighting, and film have all been improved, but the processes involved remain essentially the same. RICHARD FLOBERG Bibliography Bibliography: Fielding, Raymond, ed., A Technological History of Motion Pictures and Television (1967); Happe, I. Bernard, Basic Motion Picture Technology, 2d ed. (1975); Malkiewicz, J. Kris, and Rogers, Robert E., Cinematography (1973); Wheeler, Leslie J., Principles of Cinematography, 4th ed. (1973). film: -------------------------------- film, history of -------------------------------- The history of film has been dominated by the discovery and testing of the paradoxes inherent in the medium itself. Film uses machines to record images of life; it combines still photographs to give the illusion of continuous motion; it seems to present life itself, but it also offers impossible unrealities approached only in dreams.^The motion picture was developed in the 1890s from the union of still PHOTOGRAPHY, which records physical reality, with the persistence-of-vision toy, which made drawn figures appear to move. Four major film traditions have developed since then: fictional narrative film, which tells stories about people with whom an audience can identify because their world looks familiar; nonfictional documentary film, which focuses on the real world either to instruct or to reveal some sort of truth about it; animated film, which makes drawn or sculpted figures look as if they are moving and speaking; and experimental film, which exploits film's ability to create a purely abstract, nonrealistic world unlike any previously seen.^Film is considered the youngest art form and has inherited much from the older and more traditional arts. Like the novel, it can tell stories; like the drama, it can portray conflict between live characters; like painting, it composes in space with light, color, shade, shape, and texture; like music, it moves in time according to principles of rhythm and tone; like dance, it presents the movement of figures in space and is often underscored by music; and like photography, it presents a two-dimensional rendering of what appears to be three-dimensional reality, using perspective, depth, and shading.^Film, however, is one of the few arts that is both spatial and temporal, intentionally manipulating both space and time. This synthesis has given rise to two conflicting theories about film and its historical development. Some theorists, such as S. M. EISENSTEIN and Rudolf Arnheim, have argued that film must take the path of the other modern arts and concentrate not on telling stories or representing reality but on investigating time and space in a pure and consciously abstract way. Others, such as Andre Bazin and Siegfried KRACAUER, maintain that film must fully and carefully develop its connection with nature so that it can portray human events as excitingly and revealingly as possible.^Because of his fame, his success at publicizing his activities, and his habit of patenting machines before actually inventing them, Thomas EDISON received most of the credit for having invented the motion picture; as early as 1887, he patented a motion picture camera, but this could not produce images. In reality, many inventors contributed to the development of moving pictures. Perhaps the first important contribution was the series of motion photographs made by Eadweard MUYBRIDGE between 1872 and 1877. Hired by the governor of California, Leland Stanford, to capture on film the movement of a racehorse, Muybridge tied a series of wires across the track and connected each one to the shutter of a still camera. The running horse tripped the wires and exposed a series of still photographs, which Muybridge then mounted on a stroboscopic disk and projected with a magic lantern to reproduce an image of the horse in motion. Muybridge shot hundreds of such studies and went on to lecture in Europe, where his work intrigued the French scientist E. J. MAREY. Marey devised a means of shooting motion photographs with what he called a photographic gun.^Edison became interested in the possibilities of motion photography after hearing Muybridge lecture in West Orange, N.J. Edison's motion picture experiments, under the direction of William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, began in 1888 with an attempt to record the photographs on wax cylinders similar to those used to make the original phonograph recordings. Dickson made a major breakthrough when he decided to use George EASTMAN's celluloid film instead. Celluloid was tough but supple and could be manufactured in long rolls, making it an excellent medium for motion photography, which required great lengths of film. Between 1891 and 1895, Dickson shot many 15-second films using the Edison camera, or Kinetograph, but Edison decided against projecting the films for audiences--in part because the visual results were inadequate and in part because he felt that motion pictures would have little public appeal. Instead, Edison marketed an electrically driven peep-hole viewing machine (the Kinetoscope) that displayed the marvels recorded to one viewer at a time.^Edison thought so little of the Kinetoscope that he failed to extend his patent rights to England and Europe, an oversight that allowed two Frenchmen, Louis and Auguste LUMIERE, to manufacture a more portable camera and a functional projector, the Cinematographe, based on Edison's machine. The movie era might be said to have begun officially on Dec. 28, 1895, when the Lumieres presented a program of brief motion pictures to a paying audience in the basement of a Paris cafe. English and German inventors also copied and improved upon the Edison machines, as did many other experimenters in the United States. By the end of the 19th century vast numbers of people in both Europe and America had been exposed to some form of motion pictures.^The earliest films presented 15- to 60-second glimpses of real scenes recorded outdoors (workmen, trains, fire engines, boats, parades, soldiers) or of staged theatrical performances shot indoors. These two early tendencies--to record life as it is and to dramatize life for artistic effect--can be viewed as the two dominant paths of film history.^Georges MELIES was the most important of the early theatrical filmmakers. A magician by trade, Melies, in such films as A Trip to the Moon (1902), showed how the cinema could perform the most amazing magic tricks of all: simply by stopping the camera, adding something to the scene or removing something from it, and then starting the camera again, he made things seem to appear and disappear. Early English and French filmmakers such as Cecil Hepworth, James Williamson, and Ferdinand Zecca also discovered how rhythmic movement (the chase) and rhythmic editing could make cinema's treatment of time and space more exciting. American Film in the Silent Era (1903-1928) A most interesting primitive American film was The Great Train Robbery (1903), directed by Edwin S. PORTER of the Edison Company. This early western used much freer editing and camera work than usual to tell its story, which included bandits, a holdup, a chase by a posse, and a final shoot-out. When other companies (Vitagraph, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, Lubin, and Kalem among them) began producing films that rivaled those of the Edison Company, Edison sued them for infringement of his patent rights. This so-called patents war lasted 10 years (1898-1908), ending only when nine leading film companies merged to form the Motion Picture Patents Company.^One reason for the settlement was the enormous profits to be derived from what had begun merely as a cheap novelty. Before 1905 motion pictures were usually shown in vaudeville houses as one act on the bill. After 1905 a growing number of small, storefront theaters called nickelodeons, accommodating less than 200 patrons, began to show motion pictures exclusively. By 1908 an estimated 10 million Americans were paying their nickels and dimes to see such films. Young speculators such as William Fox and Marcus Loew saw their theaters, which initially cost but $1,600 each, grow into enterprises worth $150,000 each within 5 years. Called the drama of the people, the early motion pictures attracted primarily working-class and immigrant audiences who found the nickelodeon a pleasant family diversion; they might not have been able to read the words in novels and newspapers, but they understood the silent language of pictures.^The popularity of the moving pictures led to the first attacks against it by crusading moralists, police, and politicians. Local censorship boards were established to eliminate objectionable material from films. In 1909 the infant U.S. film industry waged a counterattack by creating the first of many self-censorship boards, the National Board of Censorship (after 1916 called the National Board of Review), whose purpose was to set moral standards for films and thereby save them from costly mutilation.^A nickelodeon program consisted of about six 10-minute films, usually including an adventure, a comedy, an informational film, a chase film, and a melodrama. The most accomplished maker of these films was Biograph's D. W. GRIFFITH, who almost singlehandedly transformed both the art and the business of the motion picture. Griffith made over 400 short films between 1908 and 1913, in this period discovering or developing almost every major technique by which film manipulates time and space: the use of alternating close-ups, medium shots, and distant panoramas; the subtle control of rhythmic editing; the effective use of traveling shots, atmospheric lighting, narrative commentary, poetic detail, and visual symbolism; and the advantages of understated acting, at which his acting company excelled. The culmination of Griffith's work was The Birth of a Nation (1915), a mammoth, 3-hour epic of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Its historical detail, suspense, and passionate conviction were to outdate the 10-minute film altogether.^The decade between 1908 and 1918 was one of the most important in the history of American film. The full-length feature film replaced the program of short films; World War I destroyed or restricted the film industries of Europe, promoting greater technical innovation, growth, and commercial stability in America; the FILM INDUSTRY was consolidated with the founding of the first major studios in Hollywood, Calif. (Fox, Paramount, and Universal); and the great American silent comedies were born. Mack SENNETT became the driving force behind the Keystone Company soon after joining it in 1912; Hal Roach founded his comedy company in 1914; and Charlie CHAPLIN probably had the best-known face in the world in 1916.^During this period the first movie stars rose to fame, replacing the anonymous players of the short films. In 1918, America's two favorite stars, Charlie Chaplin and Mary PICKFORD, both signed contracts for over $1 million. Other familiar stars of the decade included comedians Fatty ARBUCKLE and John Bunny, cowboys William S. HART and Bronco Billy Anderson, matinee idols Rudolph VALENTINO and John Gilbert, and the alluring females Theda BARA and Clara BOW. Along with the stars came the first movie fan magazines; Photoplay published its inaugural issue in 1912. That same year also saw the first of the FILM SERIALS, The Perils of Pauline, starring Pearl White.^The next decade in American film history, 1918 to 1928, was a period of stabilization rather than expansion. Films were made within studio complexes, which were, in essence, factories designed to produce films in the same way that Henry Ford's factories produced automobiles. Film companies became monopolies in that they not only made films but distributed them to theaters and owned the theaters in which they were shown as well. This vertical integration formed the commercial foundation of the film industry for the next 30 years. Two new producing companies founded during the decade were Warner Brothers (1923), which would become powerful with its early conversion to synchronized sound, and Metro-Goldwyn (1924; later Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), the producing arm of Loew's, under the direction of Louis B. MAYER and Irving THALBERG.^Attacks against immorality in films intensified during this decade, spurred by the sensual implications and sexual practices of the movie stars both on and off the screen. In 1921, after several nationally publicized sex and drug scandals, the industry headed off the threat of federal CENSORSHIP by creating the office of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (now the Motion Picture Association of America), under the direction of Will HAYS. Hays, who had been postmaster general of the United States and Warren G. Harding's campaign manager, began a series of public relations campaigns to underscore the importance of motion pictures to American life. He also circulated several lists of practices that were henceforth forbidden on and off the screen.^Hollywood films of the 1920s became more polished, subtle, and skillful, and especially imaginative in handling the absence of sound. It was the great age of comedy. Chaplin retained a hold on his world-following with full-length features such as The Kid (1920) and The Gold Rush (1925); Harold LLOYD climbed his way to success--and got the girl--no matter how great the obstacles as Grandma's Boy (1922) or The Freshman (1925); Buster KEATON remained deadpan through a succession of wildly bizarre sight gags in Sherlock Jr. and The Navigator (both 1924); Harry Langdon was ever the innocent elf cast adrift in a mean, tough world; and director Ernst LUBITSCH, fresh from Germany, brought his "touch" to understated comedies of manners, sex, and marriage. The decade saw the United States's first great war film (The Big Parade, 1925), its first great westerns (The Covered Wagon, 1923; The Iron Horse, 1924), and its first great biblical epics (The Ten Commandments, 1923, and King of Kings, 1927, both made by Cecil B. DE MILLE). Other films of this era included Erich Von STROHEIM's sexual studies, Lon CHANEY's grotesque costume melodramas, and the first great documentary feature, Robert J. FLAHERTY's Nanook of the North (1922). European Film in the 1920s In the same decade, the European film industries recovered from the war to produce one of the richest artistic periods in film history. The German cinema, stimulated by EXPRESSIONISM in painting and the theater and by the design theories of the BAUHAUS, created bizarrely expressionistic settings for such fantasies as Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1919), F. W. MURNAU's Nosferatu (1922), and Fritz LANG's Metropolis (1927). The Germans also brought their sense of decor, atmospheric lighting, and penchant for a frequently moving camera to such realistic political and psychological studies as Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924), G. W. PABST's The Joyless Street (1925), and E. A. Dupont's Variety (1925).^Innovation also came from the completely different approach taken by filmmakers in the USSR, where movies were intended not only to entertain but also to instruct the masses in the social and political goals of their new government. The Soviet cinema used MONTAGE, or complicated editing techniques that relied on visual metaphor, to create excitement and richness of texture and, ultimately, to affect ideological attitudes. The most influential Soviet theorist and filmmaker was Sergei M. Eisenstein, whose Potemkin (1925) had a worldwide impact; other innovative Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s included V. I. PUDOVKIN, Lev Kuleshov, Abram Room, and Alexander DOVZHENKO.^The Swedish cinema of the 1920s relied heavily on the striking visual qualities of the northern landscape. Mauritz Stiller and Victor Sjostrom mixed this natural imagery of mountains, sea, and ice with psychological drama and tales of supernatural quests. French cinema, by contrast, brought the methods and assumptions of modern painting to film. Under the influence of SURREALISM and dadaism, filmmakers working in France began to experiment with the possibility of rendering abstract perceptions or dreams in a visual medium. Marcel DUCHAMP, Rene CLAIR, Fernand LEGER, Jean RENOIR--and Luis BUNUEL and Salvador DALI in Un Chien andalou (1928)--all made antirealist, antirational, noncommercial films that helped establish the avant-garde tradition in filmmaking. Several of these filmmakers would later make significant contributions to the narrative tradition in the sound era. The Arrival of Sound The era of the talking film began in late 1927 with the enormous success of Warner Brothers' The Jazz Singer. The first totally sound film, Lights of New York, followed in 1928. Although experimentation with synchronizing sound and picture was as old as the cinema itself (Dickson, for example, made a rough synchronization of the two for Edison in 1894), the feasibility of sound film was widely publicized only after Warner Brothers purchased the Vitaphone from Western Electric in 1926. The original Vitaphone system synchronized the picture with a separate phonographic disk, rather than using the more accurate method of recording (based on the principle of the OSCILLOSCOPE) a sound track on the film itself. Warners originally used the Vitaphone to make short musical films featuring both classical and popular performers and to record musical sound tracks for otherwise silent films (Don Juan, 1926). For The Jazz Singer, Warners added four synchronized musical sequences to the silent film. When Al JOLSON sang and then delivered several lines of dialogue, audiences were electrified. The silent film was dead within a year.^The conversion to synchronized sound caused serious problems for the film industry. Sound recording was difficult; cameras had to shoot from inside glass booths; studios had to build special soundproof stages; theaters required expensive new equipment; writers had to be hired who had an ear for dialogue; and actors had to be found whose voices could deliver it. Many of the earliest talkies were ugly and static, the visual images serving merely as an accompaniment to endless dialogue, sound effects, and musical numbers. Serious film critics mourned the passing of the motion picture, which no longer seemed to contain either motion or picture.^The most effective early sound films were those that played most adventurously with the union of picture and sound track. Walt DISNEY in his cartoons combined surprising sights with inventive sounds, carefully orchestrating the animated motion and musical rhythm. Ernst Lubitsch also played very cleverly with sound, contrasting the action depicted visually with the information on the sound track in dazzlingly funny or revealing ways. By 1930 the U.S. film industry had conquered both the technical and the artistic problems involved in using sight and sound harmoniously, and the European industry was quick to follow. Hollywood's Golden Era The 1930s was the golden era of the Hollywood studio film. It was the decade of the great movie stars--Greta GARBO, Marlene DIETRICH, Jean HARLOW, Mae WEST, Katharine HEPBURN, Bette DAVIS, Cary GRANT, Gary COOPER, Clark GABLE, James STEWART--and some of America's greatest directors thrived on the pressures and excitement of studio production. Josef von STERNBERG became legendary for his use of exotic decor and sexual symbolism; Howard HAWKS made driving adventures and fast-paced comedies; Frank CAPRA blended politics and morality in a series of comedy-dramas; and John FORD mythified the American West.^American studio pictures seemed to come in cycles, many of the liveliest being those that could not have been made before synchronized sound. The gangster film introduced Americans to the tough doings and tougher talk of big-city thugs, as played by James CAGNEY, Paul MUNI, and Edward G. ROBINSON. Musicals included the witty operettas of Ernst Lubitsch, with Maurice CHEVALIER and Jeanette MACDONALD; the backstage musicals, with their kaleidoscopically dazzling dance numbers, of Busby BERKELEY; and the smooth, more natural song-and-dance comedies starring Fred ASTAIRE and Ginger ROGERS. Synchronized sound also produced SCREWBALL COMEDY, which explored the dizzy doings of fast-moving, fast-thinking, and, above all, fast-talking men and women.^The issue of artistic freedom versus censorship raised by the movies came to the fore again with the advent of talking pictures. Spurred by the depression that hit the industry in 1933 and by the threat of an economic boycott by the newly formed Catholic Legion of Decency, the motion picture industry adopted an official Production Code in 1934. Written in 1930 by Daniel Lord, S.J., and Martin Quigley, a Catholic layman who was publisher of The Motion Picture Herald, the code explicitly prohibited certain acts, themes, words, and implications. Will Hays appointed Joseph I. Breen, the Catholic layman most instrumental in founding the Legion of Decency, head of the Production Code Administration, and this awarded the industry's seal of approval to films that met the code's moral standards. The result was the curtailment of explicit violence and sexual innuendo, and also of much of the flavor that had characterized films earlier in the decade. Europe During the 1930s The 1930s abroad did not produce films as consistently rich as those of the previous decade. With the coming of sound, the British film industry was reduced to satellite status. The most stylish British productions were the historical dramas of Sir Alexander KORDA and the mystery-adventures of Alfred HITCHCOCK. The major Korda stars, as well as Hitchcock himself, left Britain for Hollywood before the decade ended. More innovative were the government-funded documentaries and experimental films made by the General Post Office Film Unit under the direction of John Grierson.^Soviet filmmakers had problems with the early sound-film machines and with the application of montage theory (a totally visual conception) to sound filming. They were further plagued by restrictive Stalinist policies, policies that sometimes kept such ambitious film artists as Pudovkin and Eisenstein from making films altogether. The style of the German cinema was perfectly suited to sound filming, and German films of the period 1928-32 show some of the most creative uses of the medium in the early years of sound. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, however, almost all the creative film talent left Germany. An exception was Leni RIEFENSTAHL, whose theatrical documentary Triumph of the Will (1934) represents a highly effective example of the German propaganda films made during the decade.^French cinema, the most exciting alternative to Hollywood in the 1930s, produced many of France's most classic films. The decade found director Jean Renoir--in Grand Illusion (1937) and Rules of the Game (1939)--at the height of his powers; Rene Clair mastered both the musical fantasy and the sociopolitical satire (A Nous la liberte, 1931); Marcel PAGNOL brought to the screen his trilogy of Marseilles life, Fanny; the young Jean VIGO, in only two films, brilliantly expressed youthful rebellion and mature love; and director Marcel CARNE teamed with poet Jacques Prevert to produce haunting existential romances of lost love and inevitable death in Quai des brumes (1938) and Le Jour se leve (1939). Hollywood: World War II, Postwar Decline During World War II, films were required to lift the spirits of Americans both at home and overseas. Many of the most accomplished Hollywood directors and producers went to work for the War Department. Frank Capra produced the "Why We Fight" series (1942-45); Walt Disney, fresh from his Snow White (1937) and Fantasia (1940) successes, made animated informational films; and Garson KANIN, John HUSTON, and William WYLER all made documentaries about important battles. Among the new American directors to make remarkable narrative films at home were three former screenwriters, Preston STURGES, Billy WILDER, and John Huston. Orson WELLES, the boy genius of theater and radio fame, also came to Hollywood to shoot Citizen Kane (1941), the strange story of a newspaper magnate whose American dream turns into a loveless nightmare.^Between 1946 and 1953 the movie industry was attacked from many sides. As a result, the Hollywood studio system totally collapsed. First, the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities investigated alleged Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry in two separate sets of hearings. In 1948, The HOLLYWOOD TEN, 10 screenwriters and directors who refused to answer the questions of the committee, went to jail for contempt of Congress. Then, from 1951 to 1954, in mass hearings, Hollywood celebrities were forced either to name their associates as fellow Communists or to refuse to answer all questions on the grounds of the 5th Amendment, protecting themselves against self-incrimination. These hearings led the industry to blacklist many of its most talented workers and also weakened its image in the eyes of America and the world.^In 1948 the United States Supreme Court, ruling in United States v. Paramount that the vertical integration of the movie industry was monopolistic, required the movie studios to divest themselves of the theaters that showed their pictures and thereafter to cease all unfair or discriminatory distribution practices. At the same time, movie attendance started a steady decline; the film industry's gross revenues fell every year from 1947 to 1963. The most obvious cause was the rise of TELEVISION, as more and more Americans each year stayed home to watch the entertainment they could get most comfortably and inexpensively. In addition, European quotas against American films bit into Hollywood's foreign revenues.^While major American movies lost money, foreign art films were attracting an enthusiastic and increasingly large audience, and these foreign films created social as well as commercial difficulties for the industry. In 1951, The Miracle, a 40-minute film by Roberto ROSSELLINI, was attacked by the New York Catholic Diocese as sacrilegious and was banned by New York City's commissioner of licenses. The 1952 Supreme Court ruling in the Miracle case officially granted motion pictures the right to free speech as guaranteed in the Constitution, reversing a 1915 ruling by the Court that movies were not equivalent to speech. Although the ruling permitted more freedom of expression in films, it also provoked public boycotts and repeated legal tests of the definition of obscenity.^Hollywood attempted to counter the effects of television with a series of technological gimmicks in the early 1950s: 3-D, Cinerama, and Cinemascope. The industry converted almost exclusively to color filming during the decade, aided by the cheapness and flexibility of the new Eastman color monopack, which came to challenge the monopoly of Technicolor. The content of postwar films also began to change as Hollywood searched for a new audience and a new style. There were more socially conscious films--such as Fred ZINNEMANN's The Men (1950) and Elia KAZAN's On The Waterfront (1954); more adaptations of popular novels and plays; more independent (as opposed to studio) production; and a greater concentration on FILM NOIR--grim detective stories in brutal urban settings. Older genres such as the Western still flourished, and MGM brought the musical to what many consider its pinnacle in a series of films produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Vincente MINNELLI, Gene KELLY, and Stanley Donen. The Film in Europe and Australia From 1950 The stimulus for defining a new film content and style came to the United States from abroad, where many previously dormant film industries sprang to life in the postwar years to produce an impressive array of films for the international market. The European film renaissance can be said to have started in Italy with such masters of NEOREALISM as Roberto Rossellini, in Open City (1945), Vittorio DE SICA, in The Bicycle Thief (1948) and Umberto D (1952), and Luchino VISCONTI, in La Terra Trema (1948). Federico FELLINI broke with the tradition to make films of a more poetic and personal nature such as I Vitelloni (1953) and La Strada (1954) and then shifted to a more sensational style in the 1960s with La Dolce Vita (1960) and the intellectual 8 1/2 (1963). Visconti in the 1960s and '70s would also adopt a more flamboyant approach and subject matter in lush treatments of corruption and decadence such as The Damned (1970). A new departure--both artistic and thematic--was evidenced by Michelangelo ANTONIONI in his subtle psychosocial trilogy of films that began with L'Aventura (1960). The vitality of a second generation of Italian filmmakers was impressively demonstrated by Lina WERTMULLER in The Seduction of Mimi (1974) and Seven Beauties (1976) and by Bernardo BERTOLUCCI, who in films like Before the Revolution (1964), The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972), and 1900 (1977) fused radical social and political ideology with a stunning aestheticism.^With the coming of NEW WAVE films in the late 1950s, the French cinema reasserted the artistic primacy it had enjoyed in the prewar period. Applying a personal style to radically different forms of film narrative, New Wave directors included Claude CHABROL (The Cousins, 1959), Francois TRUFFAUT (The 400 Blows, 1959; Jules and Jim, 1961), Alain RESNAIS (Hiroshima Mon Amour, 1959), and Jean-Luc GODARD, who, following the success of his offbeat Breathless (1960), became progressively more committed to a Marxist interpretation of society, as seen in Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966), Weekend (1967), and La Chinoise (1967). Eric ROHMER, mining a more traditional vein, produced sophisticated "moral tales" in My Night at Maud's (1968) and Claire's Knee (1970); while Louis MALLE audaciously explored such charged subjects as incest and collaborationism in Murmur of the Heart (1971) and Lacombe Lucien (1974). The Spaniard Luis Bunuel, working in Mexico, Spain, and France--and defying all categorization--continued to break new ground with ironic examinations of the role of religion (Nazarin, 1958; Viridiana, 1961; The Milky Way, 1969) and absurdist satires on middle-class foibles (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, 1972).^From Sweden Ingmar BERGMAN emerged in the 1950s as the master of introspective, often death-obsessed studies of complex human relationships. Although capable of comedy, as in Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), Bergman was at his most impressive in more despairing, existentialist dramas such as The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), Persona (1966), and Cries and Whispers (1972), in all of these aided by a first-rate acting ensemble and brilliant cinematography.^British film, largely reduced to a spate of Alec GUINNESS comedies by the early 1950s, was revitalized over the next decade by the ability of directors working in England to produce compelling cinematic translations of the "angry young man" novelists and playwrights, of Harold PINTER's existentialist dramas, and of the traditional great British novels. Britain regained a healthy share of the market with films such as Jack Clayton's Room at the Top (1958); Tony Richardson's Look Back in Anger (1959), The Entertainer (1960), A Taste of Honey (1961), and Tom Jones (1963); Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and Morgan (1966); Lindsay ANDERSON's This Sporting Life (1963); Joseph LOSEY's The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967); Ken RUSSELL's Women in Love (1969); and John Schlesinger'S Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971). The popularity of the James Bond spy series, which began in 1962, gave the industry an added boost.^The internationalism both of the film market and of film distribution after 1960 was underscored by the emergence even in smaller countries of successful film industries and widely recognized directorial talent: Andrzej WAJDA and Roman POLANSKI in Poland; Jan KADAR, Milos FORMAN, Ivan PASSER, and Jiri Menzel in Czechoslovakia; and, more recently, Wim WENDERS, Werner HERZOG, and Rainer Werner FASSBINDER in West Germany. The death (1982) of Fassbinder ended an extraordinary and prolific career, but his absence has yet to be felt--particularly in the United States, where many of his earlier films are being shown for the first time.^Australia is a relatively new entrant into the contemporary world film market. Buoyed by government subsidies, Australian directors have produced a group of major films within the past decade: Peter WEIR's Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave (1977), Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career (1979) and Star Struck (1982), Fred Schepisi's The Devil's Playground and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith (1978), and Bruce Beresford's Breaker Morant (1980). Beresford, Weir, and Schepisi have since directed films with U.S. backing; Beresford's Tender Mercies (1983) is about that most American phenomenon, the country-western singer. Postwar Film in Asia Thriving film industries have existed in both Japan and India since the silent era. It was only after World War II, however, that non-Western cinematic traditions became visible and influential internationally. The Japanese director Akira KUROSAWA opened a door to the West with his widely acclaimed Rashomon (1950), an investigation into the elusive nature of truth. His samurai dramas, such as The Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), an adaptation of Macbeth, Yojimbo (1961), and Kagemusha (1980), were ironic adventure tales that far transcended the usual Japanese sword movies, a genre akin to U.S. westerns. Kenzi MIZOGUCHI is known for his stately period films Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1955). Yoshiro Ozu's poetic studies of modern domestic relations (Tokyo Story, 1953; An Autumn Afternoon, (1962) introduced Western audiences to a personal sensitivity that was both intensely national and universal. Younger directors, whose careers date from the postwar burgeoning of the Japanese film, include Teinosuke Kinugasa (Gate of Hell, 1953), Hiroshi Teshigahara (Woman of the Dunes, 1964, from a script by the novelist ABE KOBO), Masahiro Shinoda (Under the Cherry Blossoms, 1975), Nagisa Oshima (The Ceremony, 1971) and Musaki Kobayashi, best known for his nine-hour trilogy on the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, The Human Condition (1959-61), and Harakiri (1962), a deglamorization of the samurai tradition.^The film industry in India, which ranks among the largest in the world, has produced very little for international consumption. Its most famous director, Satyajit RAY, vividly brings to life the problems of an India in transition, in particular in the trilogy comprising Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), and The World of Apu (1958). Bengali is the language used in almost all Ray's films. In 1977, however, he produced The Chess Players, with sound tracks in both Hindi and English. American Film Today Throughout the 1960s and '70s, the American film industry accommodated itself to the competition of this world market; to a film audience that had shrunk from 80 million to 20 million weekly; to the tastes of a primarily young and educated audience; and to the new social and sexual values sweeping the United States and much of the rest of the industrialized world. The Hollywood studios that have survived in name (Paramount, Warners, Universal, MGM, Fox) are today primarily offices for film distribution. Many are subsidiaries of such huge conglomerates as the Coca Cola Company or Gulf and Western. Increasingly, major films are being shot in places other than Hollywood (New York City, for example, is recovering its early status as a filmmaking center), and Hollywood now produces far more television movies, series, and commercials than it does motion pictures.^American movies of the past 20 years have moved more strongly into social criticism (Doctor Strangelove, 1963; The Graduate, 1967; The Godfather, 1971; One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975; The Deer Hunter, 1978; Norma Rae, 1979; Apocalypse Now, 1979; Missing, 1982); or they have offered an escape from social reality into the realm of fantasy, aided by the often beautiful, sometimes awesome effects produced by new film technologies (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968; Jaws, 1975; Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977; Altered States, 1979; E. T., 1982); or they have returned to earnest or comic investigations of the dilemmas of everyday life (a troubled family, in Ordinary People, 1980; divorce life and male parenting, in Kramer v. Kramer, 1979; women in a male world, in Nine to Five, 1979, and Tootsie, 1982). The most successful directors of the past 15 years--Stanley KUBRICK, Robert ALTMAN, Francis Ford COPPOLA, Woody ALLEN, George LUCAS, and Steven SPIELBERG--are those who have played most imaginatively with the tools of film communication itself. The stars of recent years (with the exceptions of Paul NEWMAN and Robert REDFORD) have, for their part, been more offbeat and less glamorous than their predecessors of the studio era--Robert DE NIRO, Jane Fonda (see FONDA FAMILY), Dustin HOFFMAN, Jack NICHOLSON, Al PACINO, and Meryl STREEP.^The last two decades have seen the virtual extinction of animated film, which is too expensive to make well, and the rebirth of U.S. documentary film in the insightful work of Fred WISEMAN, the Maysles brothers, Richard Leacock and Donn Pennebaker, and, in Europe, of Marcel OPHULS. Even richer is the experimental, or underground, movement of the 1960s and 1970s, in which filmmakers such as Stan BRAKHAGE, Kenneth Anger, Bruce Baillie, Hollis Frampton, Michael Snow, and Robert Breer have worked as personally and abstractly with issues of visual and psychological perception as have modern painters and poets. The new vitality of these two opposite traditions--the one devoted to revealing external reality, the other to revealing the life of the mind--underscores the persistence of the dichotomy inherent in the film medium. In the future, film will probably continue to explore these opposing potentialities. Narrative films in particular will probably continue trends that began with the French New Wave, experimenting with more elliptical ways of telling film stories and either borrowing or rediscovering many of the images, themes, and devices of the experimental film itself. GERALD MAST Bibliography Bibliography:GENERAL HISTORIES AND CRITICISM: Arnheim, Rudolf, Film as Art (1957; repr. 1971); Bazin, Andre, What is Cinema?, 2 vols., trans. by Hugh Gray (1967, 1971); Cook, David A., A History of Narrative Film, 1889-1979 (1981); Cowie, Peter, ed., Concise History of the Cinema, 2 vols. (1970); Eisenstein, Sergei M., Film Form (1949; repr. 1969); Halliwell, Leslie, Filmgoer's Companion, 6th ed. (1977); Jowett, Garth, Film: The Democratic Art (1976); Kael, Pauline, Reeling (1976), and 5,000 Nights at the Movies: A Guide from A to Z (1982); Kracauer, Siegfried, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (1960); Mast, Gerald, A Short History of the Movies, 2d ed. (1976); Mast, Gerald, and Cohen, Marshall, Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings (1974); Monaco, James, How to Read a Film (1977); Peary, Danny, Cult Movies (1981); Robinson, David, The History of World Cinema (1973).^ NATIONAL FILM HISTORIES: AMERICAN: Higham, Charles, The Art of American Film, 1900-1971 (1973); Monaco, James, American Film Now: The People, the Power, the Movies (1979); Sarris, Andrew, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968 (1968); Sklar, Robert, Movie-Made America (1975).^AUSTRALIAN: Stratton, David, The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival (1981).^BRITISH: Armes, Roy, A History of British Cinema (1978); Low, Rachael, The History of British Film, 4 vols. (1973); Manvell, Roger, New Cinema in Britain (1969).^FRENCH: Armes, Roy, The French Cinema Since 1946, 2 vols., rev. ed. (1970); Harvey, Sylvia, May '68 and Film Culture (rev. ed., 1980); Monaco, James, The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette (1976); Sadoul, Georges, French Film (1953; repr. 1972).^GERMAN: Barlow, John D., German Expressionist Film (1982); Hull, David S., Film of the Third Reich: A Study of the German Cinema, 1933-1945 (1969); Manvell, Roger, and Fraenkel, Heinrich, The German Cinema (1971); Sandford, John The New German Cinema (1980); Wollenberg, H. H., Fifty Years of German Film (1948; repr. 1972).^ITALIAN: Jarratt, Vernon, Italian Cinema (1951; repr. 1972); Leprohon, Pierre, The Italian Cinema (1972); Rondi, Gian, Italian Cinema Today (1965); Witcombe, Roger, The New Italian Cinema (1982).^JAPANESE: Mellen, Joan, The Waves at Genji's Door: Japan Through Its Cinema (1976); Richie, Donald, The Films of Akira Kurosawa (1965), and The Japanese Movie: An Illustrated History (1966); Sato, Tadao, Currents in Japanese Cinema (1982).^RUSSIAN: Cohen, Louis H., The Cultural-Political Traditions and Development of the Soviet Cinema, 1917-1972 (1974); Dickenson, Thorold, and De La Roche, Catherine, Soviet Cinema (1948; repr. 1972); Leyda, Jay, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film (1960; repr. 1973); Taylor, Richard, Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany (1979).^SWEDISH: Cowie, Peter, Swedish Cinema (1966); Donner, Jorn, The Personal Vision of Ingmar Bergman (1964); Hardy, Forsyth, The Scandinavian Film (1952; repr. 1972). Porter, Cole -------------------------------- Cole Porter, b. Peru, Ind., June 9, 1892, d. Oct. 15, 1964, was an American lyricist and composer of popular songs for stage and screen. A graduate of Yale College, he attended Harvard School of Arts and Sciences for 2 years and later studied under the French composer Vincent d'Indy. Both his lyrics and music have a witty sophistication, technical virtuosity, and exquisite sense of style that have rarely been paralleled in popular music. He contributed brilliant scores to numerous Broadway musicals, such as Anything Goes (1934) and Kiss Me, Kate (1948), and to motion pictures. His best songs have become classics; these include "Begin the Beguine," "Night and Day," and "I Love Paris." DAVID EWEN Bibliography: Eells, George, The Life that Late He Led: A Biography of Cole Porter (1967); Kimball, Robert, ed., Cole (1971); Schwartz, Charles, Cole Porter (1977). Griffith, D. W. -------------------------------- David Lewelyn Wark Griffith, b. La Grange, Ky., Jan. 23, 1875, d. July 23, 1948, is recognized as the greatest single film director and most consistently innovative artist of the early American film industry. His influence on the development of cinema was worldwide. After gaining experience with a Louisville stock company, he was employed as an actor and writer by the Biograph Film Company of New York in 1907. The following year he was offered a director-producer contract and, for the next five years, oversaw the production of more than 400 one- and two-reel films. As his ideas grew bolder, however, he felt increasingly frustrated by the limitations imposed by his employers. Griffith left Biograph in 1913 to join Reliance-Majestic as head of production, and in 1914, he began his most famous film, based on the novel The Clansman by Thomas Dixon. This Civil War Reconstruction epic, known as The Birth of a Nation (1915), became a landmark in American filmmaking, both for its artistic merits and for its unprecedented use of such innovative techniques as flashbacks, fade-outs, and close-ups. The film was harshly condemned, however, for its racial bias and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan; several subsequent lynchings were blamed on the film. In response to this criticism, Griffith made what many consider his finest film, Intolerance (1916), in which the evils of intolerance were depicted in four parallel stories--a framework that required a scope of vision and production never before approached. Although Griffith made numerous other films up to 1931, none ranked with his first two classics. Among the best of these later efforts were Hearts of the World (1918); Broken Blossoms (1919), released by his own newly formed corporation, United Artists; Way Down East (1920); Orphans of the Storm (1922); America (1924); Isn't Life Wonderful? (1924); and Abraham Lincoln (1930). Of the many actors trained by Griffith and associated with his name, Mary PICKFORD, Dorothy and Lillian GISH, and Lionel Barrymore (see BARRYMORE family) are the most famous. In 1935, Griffith was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a special award. Bibliography: Barry, Iris, D. W. Griffith, American Film Master (1940); Brown, Karl, Adventures with D. W. Griffith (1976); Geduld, Harry M., ed., Focus on D. W. Griffith (1971); Gish, Lillian, Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me (1969); Henderson, Robert M., D. W. Griffith: His Life and Work (1972) and D. W. Griffith: The Years at Biograph (1970); O'Dell, Paul, Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood (1970); Wagenknecht, Edward C., The Films of D. W. Griffith (1975). film industry -------------------------------- The first four decades of the film age (roughly 1908-48) saw the increasing concentration of control in the hands of a few giant Hollywood concerns. Since the late 1940s, however, that trend has been reversed; the monolithic studio system has given way to independent production and diversification at all levels of the industry.^Although in the silent era small, independent producers were common, by the 1930s, in the so-called golden age of Hollywood, the overwhelming majority of films were produced, distributed, and exhibited by one of the large California studios. Led by M-G-M, Paramount, RKO, 20th-Century-Fox, Warner Brothers, Columbia, and Universal, the industry enjoyed the benefits of total vertical integration: because the studios owned their own theater chains, they could require theater managers to charge fixed minimum admission rates, to purchase groups of pictures rather than single releases ("block booking"), and to accept films without first previewing them ("blind buying"). For more than two decades the major studios completely controlled their contracted stars, managed vast indoor and outdoor studio sets, and in general profited from what amounted to a virtual monopoly of the industry.^Shortly after World War II, three factors contributed to the loss of the majors' hegemony. First, a number of federal court decisions forced the studios to end discriminatory distribution practices, including block booking, blind selling, and the setting of fixed admission prices; in 1948 the Supreme Court ordered divestiture of their theater chains. Second, the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated the industry, which responded by blacklisting several prominent screenwriters and directors--an action that called into question the industry's reliability as a promoter of unfettered creative talent. Third, television began to deprive Hollywood of large segments of its audience, and the industry reacted timidly and late to the possibilities for diversification presented by the new medium.^The effects of these developments were immediate and long lasting. Weekly attendance figures fell from 80 million in 1946 to just over 12 million by 1972. Box-ofice revenues in the same period dropped from $1.75 billion to $1.4 billion--and this despite constant inflation and admission prices that were often 10 times the prewar average. The movie colony experienced unprecedented unemployment. The number of films made yearly declined from an average of 445 in the 1940s to under 150 in the 1970s, as the industry sought solvency in "blockbusters" rather than in the solid but unspectacular products that had brought it a mass audience before the age of television. Between 1948 and 1956 the number of U.S. theaters fell from 20,000 to 10,000, and although 4,000 new drive-in theaters somewhat offset this attrition, by the mid-1970s less than half of the American spectator's amusement dollar was being spent on movies; in the 1940s the yearly average had been over 80 cents.^By the late 1960s the major studios had entered a grave economic slump, for many of their "big picture" gambles fell through. In 1970, 20th-Century-Fox lost $36 million, and United Artists, which as the industry leader had more to lose, ended up more than $50 million in the red. In response to this devastation of its profits, the industry underwent a profound reorganization. Following the 1951 lead of United Artists, the majors backed away from production (since its cost had contributed heavily to their decline) and restructured themselves as loan guarantors and distributors. At the same time, most of them became subsidiaries of conglomerates such as Gulf and Western, Kinney National Service, and Transamerica and began to look to television sales and recording contracts for the revenues that previously had come from the theater audience alone.^In setting up these new contractual relationships the independent producer played a central role. Such a figure, who by now has replaced the old studio mogul as the industry's driving force, brings together the various properties associated with a film (including actors, a director, and book rights) to create a "package" often financed independently but distributed by a film company in exchange for a share of the rental receipts. Working with the conglomerates and accepting the reality of a permanently reduced market, these private promoters have partially succeeded in revitalizing the industry.^The rise of independent production has been accompanied by diversification of subject matter, with close attention to the interests of specialized audiences. This trend, which began in the 1950s as an attempt to capture the "art house" audience and the youth market, is evident today in the success of martial-arts, rock-music, pornographic, documentary, and black-culture films. Simultaneously, production has moved away from the Hollywood sets and toward location filming. For many producers, New York City has become the New filmmakers' mecca, while shooting in foreign countries, where cheap labor is often plentiful, has given the modern film a new international texture; foreign markets have also become increasingly important. Both geographically and financially, therefore, the film industry has begun to recapture some of the variety and independence that were common in the days before studio control. THADDEUS F. TULEJA Bibliography: Balio, Tino, ed., The American Film Industry (1976); Brownlow, Kevin, Hollywood: The Pioneers (1980); David, Saul, The Industry: Life in the Hollywood Fast Lane (1981); Phillips, Gene D., The Movie Makers: Artists in an Industry (1973); Stanley, Robert H., The Celluloid Empire (1978). Table: TEN TOP-GROSSING FILMS -------------------------------- TEN TOP-GROSSING FILMS (as of Jan. 1, 1984) --------------------------------------------------------- Film Year Gross Earnings* --------------------------------------------------------- 1. E.T. The ExtraTerrestrial 1982 $209,567,000 2. Star Wars 1977 193,500,000 3. Return of the Jedi 1983 165,500,000 4. The Empire Strikes Back 1980 141,600,000 5. Jaws 1975 133,435,000 6. Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981 115,598,000 7. Grease 1978 96,300,000 8. Tootsie 1982 94,571,613 9. The Exorcist 1973 89,000,000 10. The Godfather 1972 86,275,000 --------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE: Variety (1984). *Distributors' percentage has been subtracted. Sennett, Mack -------------------------------- (sen'-et) A pioneer of slapstick film comedy, Mack Sennett, b. Michael Sinnott, Richmond, Quebec, Jan. 17, 1880, d. Nov. 5, 1960, was an uneducated Irish-Canadian who drifted into films as D. W. Griffith's apprentice. In 1912 he started his own comedy studio, called Keystone, where he developed the Keystone Kops and discovered such major talents as Charlie Chaplin and Frank Capra. With the advent of sound films, comedy shorts became less popular, and in the 1930s Sennett, who failed to change with the times, lost his entire fortune. Sennett is, however, still remembered as Hollywood's "King of Comedy" and received a special Academy Award in 1937 for his contribution to cinema comedy. LEONARD MALTIN Bibliography: Fowler, Gene, Father Goose (1934; repr. 1974); Lahue, Kalton C., and Brewer, Terry, Kops and Custards: The Legend of Keystone Films (1968); Sennett, Mack, King of Comedy (1954; repr. 1975). Chaplin, Charlie -------------------------------- Charles Spencer Chaplin, b. Apr. 16, 1889, d. Dec. 25, 1977, cinema's most celebrated comedian-director, achieved international fame with his portrayals of the mustachioed Little Tramp. As the director, producer, writer, and interpreter of his many movies, he made a major contribution to establishing film comedy as a true art form. Reared in poverty in London's slums, Chaplin, like his parents, became a music hall performer, appearing as a clown in Fred Karno's Mumming Birds company from 1906. While touring the United States in 1913, Mack SENNETT persuaded him to join his Keystone studio; Chaplin's first slapstick, Making a Living (1914), followed. In Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), he originated the gentleman tramp routine--twirling cane, bowler, tight jacket, and baggy pants--that became his trademark in dozens of two-reelers. He also learned to direct his own short films. During the next four years, Chaplin consolidated his growing international reputation by a prolific output of shorts for Essanay, Mutual, and First National studios. At the same time, he refined his tramp character into a poetic figure that combined comedy and pathos, yet retained his meticulously timed acrobatic skills. His films grew in length and subtlety with A Dog's Life and Shoulder Arms (both 1918). After cofounding United Artists in 1919, Chaplin began independent production of his best feature-length films in the 1920s: A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940), his first all-talking film, in which he abandoned the tramp to parody Hitler. Among his later films, only the poignant Limelight (1952) achieved popularity; the apparent cynicism of Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and A King in New York (1957) alienated audiences, while his last effort, A Countess from Hong Kong (1966), left little impression. Although loved and appreciated throughout the world as the inimitable Charlot or Charlie, Chaplin's personal life, including his four marriages, a 1944 paternity suit, and his refusal to accept U.S. citizenship, gained him adverse publicity in America. In 1953, accused of Communist sympathies, he was denied reentry into the country. Thereafter, he settled in Switzerland with his wife Oona O'Neill, surrounded by luxury and a family of nine children. Initially embittered by his rejection in the United States, he returned in triumph in 1972 to receive a special achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, followed in 1973 by an Academy Award for his score to Limelight. In 1975, at age 86, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. Chaplin's My Autobiography appeared in 1964, and a filmed biography, The Gentleman Tramp, in 1978. ROGER MANVELL Bibliography: Chaplin, Charles, My Life in Pictures (1975); Hu ff, Theodore, Charlie Chaplin (1951; repr. 1972); Manvell, Roger, Chaplin (1973); McCabe, John, Charlie Chaplin (1978); Tyler, Parker, Last of the Clowns (1947; repr. 1972). Pickford, Mary -------------------------------- (pik'-furd) Mary Pickford, stage name of Gladys Mary Smith, b. Toronto, Apr. 8, 1893, d. May 29, 1979, became one of the world's first film stars after beginning her cinema career in 1909 under the tutelage of D. W. Griffith. Together with her second husband, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin, she founded United Artists in 1919. Despite considerable business acumen, her career faltered with the advent of talkies. Her best-known films include Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), Pollyanna (1920), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921), and Little Annie Rooney (1925). She received an Academy Award for Coquette (1929) and a special Academy Award in 1976. Bibliography: Pickford, Mary, Sunshine and Shadow (1955); Windeler, Robert, Sweetheart (1974). Hart, William S. -------------------------------- William S. Hart, b. Newburgh, N.Y., Dec. 6, 1870, d. June 23, 1946, was a top box-office draw in American silent films, especially in Westerns. His dour, commanding presence had the same kind of appeal found years later in Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. The Return of Draw Egan (1916), The Toll Gate (1920), Travellin' On (1922), Wild Bill Hickok (1923), and Tumbleweeds (1925) were among Hart's most popular films. LESLIE HALLIWELL film serials -------------------------------- Film serials, the bulk of which were produced in Hollywood between 1913 and the late 1940s, were interrupted melodramas or mysteries ("cliffhangers") that typically consisted of 12 to 15 episodes varying in length from 18 to 30 minutes. Up to 1930, approximately 300 silent serials appeared--the first was The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913), the most popular was Pathe's The Perils of Pauline (1914), starring Pearl White. At least a part of their charm derived from carefully timed dramatic sequences that substituted for a lack of narrative depth. Among the best-known serials of the sound era, during which Westerns, space stories, and other fantasy-oriented fare dominated, were The Lone Ranger, Captain Video, Flash Gordon, Zorro, The Masked Marvel, and The Green Hornet. BRUCE BERMAN Bibliography: Barbour, Alan G., Cliffhanger (1977) and Serial Showcase (1968); Lahue, Kalton C., Bound and Gagged (1968) and Continued Next Week (1964); Stedman, Raymond W., The Serials, 2d ed. (1977). Arbuckle, Fatty -------------------------------- Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, b. Mar. 24, 1887, d. June 29, 1933, was one of the movies' first comedy stars. His boyish face, ample girth, and acrobatic skill made him a natural comic in silent films. After achieving stardom at Mack Sennett's studio, he went on to write, direct, and star in his own films. His on-screen career was ruined by a 1921 scandal involving the death of a young woman. Although cleared of manslaughter charges, Arbuckle was unable to work again in films except as a writer-director in 1931-32, using the pseudonym William Goodrich. LEONARD MALTIN Bibliography: Maltin, Leonard, The Great Movie Comedians (1978); Yallop, David, The Day the Laughter Stopped (1976). Mayer, Louis B. -------------------------------- (may'-ur) Louis Burt Mayer, b. Minsk, Russia, 1882 or 1885, d. Oct. 29, 1957, was a Hollywood film mogul who for many years headed the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation, ruling his studio like a patriarch in order to make "decent, wholesome pictures for Americans." Initially a scrap-metal dealer, he made a fortune as a New England movie-theater owner before forming the Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation in 1918. Merging his company with Marcus Loew's Metro and the Goldwyn Company to found MGM in 1924, he became vice-president of the new company, acting as general manager of the Culver City studio until forced to retire in 1951. Bibliography: Crowther, Bosley, Hollywood Rajah (1960); Marx, Samuel, Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-Believe Saints (1975). Muybridge, Eadweard -------------------------------- (my'-brij, ed'-wurd) The Englishman Eadweard Muybridge, b. Edward James Muggeridge, Apr 9, 1830, d. May 8, 1904, one of the great photographers of the American West, became even better known for his pioneering photographic studies of motion. Photographing throughout California in the 1860s and '70s, he made the large, impressive landscapes of the Yosemite wilderness that won him initial fame. In 1872, Leland Stanford, the former governor of the state, bet a friend that once in every stride all four legs of a running horse were simultaneously off the ground. He hired Muybridge to settle the bet, and in 1877 Muybridge's pictures, which recorded the horse's motion in sequential frames, proved Stanford right. (The work took 5 years because it was interrupted while Muybridge was tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife's lover.) In 1879, Muybridge invented the zoopraxiscope, a machine that reconstructed motion from his photographs and a forerunner of cinematography. After a European tour, during which his work was acclaimed by artists and scientists alike, he continued (1884-86) his photographic motion studies; Animal Locomotion (1887), containing 781 groups of sequential frames, was the first of several such publications, which also included The Human Figure in Motion (1901). PETER GALASSI Bibliography: Muybridge, Eadweard, Descriptive Zoopraxography (1893) and Animals in Motion (1899, repr. 1957); Hendricks, Gordon, Eadweard Muybridge: The Father of the Motion Picture (1975); Mozley, A. V., Eadweard Muybridge: The Stanford Years, 1872-1882 (1972). Eakins, Thomas -------------------------------- (ay'-kinz) Although he received little recognition in his lifetime, Thomas Cowperthwaite Eakins, b. July 25, 1844, d. June 25, 1916, has come to be regarded in the 20th century as the greatest realist in the history of American art. He was born in Philadelphia, where he received his early training and later spent his adult life. From 1866 to 1869 he was a pupil of Jean Leon GEROME at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and in 1870 he visited Spain and was strongly influenced by the works of Diego VELAZQUEZ and Jusepe de RIBERA. He became an uncompromising realist, bringing to his work a close personal involvement with his subjects and intense scientific interest in anatomy, light, and perspective. After his return to Philadelphia in 1870, Eakins painted outdoor scenes that included views of sportsmen on rivers and bays near the city, such as Max Schmitt in a Single Scull (1871; Metropolitan Museum, New York City). In 1875 he painted a far more ambitious picture, now accepted as his masterpiece, a large portrait of the eminent surgeon Dr. Samuel Gross, The Gross Clinic (1875; Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia). Gross is shown scalpel in hand, lecturing to his students about the operation he is performing, the details of which, including an open incision, are clearly depicted. The painting's bold realism appropriately reflects the clinical objectivity of Dr. Gross's approach to medicine, but offended Eakins's prudish audience. Eakins taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1876 to 1886, when he was forced to resign after a dispute caused by his insistence that students of both sexes be allowed to draw from nude models. He continued to teach privately, and one of his most accomplished students, Susan Macdowell, became his wife in 1884. During the 1880s, Eakins conducted photographic experiments at the University of Pennsylvania into the movement of human bodies that anticipated the invention of the motion picture and coincided with the pioneering work of Eadweard MUYBRIDGE. After 1880 most of his works were portraits, often of the scientists, physicians, scholars, and students of Philadelphia who were his friends. He had little commercial success and was largely ignored by the art world despite the fact that he was an outstanding figure painter and the best portraitist in America since Gilbert STUART, whose work was much narrower in scope. In 1902 he was belatedly elected to the National Academy of Design, by which time his creative powers had begun to wane. After 1910 he was in ill health and ceased to paint. His influence on the so-called ASHCAN SCHOOL realists of the early 20th century was great, although full recognition of his many achievements as an artist and teacher came only in the 1930s. Among Eakins's finest paintings is William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill (1877; Philadelphia Museum of Art), a subject to which he returned late in his career. (William RUSH was a Philadelphia wood-carver of the Federal period whose use of a nude model aroused a controversy of the kind that Eakins was often involved in.) The psychological penetration of his portraits is evident in the mirthful spirit of his Walt Whitman (1888; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts) and the introspective serenity of Miss Van Buren (c.1891; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.). Eakins also worked as a sculptor, and his contributions to the art of photography are also notable, but his paintings were his supreme achievement. Along with those of his contemporary Winslow HOMER, they represent the culmination of the development of American art in the 19th century. DAVID TATHAM Bibliography: Goodrich, Lloyd, Thomas Eakins: His Life and Work (1933; repr. 1970); Hendricks, Gordon, The Life and Works of Thomas Eakins (1974); Schendler, Sylvan, Eakins (1967); Siegl, Theodor, The Thomas Eakins Collection (1978). Hays, Will -------------------------------- William Harrison Hays, b. Sullivan, Ind., Nov. 5, 1879, d. Mar. 7, 1954, was for many years the censor of the U.S. film industry. He served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1918 to 1921 and was postmaster general under President Warren G. Harding in 1921-22. From 1922 to 1945, Hays was president of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors. In 1934 that association implemented a system of self-censorship, the so-called Production Code, that came to be known as the Hays Code. Lloyd, Harold -------------------------------- (loyd) Harold Lloyd, b. Burchard, Nebr., Apr. 20, 1893, d. Mar. 8, 1971, was one of the most popular screen comedians of the 1920s, a living symbol of the shy but optimistic all-American boy. This ingratiating character started evolving in the short subjects Lloyd made during the second decade of the 20th century, but crystallized only after he became a major star in such 1920s silent feature films as Grandma's Boy (1922) and The Freshman (1925). Lloyd's trademarks were a straw hat and horn-rimmed glasses, but he is perhaps even better remembered for the "thrill comedy" of films like Safety Last (1923), in which he scales the side of a building. Snippets from his many early films appeared in two 1963 screen compilations: Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy and Harold Lloyd's Funny Side of Life. His methodical, unpretentious approach to comedy received wider attention after his "rediscovery" in the 1970s. LEONARD MALTIN Bibliography: Lloyd, Harold, An American Comedy (1928; repr. 1971); Maltin, Leonard, The Great Movie Comedians (1978); Reilly, Adam, Harold Lloyd: The King of Daredevil Comedy (1977); Schickel, Richard, Harold Lloyd: The Shape of Keaton, Buster -------------------------------- (keet'-uhn) Joseph Francis "Buster" Keaton, b. Piqua, Kans., Oct. 4, 1895, d. Feb. 1, 1966, actor and director, was one of the giants of silent film comedy. Raised in a vaudeville family, Keaton entered the film industry in 1917 as a protege of Fatty Arbuckle and quickly mastered film technique on both sides of the camera. A superb acrobat from youth, Keaton developed both a keen appreciation for movie sight gags and the perfectionist's desire to execute them without flaw. In 1921, under the banner of his own company, he began his solo starring career and refined his unique deadpan character--a loner caught in the flurry of modern life who somehow manages to triumph over even the most mind-boggling disasters. Such classic shorts as One Week (1920), The High Sign (1921), The Boat (1921), Cops (1922), and The Balloonatic (1923) led to feature films in which he expanded his highly individual comic views: Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The General (1926), and his cinematic tour de force, Sherlock Jr. (1924). Bad business advice coupled with personal problems sabotaged his career in the early 1930s. He continued to work in films and television the rest of his life, but after his move to MGM in 1928, he never again exercised the creative control he had enjoyed in the silent era. His memoirs, My Wonderful World of Slapstick, appeared in 1960. LEONARD MALTIN Bibliography: Anobile, Richard J., ed., The Best of Buster (1976); Blesh, Rudi, Keaton (1966); Dardis, Tom, Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down (1979); Maltin, Leonard, The Great Movie Comedians (1978); Moews, Daniel, Keaton: The Silent Features Close Up (1977); Wead, George, and Lellis, George, eds., The Film Career of Buster Keaton (1977). Lubitsch, Ernst -------------------------------- (loo'-bich, airnst) Ernst Lubitsch, b. Berlin, Jan. 28, 1892, d. Nov. 30, 1947, was a German-American film director known for his sophisticated comedies of manners. He had already achieved success as an actor and director in Europe when Mary Pickford brought him to Hollywood to direct her in Rosita (1923); Lubitsch's subsequent silent films--The Marriage Circle (1924), Forbidden Paradise (1924), Lady Windermere's Fan (1925), and So This Is Paris (1926)--established his reputation as a master of urbane, sardonic humor. The "Lubitsch touch" survived the transition to sound. In the 1930s, beginning with The Love Parade (1930), he directed musicals, often using the team of Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. The cynical wit that was his trademark was especially evident in Trouble in Paradise (1932); Ninotchka (1939), starring Greta Garbo; and To Be Or Not To Be (1942), which satirized Nazism. He departed from his usual brand of humor in The Shop around the Corner (1940), another comedy directed at the Nazi threat. Bibliography: Poague, Leland A., The Cinema of Ernst Lubitsch (1978); Weinberg, Herman G., The Lubitsch Touch: A Critical Study (1968). animation -------------------------------- Film animation applies techniques of cinematography to the graphic and plastic arts in order to give the illusion of life and movement to cartoons, drawings, paintings, puppets, and three-dimensional objects. Beginning with crude and simple methods, animation has become a highly sophisticated form of filmmaking, involving the use of automation, computer, and even laser technology to achieve its effects. Some animation techniques overlap with those used to produce special effects in live-action cinematography. In watching such films as 2001--A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars (1977), a person often finds it difficult to tell whether a certain result has been achieved through animation or through special effects. ANIMATION TECHNIQUES Basic graphic animation is produced by a technique called stop-frame cinematography. The camera records, frame by frame, a sequence or succession of drawings or paintings that differ only fractionally from one another. The illusion of progressive movement is created by projecting the series of frames through a camera at the normal rate for sound film (24 frames a second). The same method is used in puppet or object animation; the position of the figures or objects is changed very slightly prior to each exposure. In graphic animation, the drawings may vary from the simplest outlines, as in such traditional animated films as Felix the Cat, to elaborately modeled and colored paintings, such as those produced in Walt DISNEY's studios during the 1930s. The first animated cartoons were produced before 1910 by pioneers such as Emile Cohl of France and Winsor McCay of the United States, whose Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) has been called the first animated feature film. In these early productions, a simple drawing of a mobile figure was photographed against an equally simple background, and a new drawing was required for each exposure. Relief from the labor of drawing hundreds of pictures for each minute of action came only when the figures could be made momentarily static. The evolution of cel (for celluloid) animation after 1913 enabled animators to use a single, more elaborate background for each shot or scene in the action. The mobile figures in the foreground were inked in black silhouette on transparent celluloid sheets and then superimposed in series on the background. With the introduction of color filming early in the 1930s, animators began to use opaque paints in place of black ink. Greater efficiency was achieved when artists began to specialize in particular figures or other mobile elements of cartoons. Such teams of animators collectively created drawings for feature-length films, for example, Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fantasia (1940). Most animated films are recorded by an automated rostrum camera. The many improvements made in this camera since the 1950s have contributed to the increased technical capabilities of the medium. The adjustable camera is suspended above the horizontal table on which the combination of cels, one upon the other, have been superimposed on the background and locked or pegged into position. The cels are then successively photographed to produce a precision image offering a faultless illusion of movement. Such cinematic effects as tracking, panning, and zooming may also be achieved. HISTORY OF ANIMATION Since the early, popular shorts involving such animals as Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse, the international history of animation has been characterized by the almost constant introduction of ever more complex forms. Many advances were made in Europe: Lotte Reiniger employed mobile silhouettes; Oskar FISCHINGER and Len Lye experimented with abstract designs choreographed to music; and George Pal of Holland created techniques of puppet animation. Since World War II, animation was increasingly used in instructional films and in television and cinema commercials. Advanced forms of graphic design, both in black and white and in color, and new methods of puppet and object animation have been developed. From the 1940s until the early 1980s, Norman MCLAREN, one of the versatile of all animators, experimented with three-dimensional animation and with other innovations as drawing images directly on film. Beginning in the 1960s, films showing abstract color designs in motion were programmed by means of computers that calculate intricate movements with amazing precision. Today, computer animation has achieved the ability to create moving images and backgrounds of great complexity. The basic tool, usually called a PAINTBOX, is an electronic surface on which the artist draws figures and backgrounds and selects colors. Other devices manipulate the figures and change the backgrounds. The work is reproduced on a TV monitor and stored on a computer disk. Computerized animation is widely used in television commercials, titles, and in making music videos (see VIDEO, MUSIC), and provides many of the special effects in the films of directors like George Lucas (see COMPUTER GRAPHICS, VIDEO ART). Old-style cel animation continues to be the sole technique by which quality animators, such as Disney Productions, create their characters. Backgrounds, and the movement of objects within a scene, however, are often computer-generated. Television, with its insatiable need for new material, introduced a type of semianimation in its cartoon programs for children. Compared with traditional animation, on television the movement of characters is primitive in its rendition, colors are limited, and detail is stripped down to bare essentials. The cost of an animated minute on television is one-tenth the cost of a Disney minute; $10,000 to $100,000 or more. Disney's The Black Cauldron (1985) cost about $30 million and was nine years in the making. International animation film festivals, where the latest work is displayed, are annual events in Europe. ROGER MANVELL Bibliography Bibliography: Feild, Robert Durant, The Art of Walt Disney (1942); Fox, D., and Waite, M., Computer Animation Primer (1984); Halas, John, ed., Computer Animation (1974); Halas, John, and Manvell, Roger, Art in Movement: New Directions in Animation (1970), Design in Motion (1962), and The Technique of Film Animation, 3d ed. (1971); Rubin, S., Animation: The Art and the Industry (1984); Stephenson, Ralph, Animation in the Cinema (1967); Thomas, F., and Johnstone, O., Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life (1981). Edison, Thomas Alva -------------------------------- Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most prolific inventors of the late 19th century. He is most famous for his development of the first commercially practical incandescent lamp (1879). Perhaps his greatest contribution, however, was the development (1882) of the world's first central electric light-power station. His early laboratories were forerunners of the modern industrial research laboratory, where skilled researchers jointly solve technological problems.^Edison was born in the village of Milan, Ohio, on Feb. 11, 1847, and his family later moved to Port Huron, Mich. His formal schooling was limited to three months, at the age of seven, but thereafter his mother tutored him, and he was an avid reader. At age 12 he became a train-boy, selling magazines and candy on the Grand Trunk Railroad. He spent all he earned on books and apparatus for his chemical laboratory. An accident at about this time eventually led to a loss of hearing.^A station agent taught him telegraph code and procedures, and at age 15 Edison became manager of a telegraph office. His first inventions were the transmitter and receiver for the automatic telegraph. At 21, Edison produced his first major invention, a stock ticker for printing stock-exchange quotations in brokers' offices. With the $40,000 he was paid for improvements in tickers, he established a manufacturing shop and a small laboratory in Newark, N.J. Deciding to give up manufacturing, he moved the laboratory to Menlo Park, N.J., where he directed groups of employees working on various projects. The original Menlo Park facility is now at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.^In 1878, Edison began work on an electric lamp and sought a material that could be electrically heated to incandescence in a vacuum. At first he used platinum wire in glass bulbs at 10 volts. He connected these bulbs in series to utilize a higher supply voltage; however, he realized that independent lamp control would be necessary for home and office use. He then developed a three-wire system with a supply of 220 volts. Each lamp operated at 110 volts, and the higher voltage required a resistance greater than that of platinum. Edison conducted an extensive search for a filament material to replace platinum until, on Oct. 21, 1879, he demonstrated a lamp containing a carbonized cotton thread that glowed for 40 hours.^Edison installed the first large central power station on Pearl Street in New York City in 1882; its steam-driven generators of 900 horsepower provided enough power for 7,200 lamps. The success of this station led to the construction of many other central stations. Edison founded The Edison Electric Light Company (1878), which eventually merged with other companies into the General Electric Company (1892), one of the largest U.S. manufacturers. He consistently opposed, however, switching the power stations from direct current to alternating current, a change that would have increased transmission voltages considerably.^During his experiments on the incandescent bulb, Edison noted a flow of electricity from a hot filament across a vacuum to a metal wire. This phenomenon, known as THERMIONIC EMISSION, or the Edison effect, was the foundation of electronic inventions of the 20th century.^Edison also invented (1877) the PHONOGRAPH, the invention he was most proud of; it used tinfoil and wax cylinders to record the sound. His introduction of flexible celluloid film and his invention of the movie projector aided the development of motion pictures (see FILM, HISTORY OF). His other inventions include the alkaline storage battery, a magnetic process to separate iron ore, and the carbon microphone. After World War I he became interested in domestic sources of rubber and investigated various plant species for rubber content. By the time he died at West Orange, N.J., on Oct. 18, 1931, he had patented over 1,000 inventions. J. D. RYDER Bibliography: Clark, Ronald W., Edison: The Man Who Made the Future (1977); Josephson, Matthew, Edison: A Biography (1959; repr. 1963); Silverberg, Robert, Light for the World (1967); Wachhorst, Wyn, Thomas Alva Edison: an American Myth (1981). Chaney, Lon -------------------------------- (chay'-nee) Lon Chaney, b. Apr. 1, 1883, d. Aug. 26, 1930, Hollywood's "man of a thousand faces," was a leading character actor specializing in macabre roles. His ability to mime, to change physical appearance, and skill with makeup served him well in such films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). LESLIE HALLIWELL Bibliography: Andersen, Robert Gordon, Faces, Forms, Films: The Artistry of Lon Chaney (1971). Fischinger, Oskar -------------------------------- (fish'-ing-ur) The German animator Oskar Fischinger, b. July 22, 1900, d. Jan. 31, 1967, made films that used abstract forms to interpret music. Examples are the numbered series Studien 1-12 (1925-36), An American March (1940), and Motion Painting No. 1 (1947). Fischinger also created special effects for Hollywood films and invented the lumigraph light-producing device (1951). Minnelli, Vincente -------------------------------- The Hollywood director whose name is most often associated with the most imaginative musicals of the 1940s and 1950s is Vincente Minnelli, b. Chicago, Feb. 28, 1913. Beginning with Cabin in the Sky in 1943, Minnelli set new standards for the musical genre with such films as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and The Pirate (1948) both starring his then wife Judy GARLAND, An American in Paris (1951), The Band Wagon (1953), and Gigi (1958), which won nine Academy Awards. The visual dynamism and stylish decor of these films can also be seen in such nonmusical Minnelli efforts as The Clock (1945), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and Designing Woman (1957). His and Garland's daughter is the performer Liza Minnelli (see MINNELLI, LIZA). His autobiography, I Remember It Well, appeared in 1974. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Casper, Joseph, Vincente Minnelli and the Film Musical (197 7). Kelly, Gene -------------------------------- A dancer, singer, and actor whose cheerful manner and innovative dance sequences enlivened some of Hollywood's most memorable musicals, Gene Kelly, b. Eugene Curran Kelly, Pittsburgh, Pa., Aug. 23, 1912, turned choreography into a virile, athletic American art. Synthesizing ballet with the tattoo of tap, the rhythms of jazz, and a sense of fun and grace, he was at his best in The Pirate (1948), On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), and Brigadoon (1954). Kelly has also directed films, including Hello Dolly (1969), and was a principal in the MGM reprises That's Entertainment (1974), That's Entertainment Part Two (1976), and That's Dancing (1985). He won the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement award in 1985. ELEANOR M. GATES Bibliography: Hirschhorn, Clive, Gene Kelly: A Biography (1975); Thomas, Tony, Films of Gene Kelly (1974). Vigo, Jean -------------------------------- Jean Vigo, b. Apr. 26, 1905, d. Oct. 5, 1934, in spite of his tragically short life, proved himself one of the great French filmmakers. The son of a celebrated anarchist who was later murdered in prison, Vigo led a disordered childhood. A Propos de Nice (About Nice, 1930) is a short, personal film essay mixing sharp observation and adroit camera technique. His two major films, Zero de conduite (Zero for Conduct, 1933) and L'Atalante (Atalanta, 1934), were both commercial disasters, and at the time of his death at the age of 29, Vigo remained almost unknown. His tiny output, however, now ranks as one of the great achievements of French cinema. His work draws uniquely sensitive pictures of private worlds (those of a group of schoolboys and a newly married couple, respectively), combining a respect for reality with virtually surrealist imagery. ROY ARMES Bibliography: Sales Gomes, P. E., Jean Vigo (1972); Smith, John M., Jean Vigo (1972). Carne, Marcel -------------------------------- (kahr-nay') The French film director Marcel Carne, b. Aug. 18, 1909, achieved fame in the 1930s when he worked with the poet Jacques Prevert on such classics as Quai des brumes (Misty Quay, 1938) and Le Jour se leve (Day Begins, 1939), both starring Jean Gabin. Carne learned his craft as assistant to Rene Clair and Jacques Feyder before making (1936) his feature debut. During the German occupation of France, Carne and Prevert produced two theatrical spectacles, Les Visiteurs du soir (Evening Visitors, 1942) and Children of Paradise (1945). Although Carne continues to exhibit a fine technical command, his recent films have been less impressive than his earlier work. ROY ARMES Pagnol, Marcel -------------------------------- (pahn-yohl') A successful French dramatist of the late 1920s, Marcel Pagnol, b. Feb. 28, 1895, d. Apr. 18, 1974, turned to the cinema with the advent of sound and created for himself a still more remarkable career as a writer-director. At first, he merely adapted his own plays for others to direct; of the Marseille trilogy, Marius (1931), Fanny (1932), and Cesar (1936), only the third was directed by Pagnol himself. In 1934, however, he set up his own studios and, surrounded by a company of actors that included Raimu and Fernandel, he began to adapt the Provencal stories of Jean Giono into the films that constitute his major achievements: Joffroi (1934), Angele (1934), Regain (1937), and The Baker's Wife (1938). His last two films, Manon des sources (1952) and Lettres de mon moulin (1954), are also the work of a master storyteller. ROY ARMES Bibliography: Pagnol, Marcel, The Days Were Too Short (1960) and The Time of Secrets, trans. by Rita Barisse (1962). Korda, Sir Alexander -------------------------------- (kohr'-duh) Alexander Korda, the professional name of Sandor Kellner, b. Sept. 16, 1893, d. Jan. 23, 1956, was a major figure in British cinema for almost 25 years. He began his producing and directing career in Hungary but left his native land in 1919 to embark on an international career in Europe and Hollywood. After establishing London Film Productions in Britain in 1932, Korda achieved world recognition with The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). Specializing in historical films and using international directors, he turned out such successes as Rembrandt (1936), The Four Feathers (1939), The Third Man (1949), and Richard III (1956). He was knighted in 1942. ROY ARMES Bibliography: Kulik, Karol, Alexander Korda: The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1975). Hitchcock, Alfred -------------------------------- (hich'-kahk) Probably no contemporary film director was better known to the general public or more admired by his colleagues and critics than Alfred Hitchcock. Born in London, Aug. 13, 1899, he began his directorial career in the silent era with The Lodger (1927). Hitchcock's work during the next decade--Blackmail (1929), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935), and The Lady Vanishes (1938)--established him worldwide as the preeminent director of witty suspense thrillers. It also established his personal trademark: the seemingly casual appearance in all his films of his own portly figure. Hitchcock, who received a knighthood in 1980, died on Apr. 29 of that year. His first film after moving to Hollywood in 1939 was the immensely successful romantic thriller Rebecca (1940). Subsequently, Foreign Correspondent (1940) successfully harked back to his British style. Although Shadow of a Doubt (1943) won praise for its handling of an American setting and Notorious (1946) was popular with critics and public alike, many of Hitchcock's admirers were disappointed by other American works, such as Suspicion (1941), Saboteur (1942), Lifeboat (1943), Spellbound (1945), and Rope (1948). The witty, ingenious Strangers on a Train (1951), with its sensational merry-go-round sequence, and North by Northwest (1959), which treated thriller conventions humorously, were both praised as a return to form. The popularity of the intervening films exceeded their critical esteem--Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1953), and a remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). What critics missed in them, while acknowledging their technical mastery, was the wit and sense of milieu that had distinguished Hitchcock's British suspense thrillers. Increasingly, however, after the appearance of Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963), it was recognized that Hitchcock was going beyond suspense to plumb greater depths of terror. Some critics have emphasized the Catholic content of Hitchcock's work, others, the Freudian. Whether or not such explications stand scrutiny, the critical ascendancy of American-period Hitchcock now seems secure, and the director's technical wizardry remains unassailable. Hitchcock also enjoyed success as the host (1955-65) of the popular television suspense series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and as the editor of such short-story collections as Stories To Be Read with the Lights On (1973). WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Durgnat, Raymond, The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock (1974); LaValley, Albert, ed., Focus on Hitchcock (1972); Spoto, Donald, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock (1976); Taylor, John Russell, The Life and Work of Alfred Hitchcock (1978); Truffaut, Francois, in collaboration with Helen G. Scott, Hitchcock (1967); Wood, Robin, Hitchcock's Films (1965). Disney, Walt -------------------------------- The creator of the cartoon character Mickey Mouse and a film innovator who won a record 30 Academy Awards, Walter Elias Disney, b. Chicago, Dec. 5, 1901, d. Dec. 15, 1966, was also among the most successful American entrepreneurs. The entertainment empire he founded includes two giant amusement parks (Disneyland and Walt Disney World) as well as his film studios. The licensing of reproduction rights to Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters for use on clothing, books, and innumerable other objects makes the Disney fantasies ever present in American life and that of much of the rest of the world as well.^Disney's childhood was spent in Marceline, Mo. (whose main street may have inspired the nostalgia-laden main streets of the amusement parks), and in Kansas City, Mo., where he met Ub Iwerks, who became a Disney collaborator. When their Kansas City animation studio failed in 1923, Disney founded a new studio in Hollywood, and Iwerks became chief artist and special-effects designer.^By 1928, Disney and Iwerks had perfected the immortal Mickey Mouse, who made history the same year in Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon with sound. (Mickey's squeaky voice was supplied by Disney.) In succeeding Disney cartoons--including the famous series Silly Symphonies--the characters moved to the rhythm of a pre-recorded soundtrack, making possible a humorous and ingenious match of motion to sound (see ANIMATION). By the mid-1930s all Disney cartoons were made in color, and his stable of eccentric animal characters (Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and the rest) was almost complete, produced by a studio that came to employ hundreds of artists.^The world's first feature-length animated film, Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938), proved a stunning financial success and was followed by a number of other full-length animations, including Fantasia (1940), which combined classical music with animated sequences, Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). The Reluctant Dragon (1941) was the first of many Disney films to use a sophisticated matte technique that allowed live and cartoon characters to appear together.^In the 1950s, Disney turned to films with live characters, such as Treasure Island (1950), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), and the musical fantasy Mary Poppins (1964); to nature films whose fine photography was marred for some critics by the sentimentality of approach; and to films produced for television--the Davy Crockett series, for example. TV's "Mickey Mouse Club" (1955-59, 1975-77) revived the old cartoon figures for a new generation of children who would meet them again--more or less live--at Disneyland and Disney World. Bibliography: Canemaker, John, Treasures of Disney Animation Art, ed. by W. Rawls (1982); Finch, Christopher, The Art of Walt Disney (1973); Maltin, Leonard, The Disney Films (1973); Schickel, Richard, The Disney Version (1968); Thomas, Bob, Walt Disney (1976). Riefenstahl, Leni -------------------------------- (ree'-fen-shtahl) Adolf Hitler's favorite film director, Leni Riefenstahl, b. Berlin, Aug. 22, 1902, achieved an international reputation on the basis of two extraordinary documentaries. Her first film, the mystical Blue Light (1932), excited Hitler's imagination, and following her short documentary of the Nazi party's 1933 Nuremberg rally, Victory of Faith (1934), he commissioned her to give feature-length treatment to the same event in 1934. The result, Triumph of the Will (1935), was an impressive spectacle of Germany's adherence to Hitler and to National Socialist ideals, and a masterpiece of romanticized propaganda. Equally famous, and far less controversial, was her coverage of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the four-hour epic Olympia (1938). Blacklisting by the Allies (1945-52) and postwar ostracism ended Riefenstahl's career as a filmmaker. She was subsequently acclaimed for The Last of the Nuba (1974), a superb volume of photographs of Nuba tribal life in southern Sudan. ROGER MANVELL Bibliography: Infield, Glenn B., Leni Riefenstahl (1976); Sarris, Andrew, Interviews with Film Directors (1967). Stroheim, Erich von -------------------------------- (shtroh'-hym) A legendary figure in the Hollywood of the silent era, actor, director, and scriptwriter Erich von Stroheim, b. Vienna, Sept. 22, 1885, d. May 12, 1957, is celebrated both for his ruinous extravagances as a filmmaker and his screen portrayals of stiff-necked German officers. As a director he demonstrated his brilliance as well as his limitations. His only successfully completed films--Blind Husbands (1919), the Devil's Passkey (1919), and Foolish Wives (1921), in two of which he played the lead--bear the stamp of his wit, sophistication, lavish attention to detail, and sometimes brutal realism. Thereafter, his career was marked by frustration as his ambitious artistic schemes for such films as Merry-Go-Round (1922), Greed (1923), and The Wedding March (1926) repeatedly ran afoul of whistle-blowing producers at Universal, MGM, and Paramount, who cut and distorted his work beyond recognition. His most famous failure, Queen Kelly (1928), which was to star Gloria Swanson, effectively ended his directorial hopes. Concentrating exclusively on acting after 1936, von Stroheim gave his most distinguished performances in Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937) and in Billy Wilder's inspired film a clef, Sunset Boulevard (1950), playing a former director opposite Gloria Swanson's evocation of an aging, fantasy-ridden silent-film star. ELEANOR M. GATES Bibliography: Curtiss, Thomas Q., Von Stroheim (1971); Noble, Peter, Hollywood Scapegoat (1950; repr. 1972). Chaney, Lon -------------------------------- (chay'-nee) Lon Chaney, b. Apr. 1, 1883, d. Aug. 26, 1930, Hollywood's "man of a thousand faces," was a leading character actor specializing in macabre roles. His ability to mime, to change physical appearance, and skill with makeup served him well in such films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). LESLIE HALLIWELL Bibliography: Andersen, Robert Gordon, Faces, Forms, Films: The Artistry of Lon Chaney (1971). Flaherty, Robert Joseph -------------------------------- (flay'-urt-ee) Robert Joseph Flaherty, b. Iron Mountain, Mich., Feb. 16, 1884, d. July 23, 1951, was a filmmaker whose originality and poetic vision helped create a romantic tradition in documentary films. Before making Nanook of the North (1922), a depiction of Eskimo life and his first and most famous film, Flaherty explored Canada as a mapmaker. His interest in native cultures and the simple agrarian life is reflected in later films--Moana (1926), Tabu (1931), Man of Aran (1934), and Louisiana Story (1948). Bibliography: Flaherty, Frances H., The Odyssey of a Film-maker: Robert Flaherty's Story (1960; repr. 1972); Griffith, Richard, The World of Robert Flaherty (1953; repr. 1972). EXPRESSION expressionism -------------------------------- (literature, theater, and film) Expressionism, a term applied to avant-garde German painting in 1911, rapidly gained currency in literature, but does not describe a cohesive literary movement. In poetry and drama, expressionism represented a reaction to the sentimentality of late-19th-century romanticism. Expressionist poets, writing in Germany and Austria between 1910 and 1924, were influenced by Freudian theories of the subconscious, the antirationalism of Friedrich Nietzsche, and the novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky to probe their own imaginations for subject matter. The poems of Johannes BECHER, Gottfried BENN, Georg HEYM, Ernst TOLLER, Georg TRAKL, and Franz WERFEL are characterized by chaotic, frenzied imagery and a vehement tone that threatens to overwhelm their literary form. Expressionism reveals latent energies beneath the surface of appearances and evokes extreme states of mind. Certain qualities of expressionism are also found in the prose of Franz KAFKA, but the movement was strongest in the theater. The dramas of August STRINDBERG and Frank WEDEKIND provided a strong impetus to later writers such as Georg Kaiser, Carl Sternheim, Fritz von Unruh, Reinhard Sorge, and Walter Hasenclever, whose works are characterized by terse dialogue, disturbing incident, and intensely subjective emotion presented in a succession of scenes or "stations." After 1917 expressionist drama dominated the German theater for about 6 years--during which time production styles also cultivated expressive exaggerations and distortion--and left its mark on the silent cinema, especially in the films of Fritz LANG and Robert Wiene. Expressionism left an important legacy of technique to many later writers. The aims of the expressionist movement were assimilated by DADA, and can also be discerned in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones (1921) and The Hairy Ape (1922), and in Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine (1923). Bibliography: Furness, R. S., Expressionism (1973); Krispyn, Egbert, Style and Society in German Literary Expressionism (1964); Willett, John, Expressionism (1971). Bauhaus -------------------------------- (bow'-hows) The Bauhaus (full name staatliches Bauhaus, "state building house") was the most famous school of architecture and design of the 20th century. Founded by Walter GROPIUS at Weimar, Germany, in 1919, the Bauhaus was originally a combined school of fine art and school of arts and crafts. In his opening manifesto, Gropius issued a call for the unification of all the creative arts under the leadership of architecture. He declared that a mastery of materials and techniques was essential for all creative design. Students were to have two teachers in every course, one an expert craftsman, the other a master artist. The preliminary course, organized by Johannes Itten, introduced students to rudiments of design, freed from historic associations: size, shape, line, color, pattern, texture, rhythm, and density. This course has become the foundation for design education in many countries. It was followed in the curriculum by advanced work with form and materials, including workshops in stone, wood, metal, pottery, glass, painting, and textiles. Industrial design became a major focus at the Bauhaus, which hoped to improve radically the quality of all manufactured goods. Teachers appointed in the early years included Lyonel FEININGER, Gerhard Marcks, Johannes Itten, and Adolf Meyer (1919); Georg Muche (1920); Paul KLEE and Oskar SCHLEMMER (1921); Wassily KANDINSKY (1922); and Laszlo MOHOLY-NAGY (1923). From the beginning, the striking newness of the concepts developed at the Bauhaus and the liberal beliefs of many of the people associated with it aroused strong opposition. In 1925 political pressures forced the removal of the school from Weimar to Dessau, where Gropius designed a new complex of buildings for it, including classrooms, shops, offices, and dwellings for faculty and students. This group of buildings in Dessau came to symbolize the Bauhaus to the rest of the world. Although Gropius repeatedly insisted that it was never his intention to codify a Bauhaus style or dogma, the need for a new architectural image appropriate to a technological age caused the Bauhaus to be adopted as a model for what came to be known as the INTERNATIONAL STYLE, or, more generally, MODERN ARCHITECTURE. Gropius left the Bauhaus for private practice in 1928 and was succeeded as director by Hannes Meyer. Strong political pressures continued. In 1930 Ludwig MIES VAN DER ROHE took over as director, moved the school to Berlin in 1932, and finally closed and disbanded it under pressure from the Nazis in 1933. Among the former students who became important teachers at the Bauhaus were Joseph ALBERS, Marcel BREUER, and Herbert Bayer. The Bauhaus became influential around the world as a result of the continued active teaching and designing by former faculty and students, including many Americans. In the United States, Gropius became dean of the School of Architecture at Harvard University, Mies van der Rohe became dean of architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology, and Moholy-Nagy founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago. The work and principles of the Bauhaus have been further disseminated by many publications and exhibitions that have circulated internationally. A major Bauhaus Archive, founded at Darmstadt in 1961, was moved in the 1970s to Berlin. Another Bauhaus Archive is kept at Harvard University. The design philosophy of the Bauhaus continues pervasive to the present day. RON WIEDENHOEFT Bibliography: Franciscono, Marcel, Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus in Weimar (1971); Wingler, Hans, The Bauhaus (1969). Eastman, George -------------------------------- George Eastman, b. Waterville, N.Y., July 12, 1854, d. Mar. 14, 1932, founded (1892) the Eastman Kodak Company. While working as a bank clerk, he became interested in PHOTOGRAPHY. He refined the process for making photographic plates, which he soon began to manufacture, and in 1884 he introduced flexible FILM. He produced his Kodak box CAMERA in 1888, marketing it on a mass basis for amateur photographers. Large investments in research led to further innovations in cameras and equipment, including daylight-loading film and pocket cameras. Eastman gave enormous sums to educational institutions, and in his company introduced the first employee profit-sharing system in the United States. Bibliography: Coe, Brian, George Eastman (1976). Lang, Fritz -------------------------------- A long and distinguished career in Germany made Fritz Lang, b. Vienna, Dec. 5, 1890, d. Aug. 2, 1976, probably the most famous of the many European film directors who fled Hitler for Hollywood during the 1930s. Lang's early studies of painting and architecture clearly influenced the expressionist style and grand scale of such films as Destiny (1921), the two-part Nibelung Saga (1924), and his celebrated depiction of a futuristic slave society, Metropolis (1927). During the same period Lang was also making smaller-scaled studies of criminal society in Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) and The Spy (1928), which, with The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse (1932), strongly suggested his anti-Nazi sentiments. Lang's interest in the criminal mind produced his masterpiece--the chilling portrait of a child killer, M (1931), Lang's first sound film, starring Peter Lorre. Lang left Germany for France in 1933. Lang made a highly successful American debut with Fury (1936), an indictment of mob violence, followed by a plea for social justice in You Only Live Once (1937). These films gave way to a succession of melodramas, most notably The Ministry of Fear (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945), that painted a picture of society less in terms of social issues than of a nameless, oppressive sense of dread. These expressionist nightmares, along with M, constitute the height of Lang's achievement. Thereafter, although he directed an offbeat Western in Rancho Notorious (1952), a first-rate police thriller in The Big Heat (1953), and a stylish costume drama in Moonfleet (1955), his films were of diminishing interest. A distinctive stylist despite the multiplicity of genres in which he worked, Lang was much admired by the French New Wave directors of the 1960s. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Bogdanovich, Peter, Fritz Lang in America (1968); Eisner, Lotte, Fritz Lang (1977); Jensen, Paul M., The Cinema of Fritz Lang (1969). Murnau, F. W. -------------------------------- (moor'-now) Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, originally surnamed Plumpe, b. Dec. 28, 1888, directed films during the German cinema's most experimental period and was perhaps the greatest of all filmmakers of the 1920s. Fewer than half of his 22 films have been preserved, but what remains is proof that he excelled in every genre he tried: the horror film, as in Nosferatu (1922); realistic lowlife drama, as in The Last Laugh (1924); and classical adaptation, as in Faust (1926). His command of lighting and composition, together with his fluent moving camera style, are also apparent in his Hollywood films--especially his masterpiece, Sunrise (1927), which transmutes melodrama into the purest cinematic poetry. Murnau was killed in a car crash near Monterey on Mar. 11, 1931, a week before the opening of his romantic South Seas narrative, Tabu. ROY ARMES Bibliography: Eisner, Lotte H., Murnau (1973). Pabst, G. W. -------------------------------- (pahpst) A major contributor to the German cinema during its experimental silent and early sound eras, director George William Pabst, b. Bohemia, Aug. 27, 1885, d. May 30, 1967, is especially identified with the straightforward portrayal of human degradation, as in two of his greatest films, Joyless Street (1925) and Pandora's Box (1929). In these he combined realism and social commentary, although he was equally adept at working in naturalistic and expressionist genres. Equally well known are Pabst's first sound films, the pacifist Westfront 1918 (1930) and Kameradschaft (1931)--whose appeal to internationalist sentiment displeased the Nazis--and his version of Brecht and Weill's Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera, 1931). His Don Quixote (1933), made in France, starred the renowned Russian singer Chaliapin in his only film role. Following World War II, Pabst made The Trial (1947) and Ten Days to Die (1955), an account of Hitler's end. Kracauer, Siegfried -------------------------------- (krah'-kow-ur, zeek'-freet) Siegfried Kracauer, b. Feb. 8, 1889, d. Nov. 26, 1966, was an influential German-Jewish film historian and theoretician best known for his championship of realism as the truest function of cinema. Cultural affairs editor (1920-33) of the Frankfurter Zeitung, Kracauer left Germany after the rise of Adolf Hitler, and during World War II he conducted research into Nazi propaganda films for New York's Museum of Modern Art. His From Caligari to Hitler (1947) was an exploration of the roots of Nazism in the German cinema of the 1920s. Kracauer's most important work, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (1960), argues--with more intensity than consistency--for a cinema devoted to the presentation of real-life people in real-life situations in a style from which all theatrical or aesthetically formal elements would be excluded. ROGER MANVELL Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich -------------------------------- (ize'-en-shtine, sir-gay' mee-ky'-loh-vich) Sergei Eisenstein, b. Jan. 23 (N.S.), 1898, d. Feb. 11, 1948, was a seminal figure in the history of FILM, known for his stylistic innovations and theory of MONTAGE. His theoretical and practical work are still intensely studied. Of a well-to-do family from Riga, now in the USSR, Eisenstein studied engineering and architecture in Petrograd, where he witnessed both the February and October revolutions of 1917. His service in the Red Army during Russia's Civil War led him to design (1920) for a front-line mobile theater troupe. Following the war, Eisenstein worked in Moscow's experimental theaters and studied under Vsevolod Meyerhold. As a designer and director for the Proletcult Theatre, Eisenstein and the experimental group he gathered around him staged Aleksandr Ostrovsky's Even a Wise Man Stumbles (1923) as a circus, incorporating into the production a short film interlude. This foreshadowed Eisenstein's subsequent theater work, all of which contained significant cinematic elements. Placed in charge of Proletcult's first large film project, Towards the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, envisioned as a series of seven historical films, Eisenstein began work on Strike (1925); combining exaggerated theatrical elements with some of the most realistic footage ever filmed by Eisenstein, this was recognized for its artistic and political power. Eisenstein's next film, a treatment of the June 1905 naval mutiny on the battleship Potemkin, received international acclaim after it was shown in Berlin. The Battleship Potemkin (1925) demonstrated abroad that the USSR could produce an original film masterpiece and also demonstrated Eisenstein's use of montage, a revolutionary film editing technique. October (1928), also known as Ten Days That Shook the World, was similarly innovative, introducing sequences that tested Eisenstein's theory of an "intellectual cinema," which aimed at nothing less than the communication of abstract thought by visual means. A propaganda film (The General Line) on behalf of the collectivization of Soviet agriculture was released in 1929 under the title Old and New. Between 1929 and 1932 Eisenstein studied foreign sound-film systems in western Europe; signed a contract with Paramount Pictures (later canceled); and, with the financial backing of Upton Sinclair, began filming an epic of Mexican culture to be called Que Viva Mexico!, all footage of which was seized by the Sinclairs after production was halted (1932). Trouble also plagued Eisenstein's projects in the USSR, where, in the 1930s, Stalin's socialist realism supplanted earlier Soviet experimentalism. The historical drama Alexander Nevsky (1938) temporarily restored Eisenstein to favor, besides showing what he could do in sound film (in collaboration with composer Sergei Prokofiev). His last film, made in Kazakhstan during World War II, was Ivan the Terrible (1944-46), of which only Part I was seen in uncensored form. Eisenstein's thoughts on film theory and practice can be found in translations of his The Film Sense (1942), Film Form (1949), Notes of a Film Director (1959), and Film Essays (1968). JAY LEYDA Bibliography: Barna, Yon, Eisenstein (1974); Moussinac, Leon, Sergei Eisenstein (1970); Montagu, Ivor, With Eisenstein in Hollywood (1968); Nizhniy, Vladimir, Lessons with Eisenstein (1962); Seton, Marie, Sergei M. Eisenstein (1952). surrealism -------------------------------- (film, literature, theater) Surrealism, meaning above realism, is an antiaesthetic movement that grew out of the nihilistic DADA movement of the years during and immediately after World War I. Its range being that of human thought itself, surrealism is limited in scope and application only by the human capacity for self-expression, which surrealists aim to expand. Writing, painting, film, sculpture, or any other art form assumes significance for the surrealist when it expresses a surrealist state of mind. Surrealism began as a revolt against the control exercised by rationality over accepted modes of communication. The first surrealists attacked inherited preconceptions about the nature and function of word poems. In 1919, Andre BRETON and Philippe Soupault produced the first specifically surrealist text, Les Champs magnetiques (Magnetic Fields, 1921), by so-called automatic writing, in which the surrealist banishes deliberate intent, leaving the pen free to express on paper the uncensored images that well up from the subconscious. Seeking to embrace all forms of creative expression in their liberative effort to attain what Breton in his 1924 Manifeste du surrealisme (Manifesto of Surrealism) called "the true functioning of thought," the surrealists set about attacking, on the broadest possible front, conventions, prescribed rules, and consecrated values--cultural as well as aesthetic. This explains, for instance, their enthusiasm for the films of Luis BUNUEL, whose L'Age d'or (The Golden Age, 1930) surpassed in violent iconoclasm even his first movie, Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1928). In its negative attitude toward literary and artistic tradition, and in its opposition to the heritage of Western culture, surrealism superficially resembled Dada, the movement with which some of its earliest members, including Louis ARAGON, Roger VITRAC, Breton, Soupault, and its greatest poet, Benjamin Peret, all had been affiliated. However, surrealism marked a stage beyond the nihilism that had inevitably brought Dada to self-destruction. Surrealism was truly international, and exponents of its revolutionary principles shared an unshakable faith in the power of the imagination to revitalize poetry and art, and to compensate for the sociopolitical and religious forces that they found so oppressive and stultifying in contemporary society. J. H. MATTHEWS Bibliography: Alquie, Ferdinand, The Philosophy of Surrealism (1965); Breton, Andre, What Is Surrealism? (1978); Gascoyne, David, A Short Survey of Surrealism (1935); Matthews, J. H., An Introduction to Surrealism (1965); Nadeau, Maurice, The History of Surrealism (1965); Read, Herbert, ed., Surrealism (1936; repr. 1971). Kazan, Elia -------------------------------- {kuh-zan', eel'-yuh}^An American stage and film director, Elia Kazan (originally Kazanjoglous), b. Istanbul, Turkey, Sept. 7, 1909, to Greek parents, became a director after a brief career as an actor with New York's Group Theater in the 1930s. His greatest success was directing plays by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947, film, 1951) and Death of a Salesman (1949). He directed the Academy Award-winning films Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and On The Waterfront (1954), as well as East of Eden (1955), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Splendor in the Grass (1961), and The Last Tycoon (1976). His two autobiographical novels, America, America (1962) and The Arrangement (1967), were turned into films in 1963 and 1968. Bibliography: Koszarski, Richard, Hollywood Directors, 1941-1976 (1977). Jolson, Al -------------------------------- (johl'-suhn) The singer Al Jolson, b. Asa Yoelson in Lithuania, c.1886, d. Oct. 23, 1950, immigrated with his family to Washington, D.C., around 1895. After a long apprenticeship as a singer in burlesque, minstrel shows, and vaudeville, he won (1911) his first important role in the Broadway show La Belle Paree. Jolson's style was notable for its vigor and volume, its blatant sentimentality, and for his use of blackface, a leftover theatrical convention from the already moribund minstrel show. His work--especially his film roles, beginning with The Jazz Singer (1927), the first major sound picture--won him a large audience during his lifetime. Jolson was awarded the Congressional Medal of Merit posthumously for his many overseas tours of wartime army camps, the last at the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. Bibliography: Friedland, Michael, Jolson (1972). Discography:Best of Al Jolson: Steppin' Out and California, Here I Come (1911-29). Duchamp, Marcel -------------------------------- (doo-shahm') Marcel Duchamp, b. July 28, 1887, d. Oct. 2, 1968, was a French painter and theorist, a major proponent of DADA, and one of the most influential figures of avant-garde 20th-century art. After a brief early period in which he was influenced chiefly by Paul CEZANNE and Fauve color (see FAUVISM), Duchamp developed a type of symbolic painting, a dynamic version of facet CUBISM (similar to FUTURISM), in which the image depicted successive movements of a single body. It closely resembled the multiple exposure photography documented in Eadward MUYBRIDGE's book The Horse in Motion (1878). In 1912, Duchamp painted his famous Nude Descending A Staircase, which caused a scandal at the 1913 ARMORY SHOW in New York City. In the same year he developed, with Francis PICABIA and Guillaume APOLLINAIRE, the radical and ironic ideas that independently prefigured the official founding of Dada in 1916 in Zurich. In Paris in 1914, Duchamp bought and inscribed a bottle rack, thereby producing his first ready-made, a new art form based on the principle that art does not depend on established rules or on craftsmanship. Duchamp's ready-mades are ordinary objects that are signed and titled, becoming aesthetic, rather than functional, objects simply by this change in context. Dada aimed at departure from the physical aspect of painting and emphases in ideas as the chief means of artistic expression. In 1915, Duchamp moved to New York City, where he was befriended by Louise and Walter Arensberg and their circle of artists and poets, which constituted New York Dada. That same year he began his major work, The Large Glass, or The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915-23), a construction of wire and painted foil fitted between plates of transparent glass. In 1918 he completed his last major painting, Tu m', a huge oil and graphite on canvas, a unique combination of real and painted objects and illusionistic and flat space. Following his maxim never to repeat himself, Duchamp "stopped" painting (1923) after 20 works and devoted himself largely to the game of chess. Nevertheless, by 1944 he had secretly begun sketches on a new project, and between 1946 and 1949 created his last work, the Etant Donnes (Philadelphia Museum of Art). BARBARA CAVALIERE Bibliography: Alexandrian, Sarane, Duchamp (1977); d'Harnoncourt, Anne, and McShine, Kynaston, eds., Marcel Duchamp (1973); Duchamp, Marcel, From the Green Box, trans. by George H. Hamilton (1957); Golding, John, Duchamp (1973); Schwarz, Arturo, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, 2d ed. (1970); Tomkins, Calvin, The World of Marcel Duchamp (1966). Renoir, Jean -------------------------------- (ren-wahr') One of the greatest and best-loved of all French filmmakers, Jean Renoir, b. Sept. 15, 1894, d. Feb. 13, 1979, the second son of the impressionist painter Auguste Renoir, exercised a major influence on French cinema for almost 50 years. From his beginnings in the silent era, aspects of his mature film style were apparent: a love of nature, rejection of class values, and a mixture of joy and sorrow. Some of his earliest films were made with his wife Catherine Hessling as star, among them an interpretation of Zola's Nana (1926), and The Little Match Girl (1928). During the 1930s Renoir was at the top of his form in two celebrations of anarchy, La Chienne (The Bitch, 1931) and Boudu sauve des eaux (Boudu Saved from Drowning, 1932). A new social concern appeared in Toni (1935), Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936), and especially La Vie est a nous (People of France, 1936), made for the French Communist party during the heyday of the Popular Front. Renoir's reputation, however, rests mainly on A Day in the Country (1936, completed 1946), based on a bittersweet de Maupassant story; a free adaptation of Gorki's The Lower Depths (1936); and the widely acclaimed Grand Illusion (1937). Two very different masterpieces written and directed by Renoir, the tightly structured The Human Beast (1938) and the largely improvised Rules of the Game (1939)--which perfectly captured the mood of France before its collapse in 1940--crowned this prolific period. Renoir spent the war years in Hollywood, but even the best of his films made in the United States, such as The Southerner (1945) and The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), lack the excitement of his prewar work. He found a new approach and a new philosophy in India, where he made his first color film, The River (1950), before returning to Europe to make the colorful and relaxed films of his maturity: The Golden Coach (1952), French Can Can (1954), and Paris Does Strange Things (1956). Always an innovator, Renoir used television techniques in the 1959 filming of Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier and Picnic on the Grass, the latter strongly evocative of the sun-filled landscapes beloved by his father. For his last film, The Elusive Corporal (1962), set in World War II, he returned to themes earlier explored in Grand Illusion and The Lower Depths. Renoir's considerable influence on the French New Wave directors of the late 1950s can be seen especially in the films of Francois Truffaut. ROY ARMES Bibliography: Bazin, Andre, Jean Renoir, ed. by Francois Truffaut (1973); Braudy, Leo, Jean Renoir--The World of His Films (1972); Durgnat, Raymond, Jean Renoir (1974); Gilliatt, Penelope, Jean Renoir: Essays, Conversations, and Reviews (1975); Renoir, Jean, My Life and My Films (1974). Melies, Georges -------------------------------- {may-lee-es'}^A major contributor to the development of world cinema in its formative years, the Frenchman Georges Melies, b. Paris, Dec. 6, 1861, d. Jan. 21, 1938, began his career as a conjurer. He was attracted to the cinema immediately after seeing the first Lumiere showings in 1895 and soon developed his own distinctive studio-based style. Melies was fascinated by the spectacle and trickery possible in the cinema, and his hundreds of little films, mostly dealing with fantastic subjects, are full of dancing girls and acrobatic devils, awe-inspiring disasters and miraculous transformations. For 10 years after 1896, Melies's Star Film company was a dominant force in the film industry, producing such inventive and amusing short subjects as A Trip to the Moon (1902) and New York-Paris by Automobile (1908). His production methods and conception of film action as a sequence of tableaux, however, gradually became outdated. He ceased production in 1912 and was reduced to poverty. ROY ARMES Bibliography: Hammond, Paul, Marvellous Melies (1974). neorealism -------------------------------- Neorealism as an Italian literary movement can be said to have begun in 1929 with Alberto MORAVIA's Time of Indifference (Eng. trans., 1932), a novel that unflinchingly addressed highly sensitive moral, social, and political issues during the early repressive years of Mussolini's dictatorship. The movement developed slowly, however, until the overthrow of the fascist regime in 1943. Neorealist novels of the next 12 years by such disparate writers as Vasco PRATOLINI, Domenico Rea, and Italo CALVINO focused on the plight of working-class people and thus represented a break with the elitist tradition that had characterized Italian literature for centuries. Neorealism, both as a style and as a political outlook, became even better known internationally through the 1940s and postwar films of Italian directors Luchino VISCONTI (Ossessione, 1942; La Terra Trema, 1948), Roberto ROSSELLINI (Open City, 1945; Paisan, 1947), and Vittorio DE SICA (Shoeshine, 1946; The Bicycle Thief, 1948; Umberto D., 1952). SERGIO PACIFICI De Sica, Vittorio -------------------------------- (day see'-kah) The Italian film director and actor Vittorio De Sica, b. July 7, 1901, d. Nov. 13, 1974, achieved international recognition after World War II for his important contributions to Italian neorealistic cinema as well as for his numerous, mostly comic, starring roles. Trained in the 1920s for the stage, De Sica won success as a film actor in the 1930s and directed his first film, Rose Scarlette, in 1940. The Children Are Watching Us (1942) marked the beginning of his long collaboration with the screenwriter and theorist of neorealism Cesare Zavattini. Fame came with Shoeshine (1946), a harsh social commentary on war-ravaged Italy that exemplified the neorealist style. This was followed by Bicycle Thieves (1948), the story of an unemployed man's search for work; the fantasy Miracle in Milan (1951); and Umberto D (1952), a haunting portrayal of a poor and hopeless old man. During the 1950s, De Sica appeared in more than 50 films, playing his most memorable role as the scoundrel-turned-hero of General della Rovere (1959). In the 1960s he concentrated on commercial successes, two of which--Two Women (1960) and Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1963)--won Academy Awards. With The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), about the plight of Jews in Fascist Italy, De Sica returned to the social commentary, but not the style, of his earlier films. His last picture was A Brief Vacation (1973). GAUTAM DASGUPTA Losey, Joseph -------------------------------- {loh'-zee}^Although forced to abandon his career in the United States when blacklisted in the 1950s, Joseph Losey, b. La Crosse, Wis., Jan. 14, 1909, d. June 22, 1984, went on to become an important director in the British film industry. After extensive stage experience, Losey made his first feature film, The Boy with Green Hair, in 1948. This was followed by several taut melodramas--The Lawless (1950), The Prowler (1951), M (1951; a remake of Fritz Lang's classic), and The Big Night (1951)--that some still consider his best work. In 1952, during a period in which he was forced to work pseudonymously, he moved to London. There Losey gained international recognition with The Servant (1963), a film that marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with playwright Harold PINTER, later resumed in Accident (1967) and The Go-Between (1971). The charged atmospherics of these films also characterized such subsequent Losey efforts without Pinter as The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) and Mr. Klein (1977). WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Hirsch, Joseph, Joseph Losey (1980); Leahy, James, The Cinema of Joseph Losey (1967); Losey, Joseph, Losey on Losey, ed. by Tom Milne (1968). Visconti, Luchino -------------------------------- An aristocrat by birth and a Marxist by inclination, Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti, b. Nov. 2, 1906, d. Mar. 17, 1976, is known both for his contributions to NEOREALISM and his frank aestheticism. After working with Renoir, he directed his first film, Ossessione (1942), an antecedent, and arguably one of the masterpieces, of neorealist cinema. In the film self-destructive sexual passions are played out against a landscape of extraordinary beauty. Visconti used documentary techniques in his next film, La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles, 1948), to describe the lives of peasants in a Sicilian fishing village. One of his favorite themes was the tension between family solidarity and the destructive power of family relationships, best expressed in Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Damned (1969). Visconti's first film in color, Senso (1953), brilliantly portraying political and sexual conflicts during the Austro-Italian war of 1866, displayed the lavish attention to detail and love for period reconstructions that would become his hallmarks in such literary adaptations as The Leopard (1963), The Stranger (1967), Death in Venice (1971), and The Innocent (1978). GAUTAM DASGUPTA Bibliography: Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, Luchino Visconti (1973); Stirling, Monica, Screen of Time: A Study of Luchino Visconti (1979). Fellini, Federico -------------------------------- {fel-lee'-nee, fay-day-ree'-koh}^Federico Fellini, Italy's most famous filmmaker, b. Jan. 20, 1920, has worked with equal enthusiasm and undiminished energy as an exponent of neorealism, as the creator of symbolic fantasies, and as a popularizer of the flamboyant and grotesque. His personal signature is nowhere more evident than in the cinematic classics La Strada and La Dolce Vita.^After starting in Rome as a cartoonist and sketch writer, Fellini turned in 1939 to script writing, collaborating with Roberto Rossellini on such neorealist films as Open City (1945) and The Miracle (1948)--in which he also acted--before emerging as a director on his own. The White Skeikh (1952), his first solo effort, showed his inventiveness as a comic director, and I Vitelloni (1953), an evocation of the Rimini of his youth, demonstrated his insight into the provincial bourgeoisie. La Strada (1954), starring his wife Giulietta Masina, secured his position as a major director and won a 1956 Academy Award as the best foreign film. With its comedy and pathos, stunning visual effects, and haunting musical score, it prodded the viewer into an awareness of the quixotic nature of life that remains for Fellini a central truth. This mood was continued in Nights of Cabiria (1956).^In later films Fellini began to explore more fully the relationship between reality and dream. La Dolce Vita (1960), a sensational indictment of the indolence and decadence of modern Rome, was followed by the more openly symbolic 81/2 (1963), in which Fellini used Pirandellian techniques to comment on his creative problems as an artist, and Juliet of the Spirits (1965). Critics were less happy with the exaggerations and thematic repetitiveness of Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972), and Casanova (1976). All Fellini's strengths--and few of his excesses--coalesced in Amarcord (1974), a brilliantly nostalgic portrait of his boyhood in Rimini during the early years of the fascist era. This and his television film, The Clowns (1970), reveal the essentially autobiographical wellsprings of Fellini's art. City of Women (1981) returned to his dream theme. His later films include And the Ship Sails On (1984) and Ginger and Fred (1986), which reunited Fellini and Masina on the screen. Bibliography: Bonadella, Peter, ed., Federico Fellini: Essays in Criticism (1978); Fellini, Federico, Fellini on Fellini, trans. by Isabel Quigley (1976); Murray, Edward, Fellini the Artist (1976); Rosenthal, Stuart, The Cinema of Federico Fellini (1976). Antonioni, Michelangelo -------------------------------- {ahn-toh-nee-oh'-nee, mee-kel-ahn'-jel-oh}^Michelangelo Antonioni, b. Sept. 29, 1912, is an Italian director best known for a trilogy of films begun in 1959 that created a sense of despair through the juxtaposition of haunting visual imagery, elliptical, mysterious plots, and the portrayal of neurotic, empty lives. He began his career in the cinema as a film critic and scriptwriter and, after working with Roberto Rossellini and Marcel Carne, made his debut as a director in 1943 with the documentary Gente del Po (The People of the Po Valley). Cronaca di un Amore (Chronicle of a Love, 1950), his first feature, represented a break with the neorealist tradition. Two later films, Le Amiche (The Friends, 1955) and Il Grido (The Cry, 1957), were slow-paced and deliberately obscure in narrative structure. Antonioni's distinctive style reached its highest expression in the trilogy L'Avventura (The Adventure, 1959), La Notte (Night, 1960), and L'Eclisse (The Eclipse, 1962). In these films, and in the machine-dominated Deserto Rosso (Red Desert, 1964), his first color film, mystery and eroticism merge in landscapes of compelling beauty. Antonioni's subsequent English-language films, Blow-Up (1966), Zabriskie Point (1970), and The Passenger (1975), and Identification Of A Woman (1982) had less success with the critics despite their stylistic interest. Bibliography: Cameron, Ian, and Wood, Robin, Antonioni (1969); Sarris, Andrew, ed., Interviews with Film Directors (1968). Wertmuller, Lina -------------------------------- {wairt'-muhl-ur}^A highly original and controversial Italian filmmaker, Lina Wertmuller, b. c.1926, specializes in melodramatic tragicomedies characterized by an idiosyncratic blend of wit, irony, socialist dialectics, and sheer grotesquerie. She has taken on such themes as economic exploitation and the inability of the striving worker to rise above it in The Seduction of Mimi (1972), an anarchist's abortive attempt to assassinate Mussolini in Love and Anarchy (1973), the subordination of natural love to class interests in Swept Away (1975), and the insanities to which chauvinism--male or national--can lead in Seven Beauties (1976). In 1977 she directed her first English language film, The End of the World in Our Usual Bed in A Night Full of Rain. Her other films include Blood Feud (1978), A Joke of Destiny (1983), and Sotto Sotto (1985). She directed an off-Broadway play entitled Love and Magic in Mama's Kitchen (1983) and wrote the novel The Head of Alvise (1982). Wertmuller has demonstrated rare ingenuity in mixing the tragic with the farcical but is more successful in communicating her love for human nature than any political message. ELEANOR M. GATES Bibliography: Ferlita, Ernest, and May, John R., Parables of Lina Wertmuller (1977). Guinness, Sir Alec -------------------------------- (gin'-es) Alec Guinness, b. Apr. 2, 1914, is an English stage and screen actor known particularly for his character roles and comic impersonations. He was a respected member of the Old Vic when roles in film adaptations of two Dickens novels--Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946) and Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948)--brought him a larger public. He became better known through bravura performances in such British film comedies as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), and The Ladykillers (1955). Guinness received an Oscar for his performance in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and was knighted in 1959. Guinness subsequently gave distinguished dramatic performances in Tunes of Glory (1960), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Star Wars (1977). Since 1980, Guinness has made several television appearances that further attest to his versatility as a character actor, including his highly acclaimed performances as George Smiley in the television miniseries "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (1980) and its sequel, "Smiley's People" (1981)--both based on John LECARRE novels. Bibliography: Tynan, Kenneth, Alec Guinness: An Illustrated Study of His Work for Stage and Screen, 3d ed. (1961). Kurosawa, Akira -------------------------------- {koo-roh'-sah-wah, ah-kee'-rah}^The best-known Japanese film director, Akira Kurosawa, b. Mar. 23, 1910, first achieved international recognition with Rashomon (1950)--a brilliant study of a crime of violence told from four different points of view--which won the 1951 Venice grand prize. His reputation within Japan, however, was based on a series of chambara (sword-fight) epics set in feudal times, such as Sugata Sanshiro (1943), The Seven Samurai (1954), and Yojimbo (1961). Kurosawa has also dealt sensitively with contemporary themes in Ikiru (1952), about a lonely old man dying of cancer; High and Low (1963), a taut crime drama set in modern Yokohama; and Red Beard (1965), an indictment of social injustice. Known for his use of multiple cameras, extended takes, and tight editing, Kurosawa has made screen adaptations of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot (1951), Gorky's The Lower Depths (1957), and Shakespeare's Macbeth (Throne of Blood, 1957). Dersu Uzala (1976), which won an Academy Award, was made in the USSR. With Kagemusha (1980), he returned to Japan and to the medieval drama he has exploited so successfully in the past. His samurai adaptation of King Lear, Ran (1985), was both a critical and popular success. Kurosawa's reminiscenses (Something Like an Autobiography, trans. by Audie E. Bock) were published in 1982. Bibliography: Mellen, Joan, Voices from the Japanese Cinema (1975); Richie, Donald, The Films of Akira Kurosawa (1965). Sato, Tadao, Currents in Japanese Cinema (1982). Pinter, Harold -------------------------------- {pin'-tur}^Harold Pinter, b. Oct. 10, 1930, one of England's leading contemporary playwrights, studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began his theatrical career as an actor. He wrote his first play, The Room, in 1957, but first established himself as a highly original talent in 1960 with The Caretaker, a characteristic Pinteresque drama in its evocation of terror amid farcical "business" and sometimes fanciful dialogue. Typically, Pinter's solipsistic characters seek security, self-identification, and verification of truth but find communication virtually impossible. Instead, there are pathetic games, cliches, long silences, and sinister threats, all presented in suspenseful yet comic plots. Akin to the theater of the absurd, Pinter's plays have more accurately been called "comedies of menace."^In Pinter's first full-length play, The Birthday Party (1958), for instance, two gangsters interrogate and terrorize a nervous young pianist. The Caretaker (1960) centers on an old derelict who intrudes on two mysterious brothers and is ultimately thrown out by them. Pinter's reputation as an allusive and controversial dramatist grew significantly with The Homecoming (1965), in which a married couple visits the lower-class father and brothers of the husband, now a philosophy professor in the United States, and the wife finally remains in England to serve the family as a prostitute. Two later plays, Old Times (1971) and No Man's Land (1975), deal, respectively, with a middle-aged couple, their mysterious visitor (who once knew the wife), and the power of memory to wound; and the curious relationship between two elderly men of letters, one a success, the other a failure.^A less typical, lyrical Pinter double bill consists of the solitary reminiscences of a sentimental wife and her bluff but unimaginative mate (Landscape, 1968) and of a woman and two men with whom she once kept company (Silence, 1969). More characteristic of Pinter are the one-act plays The Dumb Waiter (1960), The Lover (1963), Tea Party (1965), and The Basement (1967).^Pinter has written screenplays for his own The Caretaker (1962) and The Birthday Party (1969) as well as for three films directed by Joseph Losey: The Servant (1963), Accident (1967), and The Go-Between (1971). The controversial screenplay for the movie The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981; John Fowles's novel) was also by Pinter. He also adapted Russell Hoban's novel Turtle Diary (1985) for the screen. Since 1967 Pinter has also directed such plays as Simon Gray's Butley (1971; film, 1973) and Otherwise Engaged (1975). His most recent plays are Betrayal (1979; film, 1983, from Pinter's screenplay), and Family Voices (1981). In 1985 he directed Lauren Bacall in a London production of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. MYRON MATLAW Bibliography: Dukore, Bernard F., Where Laughter Stops: Pinter's Tragicomedy (1976); Esslin, Martin, The Peopled Wound: The Work of Harold Pinter (1970); Gale, Steven H., Butter's Going Up: A Critical Analysis of Harold Pinter's Work (1977); Hayman, Ronald, Harold Pinter (1973); Hinchliffe, Arnold, Harold Pinter (1975). Mizoguchi, Kenji -------------------------------- (mee'-zoh-goo-chee, ken'-jee) The Japanese film director Kenji Mizoguchi, b. May 16, 1898, d. Aug. 24, 1956, is best known for his jidai-geki, or "period dramas," with their portrayal of the horrors of war, the lives of courtesans, and male-female relationships. His films (about 80) are wrought with a beauty and clarity unparalleled in Japanese cinema. Early productions dealt with the sufferings of women; his later efforts, such as Saikaku Ichidai Onna (The Life of Oharu, 1952), Ugetsu Monogatari (1953), and Chikamatsu Monogatari (1954), reflect his meditative style, which is characterized by long takes, a virtually immobile camera, few close-ups, and slow dissolves. GAUTAM DASGUPTA Bibliography: Anderson, Joseph L., and Richie, Donald, The Jap anese Film (1959). Ray, Satyajit -------------------------------- {ry, suht'-yuh-jit}^Satyajit Ray, b. May 2, 1922, is India's foremost film director. A versatile craftsman who has worked in several film genres, Ray is known best outside India for his moving depictions of Indian family life. His acknowledged masterpiece, the neorealist trilogy made up of Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), and The World of Apu (1959), lyrically chronicles the day-to-day activities of a rural Bengali family and the coming of age of the boy Apu. Two other outstanding Ray films, Jalsaghar (The Music Room, 1958) and Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963), deal with the changing nature of contemporary Indian life, whereas Charulata (1964) is a graceful adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore's classic portrait of the Indian middle classes in the Victorian era. In later films such as Aranyer din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest, 1970), Pratidwandi (The Adversary, 1970), and Seemabadha (Company Ltd., 1971), Ray has focused on political and social themes without losing his humanistic perspective. He composed the music for many of his films, including the Ghare baire (Home of the World, 1984), based on Tagore's novel about the Bengal in the early 20th century. GAUTAM DASGUPTA Bibliography: Seton, Marie, Portrait of a Director: Satyajit Ray (1971). Bergman, Ingrid -------------------------------- Ingrid Bergman, b. Aug. 29, 1915, d. Aug. 29, 1982, was a popular stage and film actress in her native Sweden before going to Hollywood, where she made an English-language version of her Swedish hit Intermezzo (1939). Bergman was probably best known for her roles in Casablanca (1942); For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943); Gaslight (1944), for which she received her first Academy Award; The Bells of St. Mary's (1945); and two Alfred HITCHCOCK films, Spellbound (1945) and Notorious (1946). She returned to Europe after the scandalous publicity surrounding her affair with Italian director Roberto ROSSELLINI (whom she later married and divorced) during the filming of Stromboli (1950). But she returned to Hollywood and triumphed in Anastasia (1956), for which she received another Oscar. She received a third for her role in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). She also starred in Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata (1978). Her last role was in the television film A Woman Called Golda (1981). Bibliography: Bergman, Ingrid, and Burgess, Allan, Ingrid Bergman: My Story (1980); Quirk, Lawrence J., The Films of Ingrid Bergman (1970; repr. 1975). Bergman, Ingmar -------------------------------- Ingmar Ernst Bergman, b. July 14, 1918, is a major Swedish filmmaker who for over 20 years has sustained a reputation as an artist of international stature. The son of a Lutheran pastor, Bergman attended Stockholm University and began his directing career in the theater, where he continues to work as extensively as he does in films. He wrote the screenplay for the director Alf Sjoberg's internationally acclaimed Torment in 1944, and the next year he directed his first film, Crisis.^Although Bergman's Illicit Interlude (1950) was moderately successful and the lighthearted Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) even more so, it was only after The Seventh Seal (1957), which made an extraordinarily powerful impression with its despairing philosophy and stark medieval imagery, that a widespread interest developed in such earlier Bergman films as The Naked Night (1953) and A Lesson in Love (1956). With The Seventh Seal, Bergman definitively established the theme that was to characterize virtually all his subsequent work--the individual's quasi-religious search for faith in a context of anguished doubt. This is central to such varied films as Wild Strawberries (1957), The Magician (1958), The Virgin Spring (1960), and his "chamber" trilogy: Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), and The Silence (1963).^By the mid-1960s Bergman had assembled a group of actors into a now familiar stock company, among them Max VON SYDOW, Liv ULLMANN, Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, and Ingrid Thulin. In 1966 he undertook a greater formal experimentation with Persona, an intriguing psychological study of two women that is considered by many one of his most important works. This was followed by a less successful Gothic exercise, Hour of the Wolf (1968); an antiwar allegory, Shame (1968); and a more realistic film, The Passion of Anna (1969). In the searing Cries and Whispers (1972), Bergman again used Gothic and dreamlike elements, this time in an intense exploration of the relationship among three sisters, but that film was followed by the naturalistic simplicity of Scenes from a Marriage (1974), a great popular success. Critics were less pleased with some of Bergman's later work, finding the subject matter of Face to Face (1975) overly familiar and rating his English-language The Serpent's Egg (1977) an overall failure. Autumn Sonata (1978) and From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) were critical successes, however, although the latter failed at the box office. Fanny and Alexander (1983), a rich and fantastic portrait of childhood in a theatrical family, was regarded as one of his finest films and won an Academy Award for best foreign language film of 1983. Subsequently, Bergman directed After the Rehearsal (1984), his meditation on a life in the theater. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Bergman, Ingmar, Bergman on Bergman (1973); Cowie, Peter, Ingmar Bergman: A Critical Biography (1982); Marker, Lise-Lone and Frederick J., Ingmar Bergman; Four Decades in the Theater (1982); Mosley, Philip, Ingmar Bergman: The Cinema as Mistress (1981); Petrie, Vlada, ed., Film and Dreams: An Approach to Bergman (1981); Simon, John, Ingmar Bergman Directs (1972); Wood, Robin, Ingmar Bergman (1969). New Wave -------------------------------- The term New Wave (in French, Nouvelle Vague) is used to identify the movement and style of a group of French film directors, including Claude CHABROL, Jean Luc GODARD, Alain RESNAIS, and Francois TRUFFAUT, who made their first feature films between 1958 and 1961. Most wrote for the film journal CAHIERS DU CINEMA and helped develop the auteur (director-oriented) theory of film criticism. Rejecting traditional French film directing, they advocated instead the more personal and autobiographical approach used in such films as Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959). They also emulated American genre films, such as the detective movie, and favored low-budget location shooting over studio filming. Visually, they quoted from one another and employed mobile camera techniques and rapid jump cuts, such as those found in Godard's Breathless (1959). Bibliography: Graham, Peter J., comp., The New Wave: Critical Landmarks (1968). Resnais, Alain 0re-nay'0 -------------------------------- Known for his innovative literary approach to film, Alain Resnais, b. June 3, 1922, became one of the leading directors of French NEW WAVE cinema when it emerged in the late 1950s. Before his feature debut Resnais had spent 11 years making brilliant documentary films on subjects ranging from the painter Van Gogh (1948) and Picasso's Guernica (1950) to the manufacture of polystyrene (1958) and the French National Library (1956). His most celebrated documentary, however, remains Night and Fog (1955), an unforgettable look at the Nazi extermination camp system. All Resnais's full-length films are marked by a profound social concern and precise visual style. Each has been made in collaboration with a writer who is also a novelist or playwright of note, and each is characterized both by a totally novel structure and by a fascination with the exploration of time and memory, illusion and reality. Resnais's impact is shown by the way in which all of his early collaborators--Marguerite Duras on Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Alain Robbe-Grillet on Last Year at Marienbad (1961), Jean Cayrol on Muriel (1963), and Jorge Semprun on La Guerre est finie (1966)--have gone on to direct their own feature films. After a long break from filmmaking in the early 1970s, Resnais returned with two cool but exquisitely shot films, Stavisky (1974) and Providence (1977). Mon Oncle d'Amerique (1981), made in collaboration with screenwriter Jean Gruault, was critically and commercially his most successful film since La Guerre est Finie. Resnais again teamed with Gruault for La Vie Est un Roman (1983; trans. as Life Is a Bed of Roses). ROY ARMES Bibliography: Armes, Roy, The Cinema of Alain Resnais (1968); Monaco, James, Alain Resnais (1978); Ward, John, Alain Resnais or the Theme of Time (1968). Chabrol, Claude -------------------------------- {shah-brawl'}^Claude Chabrol, b. June 24, 1930, is one of the original film directors of French NEW WAVE cinema. He is best known for his thriller films made in homage to Alfred Hitchcock, about whom he coauthored Hitchcock (1957). Chabrol has also been a critic for the influential film journal Cahiers du Cinema, and his first picture, Le Beau Serge (1958), is generally credited with establishing the New Wave style. Other works of this skilled and prolific filmmaker include Les Cousins (1958), Les Biches (1968), La Femme infidele (1968), Le Boucher (1969), Juste avant la nuit (1971), Ophelia (1973), Folies Bourgeoise (1977), Blood Relatives (1979), and Le Sang des Autres (1983). Bibliography: Wood, Robin, and Walker, Michael, Claude Chabrol (1970). Bertolucci, Bernardo -------------------------------- (bair-toh-loo'-chee) The Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci, b. Mar. 16, 1940, is internationally known for such films as The Conformist (1970), a searing portrait of fascism, and the controversial Last Tango in Paris (1972). He was greatly influenced by his mentor, Pier Paolo PASOLINI. The later influence of Jean-Luc GODARD is seen in Partner (1968) and that of Alain RESNAIS in The Spider's Strategy (1970). Bertolucci's remarkable use of setting and his precise camera movements, radical political viewpoint, and stringent emotionalism have culminated in such other films as his 6-hour-long epic 1900 (1975). In Luna (1979), however, critics saw his camera moves as overdeliberate, contrasting with the visually restrained moves of Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1982). GAUTAM DASGUPTA Bibliography: Gelmis, Joseph, The Film Director as Superstar (1970). Godard, Jean Luc -------------------------------- {goh-dahr', zhawn luek}^One of the most influential film directors of the 1960s, Jean Luc Godard, b. Paris, Dec. 3, 1930, of Swiss parents, is best known for his innovative NEW WAVE films and for his increasingly radical approaches to politics and art. His experimental use of the hand-held camera, jump cuts, and flash-shots; his disregard for cinematic continuity; and his recourse to question-and-answer sessions within films to illustrate philosophical dialectics did much to revolutionize cinema.^A lively and controversial contributor to the important journal Cahiers du Cinema from 1952 on, Godard made several shorts before directing his first feature, Breathless (1959). In Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier, 1960), on the Algerian War, and other films, Godard combined documentary with fictional footage in an attempt to arrive at a truth beyond art or reality.^Godard's early films dealt with the nature and contradictions of modern society. Of particular interest to him was the place of women in society. Une Femme est une femme (A Woman is a Woman, 1961), a film on male-female relationships with a happy ending, was followed by the more biting and ironic My Life to Live (1962), on prostitution, Une Femme mariee (A Married Woman, 1964), Masculin-Feminin (1966), and Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966). Their themes rested on the notion of woman as object, but his approach brought into question the entire commodity-advertising nexus of today's consumer society--as did his more blatant attacks on materialism, Alphaville (1965) and Weekend (1968).^In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Godard's work became increasingly experimental and noncommercial. In such films as Made in USA (1966), La Chinoise (1967), Sympathy for the Devil (1968), starring the Rolling Stones, and the autobiographical Tout va bien (Everything's Fine, 1972), Godard subordinated considerations of plot and pared down his visual imagery to a few static tableaux and became increasingly devoted to Marxist polemics. Later, however, Godard returned to commercial filmmaking with his Every Man for Himself (1981), Passion (1983), First Name Carmen (1984) and Detective (1985). His treatment of religious themes in Hail Mary (1985) generated much controversy. GAUTAM DASGUPTA Bibliography: Barr, Charles, et al., The Films of Jean-Luc Godard (1970); Brown, Royal S., ed., Focus on Godard (1972); Collet, Jean, Jean-Luc Godard, trans. by Ciba Vaughan, rev. ed. (1970); Kawin, Bruce F., Mindscreen: Bergman, Godard, and the Language of First-Person Film (1978); Kriedl, John Francis, Jean-Luc Godard (1980). Malle, Louis -------------------------------- (mahl) Louis Malle, b. Oct. 30, 1932, is a French film director known for his eclecticism, unconventional themes, and willingness to experiment. After serving as an assistant to Jacques Cousteau and Robert Bresson, Malle in 1957 directed his first film, Frantic (French title: L'Ascenseur pour l'echafaud), which introduced actress Jeanne Moreau and photographer Henri Decae to the cinema-going public. With such later films as The Lovers (1958) and Zazie in the Metro (1960), Malle came to be recognized as a director with an acute eye for detail and characterization. The Fire Within (1963), a penetrating study of an alcoholic, was followed by a musical-comedy romp set in revolutionary Mexico, Viva Maria (1965), starring the surprising duo of Moreau and Brigitte Bardot. Malle's refusal to indulge in psychology and his love of extremes in human nature have prompted him to tackle--successfully and with humor--an incestuous relationship between mother and son in Murmur of the Heart (1971) and--with somewhat mixed results--child prostitution in Pretty Baby (1978). Considered his finest film, the controversial Lacombe, Lucien (1974) sympathetically portrays the life of a teenaged French collaborator with the German army of occupation. Malle has continued to demonstrate his versatility with such films as the anti-heroic black comedy Atlantic City (1981; screenplay by John GUARE), about has-beens who have lived their lives in a resort town and hopefuls who arrive because of the casino boom. My Dinner with Andre (1982) consisted of two men philosophizing over dinner about spirituality and the artist's role in society. Crackers (1983) depicted a bumbling group of down-and-out thieves in San Francisco. In 1982, Malle directed an off-Broadway production of Guare's play Lydie Breeze. Malle has also made several highly regarded films on India. GAUTAM DASGUPTA Davis, Bette -------------------------------- Bette Davis is the stage name of Ruth Elizabeth Davis, b. Apr. 5, 1908, for many years one of Hollywood's most popular actresses. Known for her striking, determined looks, distinctive voice, and outspoken press comments, Davis won the Academy Award as best actress in Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). Particularly acclaimed among Davis's many performances are her roles in Dark Victory (1939), Elizabeth and Essex (1939), The Little Foxes (1941), Watch on the Rhine (1943), All About Eve (1950), and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), in which she played an insane, aging child star. In recent years she has primarily appeared in television films such as Little Gloria . . . Happy at Last and A Piano for Mrs. Cimino (both 1982), and the pilot of the series Hotel (1983). Davis received the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute in 1976. LESLIE HALLIWELL Bibliography: Hyman, B. D., My Mother's Keeper (1985); Ringgold, Gene, Films of Bette Davis (1970); Stine, Whitney, Mother Goddam (1974); Vermilye, Jerry, Bette Davis (1973) Grant, Cary -------------------------------- Cary Grant is the professional name of English-born Alexander Archibald Leach, b. Jan. 18, 1904, who won world fame in dozens of Hollywood movies as the quintessentially debonair, self-confident sophisticate. Appearing in films from 1932 on, he played roles particularly suited to his talents in The Awful Truth (1937) and My Favorite Wife (1940) opposite Irene Dunne, in The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Katharine Hepburn, and in such Alfred Hitchcock thrillers as Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959). Grant retired in 1970. Bibliography: Deschner, Donald, The Films of Cary Grant (1973); Govoni, Albert, Cary Grant (1971). Cooper, Gary -------------------------------- Gary Cooper, b. Helena, Mont., May 7, 1901, d. May 13, 1961, was the stage name of Frank James Cooper, one of the most famous of Hollywood's film stars. Known especially for his portrayals of strong, silent heroes, he won Academy awards for two such characterizations: Sergeant York (1941) and High Noon (1952). Cooper played variations on this role in films such as The Virginians (1929), A Farewell to Arms (1933), The Plainsman (1937), Beau Geste (1939), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), and The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955). His lighter comic and romantic films include Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Love in the Afternoon (1957). LESLIE HALLIWELL Gable, Clark -------------------------------- Such was the brash charm of American film actor Clark Gable, b. Feb. 1, 1901, d. Nov. 16, 1960, that for 30 years he was the undisputed king of Hollywood. As a fast-talking he-man, he was noted for the force of his personality more than for acting talent. Gable appeared in such classic films as Red Dust (1932); It Happened One Night, for which he won the Academy Award (1934); Mutiny On The Bounty (1935); San Francisco (1936); and, most notably, as Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind (1939). His postwar films were popular but far less memorable. He died during the filming of The Misfits (1961). LESLIE HALLIWELL Bibliography: Tornabene, Lyn, Long Live the King (1977). Sternberg, Josef von -------------------------------- The films of Austrian-American director Josef von Sternberg, pseudonym of Jonas Stern, b. Vienna, May 29, 1894, d. Dec. 22, 1969, are perhaps the supreme example of the narrative film's pursuit of visual beauty at the expense of dramatic values. Sternberg had his first popular success with Underworld (1927), which was followed by The Docks of New York (1928) and Thunderbolt (1929). Sternberg then went to Germany to direct The Blue Angel (1930), a sensational success that inaugurated the director's long association with his "discovery," Marlene DIETRICH. Their early films together--Morocco (1930), Dishonoured (1931), and Shanghai Express (1932)--displayed the visual dynamism that distinguished Sternberg's previous work, but this gradually gave way in The Scarlet Empress (1934) and The Devil Is a Woman (1935) to increasingly static and purely decorative glorifications of Dietrich's mystique. Following the increasingly unpopular Dietrich cycle, Sternberg worked rarely, and, of his later films, only The Shanghai Gesture (1941) and Anatahan (1953) are notable. His autobiography, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, appeared in 1965. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Baxter, John, The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg (1971); Sarris, Andrew, The Films of Josef von Sternberg (1966); Weinberg, Herman, Josef von Sternberg (1967). Hawks, Howard -------------------------------- In a career that stretched back to silent movies, the film director Howard Hawks, b. Goshen, Ind., May 30, 1896, d. Dec. 26, 1977, contributed notably to virtually every movie genre: the gangster film in Scarface (1932), screwball comedy in Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940), the war film in The Dawn Patrol (1930) and Air Force (1943), action-adventure in To Have and Have Not (1944), the private-eye film in The Big Sleep (1946), the Western in Red River (1948), and the musical in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Whether Hawks's films live up to the largest claims of his admirers, few other directors have better exemplified the virtues of the Hollywood professional. Although his films typically concentrate on a group bound by professionalism in some common endeavor, their enduring pleasure results less from their subjects or themes than from a resolute unpretentiousness and brisk, direct style. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: McBride, Joseph, ed., Focus on Howard Hawks (1972); Willis, Donald, The Films of Howard Hawks (1975); Wood, Robin, Howard Hawks (1968). Capra, Frank -------------------------------- The American film director Frank Capra, b. May 18, 1897, virtually created a genre with his popular 1930s film comedies. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) was the prototype for Capra's most characteristic films, in which an idealistic innocent is pitted against the forces of corruption in an apparently hopeless but ultimately victorious battle. Capra won Academy Awards for best direction with It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds (1936), and You Can't Take It With You (1938). With an ever-increasing stylistic virtuosity, he went on to make Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), and It's A Wonderful Life (1946). His Lost Horizon (1937) and Arsenic and Old Lace (1942) also proved popular. He was in charge of the U.S. government's war documentary series Why We Fight (1942-45). His autobiography, The Name Above the Title, appeared in 1971. In 1982 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Film Institute.^ WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Glatzer, Richard, and Raeburn, John, eds., Frank Capra: The Man and His Films (1975); Poague, Leland A., The Cinema of Frank Capra (1975); Willis, Donald C., The Films of Frank Capra (1974). Ford, John -------------------------------- (playwright) John Ford, b. Apr. 17, 1586, d. c.1630, was an English playwright, generally considered the best of the late Stuart dramatists (1625-40). After writing several nondramatic pieces, Ford collaborated with Thomas Dekker on The Witch of Edmonton (1621). Among the seven intense, pessimistic tragedies he wrote on his own are: The Lovers's Melancholy (1628), The Broken Heart (1633), 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1633), and Perkin Warbeck (1634). Influenced by Robert Burton and contemporary Neoplatonism, Ford's drama deals with a variety of love relationships. Although sometimes prurient, the plays in general are carefully balanced in their presentation of questionable moral stances. W. L. GODSHALK Bibliography: Anderson, Donald K., Jr., John Ford (1972); Leech, Clifford, John Ford and the Drama of His Time (1957); Stavig, Mark, John Ford and the Traditional Moral Order (1968). Ford, John -------------------------------- (film director) John Ford was the name adopted by Sean Aloysius O'Feeny, b. Feb. 1, 1895, d. Aug. 31, 1973, an American film director whose works are noted for their sustained creativity, breadth of vision, and pictorial beauty. Ford began directing Westerns in 1917, but his first great success was not until The Iron Horse (1924), followed by another, Three Bad Men (1926). Thirteen more years passed, however, before Ford, whose name became associated with the Western film, would make another, Stagecoach (1939), still regarded as a classic of the genre. In the intervening years he directed such varied works as Judge Priest (1934), The Informer (1935), Steamboat Round the Bend (1935), and The Hurricane (1937). Stagecoach was followed by an outpouring of major works--Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Long Voyage Home (1940), and How Green Was My Valley (1941). These films celebrated community life and were imbued with an elegiacal sense of the past. The war years resulted in the first American war documentary, The Battle of Midway (1942), and another of Ford's enduring works, They Were Expendable (1945). After the war, Ford returned to the Western with the lyrical My Darling Clementine (1946); a loose trilogy of cavalry life--Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950); and an innovative blending of song and story in Wagonmaster (1950). During the six years before Ford's next Western, he directed The Quiet Man (1952)--a touching and humorous story of an Irish-American's return to his homeland--and several other films. Returning to the Western with The Searchers (1956), Ford revealed a new ambiguity in his vision of the American past. Increasingly, in such later works as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964), the exaltation of the civilizing of the West that was seen in his earlier films was darkened by a regret over the loss of freedom brought by civilization. During his career, Ford established and repeatedly used a stock company of actors, including Henry Fonda, James Stewart, John Wayne, and Ward Bond. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Bogdanovich, Peter, John Ford (1968); McBride, Joseph, and Wilmington, Michael, John Ford (1975); Place, J. A., The Western Films of John Ford (1974) and The Non-Western Films of John Ford (1979); Sarris, Andrew, The John Ford Movie Mystery (1975); Sinclair, Andrew, John Ford (1979). Cagney, James -------------------------------- A fast-talking Irish-American film actor who danced brilliantly and frequently on screen, James Cagney, b. July 17, 1899, d. March 30, 1986, achieved fame in Hollywood as a cocky gangster in Public Enemy (1931) and became stereotyped for several years thereafter. His best roles, which reflect his punchy, cheerful personality, were in Footlight Parade (1933), Lady Killer (1933), G-Men (1935), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), Boy Meets Girl (1938), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), White Heat (1949), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), Man of a Thousand Faces (as Lon Chaney, 1957), and One Two Three (1961). He won an Academy Award for his performance as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). At the age of 82, Cagney emerged from 20 years of retirement to make an acclaimed appearance in the film Ragtime (1981), and the television film Terrible Joe Moran (1984). LESLIE HALLIWELL Bibliography: Bergman, Andrew, James Cagney (1973); Cagney, James, Cagney by Cagney (1976); McGilligan, Patrick, Cagney (1975). Muni, Paul -------------------------------- {myoo'-nee}^Paul Muni, b. Muni Weisenfreund in Lemberg, Austria (now Lvov, USSR), Sept. 22, 1985, d. Aug. 25, 1967, was a character actor who became a top Hollywood star in the 1930s. He went to the United States with his family in 1907. As a young man, Muni gained experience touring with the Yiddish Art Theatre company; he first brought his conscientious approach and animated acting style to the screen in 1928. His powerful performances in films include Scarface (1932), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936; Academy Award), The Good Earth (1937), The Life of Emile Zola (1937), Juarez (1941), and The Last Angry Man (1959). Robinson, Edward G. -------------------------------- Edward G. Robinson, stage name of Emanuel Goldenberg, b. Romania, Dec. 12, 1893, d. Jan. 26, 1973, became one of the major figures of Hollywood films of the 1930s. Short and dynamic, with a distinctive voice, he specialized in gangster parts but later proved equally adept at comedy or in benevolent character roles. His most important films include Little Caesar (1930), A Slight Case of Murder (1938), Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940), Double Indemnity and The Woman in the Window (both 1944), and Key Largo (1948). LESLIE HALLIWELL Bibliography: Robinson, Edward G., and Spigelgass, Leonard, All My Yesterdays (1975). Chevalier, Maurice -------------------------------- (shuh-vahl'-ee-ay) Maurice Chevalier, b. Sept. 12, 1888, d. Jan. 1, 1972, was a debonair French singer, actor, and dancer who for more than 50 years was a popular international cabaret artist. He had two Hollywood careers: as a romantic lead in such films as The Love Parade (1930), Love Me Tonight (1932), and Folies Bergere (1935), and as an elderly character actor in Gigi (1958), Fanny (1961), and In Search of the Castaways (1962). LESLIE HALLIWELL Bibliography: Ringgold, Gene, and Bodeen, DeWitt, Chevalier: The Films and Career of Maurice Chevalier (1973; 2d ed., 1975). Berkeley, Busby -------------------------------- {burk'-lee} Busby Berkeley was the pseudonym of William Berkeley Enos, b. Los Angeles, Nov. 29, 1895, d. Mar. 14, 1976, a choreographer known for the grandiose spectacles he created in the Hollywood musical extravaganzas of the 1930s. From success on the Broadway stage, Berkeley took his dance-directing techniques to movies. The Berkeley trademark--kaleidoscopic patterns of massed dancers filmed from above--is most strikingly displayed in the Eddie Cantor vehicle Whoopee (1930) and in 42nd Street (1933), the Gold Diggers series (1933, 1935, 1937, 1938), Roman Scandals (1933), Footlight Parade (1933), and Babes in Arms (1939). His lead dancer was Ruby KEELER. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Martin, Dave, and Pike, Bob, The Genius of Busby Berkeley (1973); Terry, Jim, and Thomas, Tony, The Busby Berkeley Book (1973). Astaire, Fred -------------------------------- Fred Astaire is the stage name of Frederick Austerlitz, b. Omaha, Nebr., May 10, 1899, who brought new distinction to musical comedy with his elegant and witty song and dance routines. First teamed with his sister Adele on the stage, Astaire turned to Hollywood on her retirement from show business, making his initial screen appearance in Dancing Lady (1933). His greatest success came when he was paired with Ginger ROGERS in a series of romantic comedies featuring their dance numbers. Flying Down to Rio (1933) was followed by The Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta and Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet and Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance? (1937), and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). In 1949 they were reunited in The Barkleys of Broadway. With other partners, Astaire starred in such musicals as Daddy Longlegs (1955) and Funny Face (1957). He also appeared in dramatic roles. A perfectionist who often choreographed his own dances, he received a special Academy Award in 1949 for "raising the standards of all musicals." LESLIE HALLIWELL Bibliography: Astaire, Fred, Steps in Time (1959); Croce, Arlene, The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book (1972; repr. 1978); Freedland, Michael, Fred Astaire: An Illustrated Biography (1977); Green, Stanley, and Goldblatt, Burt, Starring Fred Astaire (1S973). Rogers, Ginger -------------------------------- Singer, actress, and dancer Ginger Rogers, b. Virginia McMath, Independence, Mo., July 16, 1911, is best known for the movie musicals she made with Fred ASTAIRE. After playing vaudeville as a teenager, she made her debut on Broadway in 1929 and entered feature films in 1930. The famous Rogers and Astaire dance team first starred in Flying Down to Rio (1933) and developed their now classic routines in The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), and Swing Time (1936). Rogers, who also appeared in dramatic roles, won an Academy Award for Kitty Foyle (1940). She made numerous films during the next two decades and returned to the musical comedy stage in Hello, Dolly (1965) and Mame (1969). Bibliography: Croce, Arlene, The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book (1978). Huston, John -------------------------------- {hue'-stuhn}^The son of actor Walter Huston, film director, writer, and actor John Huston, b. Nevada, Mo., Aug. 5, 1906, made his dazzlingly auspicious directorial debut with The Maltese Falcon (1941). For years, Huston's reputation as one of the most strongly individualistic of American directors was sustained through such films as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), and Beat the Devil (1954). Thereafter, he succumbed to pretentiousness and slipped into a decline. Signs of his old form could occasionally be seen in such films as The Misfits (1961), Fat City (1972), and Wise Blood (1979). Huston directed the film version of the musical Annie (1982), and Prizzi's Honor (1985). As an actor, Huston was notable in The Cardinal (1963), Chinatown (1974), Winter Kills (1979), and Under the Volcano (1984). WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Huston, John, An Open Book (1980); Kaminsky, Stuart M., John Huston: Maker of Magic (1978). Wyler, William -------------------------------- A three-time winner of the Academy Award for best director during the 1940s and '50s, William Wyler, b. Alsace, July 1, 1902, d. July 27, 1981, was generally regarded as the foremost craftsman among Hollywood directors. Wyler's long association with producer Samuel Goldwyn resulted in a number of films based on literary texts, including Dodsworth (1936), Dead End (1937), Wuthering Heights (1939), and The Little Foxes (1941). Mrs. Miniver (1942) won Wyler his first Academy Award, a success capped by that of the award-winning The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), whose depiction of returning war veterans was praised for having brought a new maturity to American films. Subsequent Wyler films of note include The Heiress (1949), Detective Story (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), Ben-Hur (1959), for which he received a third Academy Award, and Funny Girl (1968). In recent years, however, Wyler had been criticized for the anonymity of his style. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Madsen, Axel, William Wyler (1973). Sturges, Preston -------------------------------- (stur'-jis) For a time in the 1940s, Preston Sturges, pseudonym of Edmund P. Biden, b. Chicago, Aug. 29, 1898, d. Aug. 6, 1959, held a position of creative preeminence in Hollywood as a writer-director who was acclaimed by critics and public alike. Sturges directed his first film, The Great McGinty, in 1940, and followed it with a string of successes that included The Lady Eve (1941), Sullivan's Travels (1941), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944), and Hail the Conquering Hero (1944), breakneck farces that shrewdly satirized American life. But Sturges's touch seemed to falter with the semiserious The Great Moment (1944), and the only time he returned to form afterwards, in the black comedy Unfaithfully Yours (1948), the public failed to respond. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Ursini, James, The Fabulous Life and Times of Preston Sturges (1973). Wilder, Billy -------------------------------- {wyl'-dur}^Whether comedies or melodramas, the films of American writer-director Billy Wilder, b. Vienna, June 22, 1906, have been distinguished by their cynicism and sophistication. Wilder established his talent for farce with the first Hollywood film he directed, The Major and the Minor (1942), and his mastery of film noir with the corrosive thriller Double Indemnity (1944). Subsequent films in the acidulous Wilder mode include the Academy Award-winning The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Ace in the Hole (1951). Wilder's later work includes such popular comedies as Some Like It Hot (1959) The Apartment (1960), Irma La Douce (1963), The Fortune Cookie (1966), The Front Page (1974), and Buddy Buddy (1981). In 1986 he received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Madsen, Axel, Billy Wilder (1969). Welles, Orson -------------------------------- Although the American actor-director Orson Welles, b. Kenosha, Wis., May 6, 1915, d. Oct. 10, 1985, worked on the stage and i n films for nearly 50 years, his fame rests principally on two projects he completed before he was 30 years of age. The first, his 1938 radio adaptation for the Mercury Theatre of H.G. Wells's T he War of the Worlds, created a panic among listeners who believed it was a report of an actual Martian invasion. The second was his first and greatest film, the extraordinary Citizen Kane (1941). A character study loosely modeled on the life of publisher William Randolph HEARST, it embroiled Welles in legal battles, won Acade my Awards for him and cowriter Herman Mankiewicz, and established h is reputation as Hollywood's boy wonder. Beginning as an actor with Dublin's Gate Theatre (1931), Welles soon turned to writing and directing, producing a notable all-black version of Macbeth in 1936 before founding the Mercury Theatre w ith John Houseman in 1937. After the double triumph of War of the Worlds and Citizen Kane, he directed The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), and a new Macbeth (1948) before moving to Europe, where many of his subsequent films, beginning with Mr. Arkadin (1955), were made. Touch of Evil (1 958) is a shadowy American FILM NOIR. The Trial (1962) is a bleak adaptation of Kafka. Chimes at Midnight (1966), a study of Falstaff, and the unfinished Don Quixote (1957-66) reflect Welle s's fascination with extravagant, outsize characters, many of whom he himself played to perfection. Welles starred in many of his own films, but his screen credits also include distinguished performances in Jane Eyre (1944), The Thir d Man (1949), Moby Dick (1956), A Man for All Seasons (1966), and Catch-22 (1970). His career, marked by grandiose projects and inimitable posturing, was honored in 1975 by the American Film Institute, which presented him its Life Achievement Award. THAD DEUS TULEJA Bibliography: Bazin, Andre, Orson Welles: A Critical View, tra ns. by Jonathan Rosenbaum (1978); Brady, Frank, Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles (1987); Cowie, Peter, The Cinema of O rson Welles (1978); Gottesman, Ronald, ed., Focus on Orson Welles (1976); Higham, Charles, The Films of Orson Welles (1970); Leaming, Barbara, Welles: A Biography (1985). Hollywood Ten, The -------------------------------- The Hollywood Ten were a group of producers, writers, and directors called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (see UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON) in October 1947 as "unfriendly" witnesses during the investigation of Communist influence in Hollywood. Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, John Howard Lawson, Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner, Jr., Herbert Biberman, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz, Albert Maltz, and Edward Dmytryk refused to state whether or not they were Communists. All served prison sentences and were blacklisted in the film industry. Bibliography: Goodman, Walter, The Committee: Extraordinary Career of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (1968); Hellman, Lillian, Scoundrel Time (1976); Kahn, Gordon, Hollywood on Trial: The Story of the Ten Who Were Indicted (1948; repr. 1972). Polanski, Roman -------------------------------- {poh-lan'-skee}^The Polish film director and actor Roman Polanski, b. Paris, Aug. 18, 1933, was brought up in Krakow by foster parents after the internment of his parents in a Nazi concentration camp. After World War II he became a student (1954-59) at the Polish State Film School at Lodz. His first feature film, Knife in the Water (1962), a subtle treatment of sexual tension, presaged more explicit treatments of sexuality in Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-Sac (1966). With Rosemary's Baby (1968), Polanski established himself as a master of macabre horror. After the 1969 murder of his wife, the actress Sharon Tate, by the Charles Manson gang, he moved to France to become a French citizen, but returned to the United States to make Chinatown (1974). In 1977 he was indicted in Los Angeles for a sexual offense but has since lived in France, where he made Tess (1979). In 1981 he directed and played the title role in his own Warsaw production of Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus. His autobiography Roman was published in 1984. Bibliography: Butler, Ivan, The Cinema of Roman Polanski (1970). Wajda, Andrzej -------------------------------- {vy'-dah, an'-jay} The distinguished Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, b. Mar. 6, 1927, rose to fame with a trilogy--A Generation (1954), Kanal (1956), and Ashes and Diamonds (1958)--that vividly reflected the experience of an entire generation in postwar Poland. Although Wajda evinced versatility in later films, his most powerful work is historical-political. Man of Marble (1977) and Man of Iron (1981) use historical contexts to inveigh against such contemporary oppressions as the secret police, the Communist party, and factory bosses. Danton (1983) views the French Revolution through the personalities of its leaders. A Love in Germany (1984) explores the madness of sexual passion within the context of the political madness of Nazi Germany. Bibliography: Michatek, B., The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda (1973); Paul, D. ed., Politics, Art, and Commitment in East European Cinema (1984). Forman, Milos -------------------------------- The Czech-born film director Milos Forman, b. Feb. 18, 1932, is noted for his powers of observation and his subtle, ironic humor. He won the 1975 Academy Award as best director for One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, adapted from the 1962 novel by Ken Kesey. He won the 1984 Academy Award for Amadeus. Even though both of Forman's parents died in German concentration camps, his work shows a remarkable optimism. Forman's other films include the Czech-made Peter and Pavla (1964) and Loves of a Blonde (1965) and the American-made Taking Off (1971), Hair (1979), and Ragtime (1981). ROY ARMES Bibliography: Whittemore, Don, et. al., Passport to Hollywood (1976). Herzog, Werner -------------------------------- (hair'-tsohk) Werner Herzog is the professional name of Werner H. Stipetic, b. 1942, a German filmmaker known for his eye for remote, exotic scenery and his attraction for extremes of character: the mad Amazon explorer Aguirre (Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 1973); the mute isolate Kasper Hauser (The Mystery of Kasper Hauser, 1975); dwarfs and midgets (Even Dwarfs Started Small, 1970); or men in the grip of obsession (Fitzcarraldo, 1982). Herzog writes the screenplays for all of his films. His large output includes a number of documentaries, the most admired of which have been Land of Silence and Darkness (1971), about the life of a blind, deaf woman; and La Soufriere (1977), a portrait of an abandoned region near a smoldering volcano in Guadaloupe. Bibliography: Eder, Richard, "New Visionary in German Films," New York Times Magazine, July 10, 1977. Fassbinder, Rainer Werner -------------------------------- {fahs'-bin-dur, ry'-nur vair'-nur}^Rainer Werner Fassbinder, b. May 31, 1946, d. June 10, 1982, was one of Germany's greatest and most prolific film directors as well as a stage and screen actor and scriptwriter. He joined the Munich Action Theater in 1967 and began making films two years later, using a permanent ensemble of experienced actors. Fassbinder's work reflects the influence of Bertolt Brecht and Karl Marx, and of Freudian psychology; his choice of material was influenced by the American filmmaker Douglas Sirk. His subject matter ranges from the failure of friends to communicate, as portrayed in Katzelmacher (1969), to the dullness of daily existence, depicted in Warum lauft Herr R. Amok? (Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?, 1969) and Die bittren Tranen der Petra von Kant (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, 1972). Particularly admired are the bittersweet Der Handler der vier Jahreszeiten (Merchant of the Four Seasons, 1971), the stylish Effi Breist, and Ali: Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, 1974), a study in adversity. Fassbinder's Faustrecht der Freiheit (1975), released in English as Fox and his Friends, created a new wave of interest in his films in both the United States and Europe. In 1978, Fassbinder released his first English language film, Despair, starring Dirk Bogarde. His most commercially successful films were The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Veronika Voss (1982), Querelle (released 1983), and the 15 hour Berlin Alexanderplatz (released 1983) which portrays life in Berlin between the World Wars. GAUTAM DASGUPTA Weir, Peter -------------------------------- the work of the Australian film director Peter Lindsay Weir, b. June 21, 1944, is part of a new wave of Australian filmmaking. Couched in a style that is easily associated with American filmmaking--well-crafted plots, convincing characters, and naturalistic dialogue--Weir's films have gained international recognition. Weir, who was the director of Film Australia from 1969 to 1973, sees himself primarily as a storyteller. He has directed such imaginative and highly provocative films as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Last Wave (1977), and The Plumber (1978). With the successes of these earlier films, Weir has directed larger budgeted productions, including Gallipoli (1980) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), which was filmed mostly outside of Australia. Witness (1985), set among the Pennsylvania Amish, was filmed on location. Kubrick, Stanley -------------------------------- {koob'-rik}^Stanley Kubrick, b. New York City, July 26, 1928, is an American film writer, director, and producer with a virtually legendary status as an idiosyncratic master. While working as a photojournalist for Life magazine, Kubrick made an inconspicuous entrance into filmmaking with Fear and Desire (1953) and Killer's Kiss (1955). After his crime thriller The Killing (1956), critics began to take notice of his taut, brilliant style and bleakly cynical outlook. Paths of Glory (1957) solidified his reputation as a filmmaker interested in depicting the individual at the mercy of a hostile world. In Spartacus (1960), Kubrick met the challenge of bringing a costume spectacle to the screen. Lolita (1962), based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, received mixed reviews. But Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963), was enthusiastically hailed for its black-comedy vision of atomic-age apocalypse. His 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971), both made in England where Kubrick has worked since 1961, engendered intense critical controversy, but the former has now become widely accepted as a landmark in modern cinema. Although Barry Lyndon (1975) failed to attract as large an audience as the previous two films, the Kubrick legend of obsessive perfectionism and reclusive genius remains undiminished. In 1980 he directed the film version of Stephen King's The Shining. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Kagan, Norman, The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick (1972); Nelson, Thomas Allan, Kubrick: Inside A Film Artists Maze (1982); Phillips, Gene, Stanley Kubrick: A Film Odyssey (1975); Walker, Alexander, Stanley Kubrick Directs, rev. ed. (1972). Altman, Robert B. -------------------------------- Robert B. Altman, b. Kansas City, Mo., Feb. 20, 1925, won widespread recognition as the trend-setting directorial stylist in American films of the 1970s. He did extensive work in television and directed four little-known features before making M*A*S*H (1970), the film that first brought him critical and popular acclaim. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), The Long Goodbye (1973), and California Split (1974) drew increasing attention for their textural richness, multilayered soundtracks, and improvisatory flow. Prominent too was Altman's debunking of the myths of various film genres, from the Western to the private eye. With Nashville (1975) Altman had his second commercial success. Critics saw less quality in such films as Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976), 3 Women (1977), and Quintet (1979) but praised Thieves Like Us (1974) and Health (1980). Altman's recent films have been adaptations of plays: Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), which he had directed on Broadway; and Streamers (1983), David Rabe's drama. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Kass, Judith, Robert Altman: American Innovator (1978). Coppola, Francis Ford -------------------------------- {koh'-puh-luh}^Francis Ford Coppola, b. Detroit, Apr. 7, 1939, directed the highly successful film The Godfather (1972). He had previously directed Dementia 13 (1962), You're a Big Boy Now (1966), Finian's Rainbow (1968), and The Rain People (1969), a sensitive study of a runaway wife, which some consider his best film. Coppola departed from the florid style of The Godfather, for the spareness of The Conversation (1974), then enlarged on his earlier hit with a sequel, The Godfather, Part II (1974). For five years Coppola worked amid controversy and speculation on Apocalypse Now (1979), a realistically violent depiction of the Vietnam War. Another Coppola film generating controversy was the romantic comedy One From the Heart (1982). The $26-million film was a financial and artistic failure. In 1983, Coppola received mixed critical reactions to the Outsiders and Rumble Fish, both based on stories by S. E. Hinton. The Cotton Club (1984), was a lavish production set in New York City in the 1920s. WILLIAM S. PECHTER Allen, Woody -------------------------------- Woody Allen is the stage name of Allen Stewart Konigsberg, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., Dec. 1, 1935. He is considered America's best living film comedian and one of its finest film directors. Alle n's highly personal work focuses on the fears and insecurities experienced in contemporary society. His persona is that of a bespectacled neurotic analyzing the recurrent themes of life, de ath, love, religion and psychology. While a teenager, Allen worked a s a gag writer for a public relations agency. He dropped out of col lege in 1953 and became a principal writer for celebrities such as Si d Caesar and Garry Moore. His switch to stand-up comedy in the ea rly 1960s led to celebrity status from television appearances and th ree popular record releases. Allen made his screen debut as an actor-screenwriter in What's N ew, Pussycat? (1965). His first film project as director-writer-st ar was Take the Money and Run (1969). His other movies include Ban anas (1971), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Annie Hall (1977) , which received four Academy Awards in 1978, Interiors (1978), Manhattan (1979), Stardust Memories (1980), A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Pur ple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Radio Da ys (1987). Allen's comic and satirical writings have been collecte d in three anthologies, Getting Even (1971), Without Feathers (1975), and Side Effects (1980). He has also written several Broadway plays , the successful Don't Drink the Water (1966; film, 1969) and Pla y It Again, Sam (1969; film, 1972), and the unsuccessful The Floatin g Lightbulb (1981). FRANK MANCHEL Bibliography: Allen, Woody, Four Films of Woody Allen (1982); Hirsh, Foster, Love, Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life: Woody Allen's Comedy (1981); Jacobs, Diane, But We Need the Eggs: Th e Magic of Woody Allen (1982). Lucas, George -------------------------------- The American film director, screenwriter, and producer George Lucas, b. Modesto, Calif., May 14, 1944, is best known for his trilogy of space fantasy films Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1981), and Return of the Jedi (1983). Following the adventures of such characters as Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Darth Vader, as well as the anthropomorphic robots R2-D2 and C-3PO, the trilogy spawned a multibillion dollar industry of Star Wars-related products, including video games, dolls, toys, books, and clothing.^After attending Modesto Junior College, Lucas studied film at the University of Southern California, where a film he made won first prize in the Third National Student Film Festival (1965). Lucas reworked that film, a science-fiction fantasy that portrayed a grim, dehumanized world, as his first feature, THX-1138 (1971). Lucas enjoyed his first major success with American Graffiti (1973), a nostalgic look at American adolescence in the early 1960s, which he both directed and coauthored. As executive producer and coauthor of the original story, Lucas teamed with director Steven SPIELBERG to make Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and its sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Spielberg, Steven -------------------------------- Steven Spielberg, b. Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 18, 1947, the director of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (see E.T.)--the most successful box-office attraction in Hollywood history--has had a streak of movie blockbusters, establishing him as one of the most popular American film directors. As a student at Long Beach State College, Spielberg made a 16-mm short, Amblin' (1969), that won awards at the Venice and Atlanta film festivals. After working in television for several years, he made his first feature film, The Sugarland Express (1974). The movie was a limited success, but the following year Spielberg made Jaws (1975), which set box-office records. It was followed by Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a science-fiction fantasy, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), an outlandish adventure tale, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), a sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. In 1985 he directed the film version of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, and produced (as well as directed) episodes of the television series "Amazing Stories". Newman, Paul -------------------------------- Paul Newman, b. Shaker Heights, Ohio, Jan. 26, 1925, is an actor whose charm and wit made him one of the most popular film personalities of the 1960s and '70s. After training at the Yale School of Drama, he achieved success on the stage in Picnic (1953) and screen stardom in The Long Hot Summer (1958). His most notable screen roles have been in The Hustler (1961), Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), Hud (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1973), Absence of Malice (1981), and The Verdict (1982). Newman has directed several films including The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), The Shadow Box, and Harry and Son (1984) which he also wrote and produced. He is married to actress Joanne Woodward. After his son Scott died (1978) from a drug overdose, he established (1980) the Scott Newman Foundation, which produces such educational films as Doin' What the Crowd Does (1982). He is also active in the antinuclear movement and child welfare. Bibliography: Godfrey, Lionel, Paul Newman, Superstar (1979). Redford, Robert -------------------------------- One of Hollywood's most popular leading men, Charles Robert Redford, Jr., b. Santa Monica, Calif., Aug. 18, 1937, had his first success on Broadway in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963; film, 1967).^Redford's reputation soared with such movies as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973), in which he portrayed roguish but lovable crooks. His other films include Jeremiah Johnson and The Candidate (both 1972), The Way We Were (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974), All the President's Men (1976), The Electric Horseman (1979), The Natural (1984), and Out of Africa (1985). He made his debut as a director in 1980 with the film Ordinary People, which won three Academy Awards, one of which went to Redford as best director. Redford is also active in environmentalist causes. De Niro, Robert -------------------------------- Robert De Niro, b. New York City, Aug. 17, 1943, is an American film actor known especially for his roles in the films of director Martin SCORSESE. These include Mean Streets (1973); Taxi Driver (1976); the musical New York, New York (1977); Raging Bull (1980), for which De Niro won an Academy Award; and the King of Comedy (1982). He played the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Part II (1974) and won an Academy Award for his performance. Among his other important films are Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), The Deer Hunter (1978), True Confessions (1981), Falling In Love and Once Upon A Time In America (both 1984), and Brazil (1985). Scorcese, Martin -------------------------------- {skawr-say'-zee}^The director Martin Scorcese, b. Queens, N.Y., Nov. 17, 1942, has won wide critical acclaim both for his controversial films portraying violent themes and for his films focusing on lighter, entertaining subjects. Scorcese, who grew up in Manhattan's Lower East Side, studied and later taught filmmaking at New York University. He wrote and directed his first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door?, in 1968. He worked on Street Scenes, Woodstock, and other counterculture films before turning out a second feature, a low-budget thriller called Boxcar Bertha (1972). His next film, however, Mean Streets (1973), a grim story of mob involvement in Little Italy, won critical acclaim. It also brought him studio support for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1975) and Taxi Driver (1976). Scorcese next directed a frothy musical, New York, New York (1977), and a rock documentary, The Last Waltz (1978), in which he appeared. After Raging Bull (1980), in which Robert DENIRO--with whom Scorsese has worked closely--portrayed prizefighter Jake LaMotta, Scorcese turned to satire with The King of Comedy (1983) starring DeNiro and Jerry Lewis. In 1985 he directed After Hours, a black comedy that takes place in New York City. Hoffman, Dustin -------------------------------- The American actor Dustin Hoffman, b. Los Angeles, Aug. 8, 1937, one of the most versatile film stars of his generation, was a modestly successful Broadway and television actor until his appearance in Mike Nichols's film The Graduate (1967). Since then he has created an extraordinary range of characterizations, including a derelict in Midnight Cowboy (1969), a convict in Papillon (1973), the comedian Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974), and the journalist Carl Bernstein in All the President's Men (1976). He won a 1980 Academy Award for best actor for his performance in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and an Academy Award nomination for his spirited and sensitive rendition of an unemployed actor who assumes the identity of a woman in order to land a role (Tootsie, 1982). In 1984 he returned to the stage as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (television play, 1985). Nicholson, Jack -------------------------------- Jack Nicholson, b. Neptune, N.J., Apr. 22, 1937, is an actor, director, and producer whose raffish, cynical wit made him a popular offbeat hero in numerous films. After gaining recognition for his performance as an alcoholic civil liberties lawyer in Easy Rider (1969), he starred in such films as Five Easy Pieces (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Last Detail (1974), Chinatown (1974), The Passenger (1975), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1976), which won him an Academy Award for best actor, The Shining (1980), and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). His portrayal of Eugene O'Neill in Reds (1981) was highly acclaimed, and for his rendition of an aging, alcoholic astronaut in the 1983 film Terms of Endearment he won an Academy Award for best supporting actor. His performance as a Mafia "hit man" in Prizzi's Honor (1985) also won praise. Bibliography: Braithwaite, Bruce, The Films of Jack Nicholson, ed. by David Castell (1978). Pacino, Al -------------------------------- {puh-chee'-noh}^Alfred Pacino, b. New York City, Apr. 25, 1940, in a relatively short time established himself solidly as an actor on both stage and screen. His role in The Indian Wants the Bronx earned him a 1968 Obie Award, and his Broadway debut in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? (1969) brought him a Tony Award. Highly regarded for his 1972 film portrayal of the young Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Pacino followed with successful film performances in Serpico (1973), The Godfather, Part II (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Bobby Deerfield (1977), And Justice for All (1979), Cruising (1980), Author! Author! (1982), Scarface (1983), and Revolution (1986). In 1981, and again in 1983, Pacino won high acclaim for his performance in the off-Broadway revival of American Buffalo. Streep, Meryl -------------------------------- The American actress Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep, b. Summit, N.J., June 22, 1949, is a versatile performer who has won acclaim in stage, film, and television productions. Streep earned a master of fine arts at Yale University, where she appeared at the Yale Repertory Theatre, and since 1975 has appeared in New York Shakespeare Festival productions. Other stage roles include a highly acclaimed performance on Broadway in the Tennessee Williams play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1976). Among her television credits is the miniseries "Holocaust" (1978), for which she won an Emmy Award. Streep made her film debut in Julia (1977) and appeared next in the award-winning movie The Deer Hunter (1978), Manhattan (1979), The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), and Still of the Night (1982). She has won two Academy Awards, one as best supporting actress for her performance in Kramer vs. Kramer (1980) and another as best actress for her portrayal of the tragic heroine in Sophie's Choice (1982), based on the William Styron novel. Streep played the title role in Silkwood (1983), which was based on the true story of Karen Silkwood whose attempted expose' of the dangers of a plutonium plant was ended by her mysterious death. In 1984 she co-starred with Robert De Niro in Falling In Love, followed by two films in 1985; Plenty and Out of Africa, a film based on the memoirs of Danish writer Karen Blixen, who assumed the pen name Isak Dinesen. Wiseman, Fred -------------------------------- A former lawyer and professor, Frederick Wiseman, b. Boston, Jan. 1, 1930, makes controversial documentary films about public, tax-supported institutions, through which he reveals the more general attitudes of U.S. society. Wiseman's free-form, nonnarrative method involves filming hours of footage in which no one is told how to act and subsequently creating a structure through extensive editing. Wiseman made his first film, Titicut Follies (1967), at a Massachusetts institution for the criminally insane; his later films include High School (1968), Law and Order (1969)--which portrays the police--Hospital (1970), and Welfare (1975). Bibliography: Atkins, Thomas R., ed., Frederick Wiseman (1976); Levin, G. Roy, Documentary Explorations (1971). Ophuls, Marcel -------------------------------- (oh'-fuls) Marcel Ophuls, b. Frankfurt, Germany, Nov. 1, 1927, is a French film director known for his lengthy, probing documentaries. The son of director Max Ophuls, he grew up in Germany, France, and Hollywood, where in the 1950s he learned filmmaking from his father and John Huston. After making a comic feature, Banana Peel, in 1963, he turned his attention to documentary, achieving critical success with The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), a moving 4 1/2-hour-long examination of French attitudes during the Nazi occupation; the movie was originally banned by the de Gaulle government from French television because of its controversial content. In the United States it received a special award from the National Society of Film Critics. A Sense of Loss focused on the war in Northern Ireland, and in 1976, Ophuls presented The Memory of Justice, an investigation of ideals of justice in the context of the Nuremberg war crimes trials and the war in Vietnam. Bibliography: Wood, M., "Decent Man, Indecent Subject," New York Times Magazine, October 17, 1976. Brakhage, Stan -------------------------------- (brak'-ij) Stan Brakhage, b. Jan. 14, 1933, is an American experimental filmmaker whose lyric films have contributed radically to the nonnarrative form. In such essays as "Metaphors on Vision" published in Film Culture (1963), he explained his concern with the drama of subconscious seeing. Brakhage's usually silent films use multiple superimpositions, rapid montage, and fragmentary editing. Other works include Anticipation of the Night (1958), Mothlight (1963), and his major work, Dog Star Man (1961-65). LESLIE CLARK SE LUMIER Lumiere, Louis and Auguste -------------------------------- (loo-mee-air') Louis Jean Lumiere, b. Oct. 5, 1864, d. June 6, 1948, and Auguste Marie Lumiere, b. Oct. 19, 1862, d. Apr. 10, 1954, were French inventors of an early motion-picture projector and pioneer filmmakers. The two brothers took over management of their father's photographic supply factory in Lyons in 1893. There Louis developed (1895) the Cinematographe, a single machine that functioned both as camera and projector. Its unique feature was a system of claws that moved the film mechanically but held each frame long enough for viewers to perceive the image. The Cinematographe was first demonstrated before a paying audience in Paris on Dec. 28, 1895, with the showing of 10 of the brothers' films, including Workers Leaving a Factory and a comic sequence, The Sprinkler Sprinkled. The public exhibition marked the beginning of cinema history. In the next few years the Lumieres continued to produce short, 2-minute films that were records of everyday life; they also made documentaries, newsreels, and a historical film, The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1897). Bibliography: Quigley, Martin, Jr., Magic Shadows: The Story of the Origin of Motion Pictures (1969). Rossellini, Roberto -------------------------------- (rohs-sel-lee'-nee) One of the principal founders of Italian neorealism, film director Roberto Rossellini, b. May 8, 1906, d. June 3, 1977, first achieved prominence with Open City (1945), filmed during and after the German evacuation of Rome and portraying Italian resistance groups and Gestapo reprisals. The film had an unprecedented immediacy, owing in large part to Rossellini's use of authentic settings and of the physical presences of such fine performers as Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizzi. Rossellini's success continued with the anecdotal Paisan (1946), the stark Germany Year Zero (1947), and the controversial The Miracle (1948). After Stromboli (1949), which carried his reliance on realistic settings to excess, Rossellini made only one film of note during the next decade--Saint Francis (1950). He returned to his former brilliance with General della Rovere (1959). Since 1962, Rossellini worked exclusively in theater and television. GAUTAM DASGUPTA Bibliography: Guarner, Jose L., Roberto Rossellini, trans. by Elisabeth Cameron (1970). pornography -------------------------------- Pornography, or obscenity (which is the legal term), is any material, pictures, films, printed matter, or devices dealing with sexual poses or acts considered indecent by the public. Traditionally, the distribution and sale of pornography has been illegal in most countries. Only in Denmark have all restrictions on pornography been withdrawn (since 1969). Although Massachusetts had antiobscenity laws in colonial times, federal antipornography legislation in the United States was not passed until 1842. Sending such matter through the mails became illegal in 1865. Late in the century enforcement of the laws was vigorous, due largely to the efforts of Anthony COMSTOCK and the Committee for the Suppression of Vice. In Great Britain the first antipornography legislation, the Obscene Publications Act, was passed in 1857. Defining pornography has from the beginning proved to be a complex legal problem because public attitudes change; materials considered pornographic in Victorian society may not be considered remarkable today. Thus the enforcement of the antipornography laws has involved suppression of several works of literature currently regarded as masterpieces, including the novels Ulysses, by James Joyce, and Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D. H. Lawrence. Several obscenity cases have been brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. In ROTH V. UNITED STATES (1957), the Court affirmed for the first time the traditional position that pornography was "not within the area of constitutionally protected speech." The Court attempted, however, to establish legal guidelines for defining obscenity. A three-part definition of obscenity evolved with reference to Roth: matter that appeals to prurient interests, offends current standards, and has no redeeming social value. In 1973 (in MILLER V. CALIFORNIA and four companion cases) the Court reversed earlier decisions; it ruled that the matter could be left to the discretion of individual states where "contemporary community standards" were to be applied in judging whether or not material is pornographic. In 1982 the Supreme Court upheld a New York statute prohibiting the production and sale of materials depicting children in sexually explicit situations. Child pornography was thus added to the category of "speech" that is not protected by the First Amendment. Bibliography: Clor, Harry M., Obscenity and Public Morality (1969); Donnerstein, Edward, Linz, Daniel, and Penrod, Steven, The Question of Pornography (1987); Eysenck, Hans J., and Nias, D. K. B., Sex, Violence and the Media (1978); Griffin, Susan, Pornography and Silence (1981); Lewis, Felix, F., Literature, Obscenity and the Law (1976); Rembar, Charles, The End of Obscenity (1968); Sobel, Lester A., ed., Pornography, Obscenity, and the Law (1978). Comstock, Anthony -------------------------------- Anthony Comstock, b. Mar. 7, 1844, d. Sept. 21, 1915, was an American morals crusader against obscene literature. In 1873 he founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and also secured stricter U.S. postal laws against obscene materials. The playwright George Bernard Shaw coined the word comstockery to describe opposition to realism in art and literature. film noir -------------------------------- (film nwar) Film noir, a term meaning "dark cinema," was first used by French critics to describe a genre of American suspense film of the 1940s and '50s whose urban, often nighttime settings and fatalistic themes suggested an unstable world full of danger and moral corruption. The oblique lighting and off-balance compositions typical of the visual style of such films reflected the ambience of disillusionment and bitter realism. Famous examples of film noir include The Maltese Falcon (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), and The Big Heat (1953). Bibliography: Silver, Alain, and Wald, Elizabeth, eds., Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (1978). Pudovkin, Vsevolod I. -------------------------------- (poo-dawf'-kin, fsev'-uh-luht) Excited by D. W. Griffith's Intolerance when it was shown in Moscow in 1919, Soviet filmmaker Vsevolod Pudovkin, b. Feb. 28 (N.S.), 1893, d. June 30, 1953, abandoned a career in chemistry for the cinema. In 1922 he joined the experimental film workshop of Lev Kuleshov (1899-1970). The first films Pudovkin directed were Chess Fever (1925), a short, witty comedy; Mechanics of the Brain (1925-26), an instructional film on Pavlov's experiments; and Mother (1926), a worldwide success that dealt with the 1905 revolution. His best-known works were the admirably photographed and edited The End of St. Petersburg (1927) and Storm over Asia (1928). Pudovkin's transition to sound was not a happy one, Soviet sound equipment in the early 1930s not being sophisticated enough for the experiments he had planned. Although his later films on historical subjects were popular, Pudovkin's fame abroad rests largely on his silent films and on his manual, Film Technique and Film Acting (1929; Eng. trans., 1933). JAY LEYDA Bibliography: Leyda, Jay, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film (1973). Dovzhenko, Alexander -------------------------------- (dohv-zhen'-koh) Alexander Dovzhenko, b. Sept. 11 (N.S.), 1894, d. Nov. 25, 1956, was an important early Soviet filmmaker. The son of peasants, he worked as a school teacher, diplomat, and political cartoonist before turning to filmmaking in 1926. The first notable film he directed was the political allegory Zvenigora (1928). Thereafter, his work was strictly censored. His principal films include Arsenal (1929), dealing with the Civil War in the Ukraine; Earth (1930), on the national struggle over collectivization; and the lyrical Shchors (1939). During World War II, Dovzhenko produced such distinguished documentaries as Liberation (1940) and Ukraine in Flames (1945). Bibliography: Carynnyk, Marco, ed. and trans., Alexander Dovzhenko: The Poet as Filmmaker (1973). Zinnemann, Fred -------------------------------- (zin'-uh-muhn) Best known for his Western High Noon (1952) and the Academy Award-winning From Here to Eternity (1953), film director Fred Zinnemann, b. Vienna, Apr. 29, 1907, built his post-World War II reputation on careful craftsmanship and the humanist concerns exhibited in such "social-problem" films as The Search (1948), The Men (1950), and Teresa (1951). He also proved himself a sensitive adapter of literary texts in The Member of the Wedding (1952), and The Nun's Story (1959). A Man for All Seasons (1966) earned him a second Oscar, and Julia (1977), another Oscar nomination. The talent for thrillers Zinnemann displayed in Act of Violence (1948) was, however, largely absent in The Day of the Jackal (1973). WILLIAM S. PECHTER Bibliography: Kozarski, R., Hollywood Directors, 1941-1976 (1977).