Cinema Attraction: From Silent Films to Postmodern Era - Essay Sample

Q1.Cinema attraction referred to as a cinema that presents its visibility, aiding to break a self-enclosed fictional world for a possibility to solicit the attention of the viewers or spectators. On the other hand, operational aesthetics is a concept that connects the Hollywood sound serial and the contemporary action film to the spatial and physical cinema (Howe, 205-208). The postmodern era of the cinema is more similar to the earliest days of silent cinema in terms of cinema attraction and operations aesthetic (Ruan, 50-60). They both display its visibility aiding to rupture a self-enclosed fictional world and connect the Hollywood sound serial and the contemporary action film to the spatial. For instance, the "Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936)" film plays the story mostly for laughs. Although the "Total film Recall (1990, Sci-Fi/Spy Film)" was set an unspecified future era, it is similar to "Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936);" they both highlight the dehumanizing influence of technology and present visibility to rupture a self-enclosed fictional world.

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Q2. The Motion Picture Patents Company entered into a contract with the largest producers of raw film stock, to restrain the supply of film to accredited members of the company. The company enforced its restrictions by refusing equipment to uncooperative filmmakers and theatre owners and attempted to terrorize independent film producers. It limited the length of films and forbade the identification of actors due to anticipated higher salary demand by popular entertainers (Howe, 205-208). The Movie Trust faced opposition from independent producers and filmmakers outside the company, which led to the establishment of Hollywood because many independent filmmakers absconded the Trust's restrictive influence (Howe, 205-208).

Director David Wark Griffith played an essential role by introducing and refining the techniques of motion-picture exposition. These techniques include the close-up, the scenic long shot, and cross-cutting (Wood, 45-58). For instance, "The Birth of a Nation" by D. W. Griffith was the longest movie released during that time that utilized innovative techniques, using special effects, deep-focus photography, jump cuts, and facial close-ups becoming one of the most popular films. He revolutionized the film industry by changing motion pictures from a novelty to a new art form, the powerful and glamorous industry, Hollywood films. Hollywood films give vivid knowledge of the dynamism and force of its social life, represented in style at once concrete and multifaced. Hollywood films also began producing films with sound other than silent movies in the era of the motion picture. For instance, "Nanook of the North (1922)" was a silent documentary produced by motion picture while Hollywood developed the first movie with sound was launched in 1927, "Total Recall (1990, Sci-Fi/Spy Film)" is an example Hollywood produced with sound.

Q3. Film censorship is a code of conduct that control the content and presentation of a film. American governmental censors influenced motion picture production companies to censor themselves. During that Progressive Era, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association ensured that its member studios upheld the State censorship rules. Hollywood's censorship regime grew ever more entrenched through the 1930s due to the continued state censorship and other voices that joined the states' demand for cleaner movies (Ruan, 50-60).

The modernist period that is rooted in the 1960s marked the declining censorship. The industry began to accept the lack of a seal and a bad rating from the Legion of Decency that prevents a film from being released or caused it to be heavily edited in the "classical" and "post-classical" periods (Wood, 45-58). Studios no longer cared in the "modernist" period and released the film under a different company name. The motion picture industry no longer wanted the federal government to have control.

This film censorship benefited the industry in several ways; protecting the rights of artists, innovators, and inventors. It also protected the citizens from the unhealthy content of the films and reduced the number of conflicting ideas. However, film censorship suppressed the art of creativity and limited the distribution of the film.

Q4. Spontaneous formal innovations and bold thematic honesty that expanded film's vocabulary were noted with many business practices at that time of the postwar years. Hollywood used techniques like mainstreaming of exploitation or the youth movie and other practices that significantly influenced the film industry (Keil, 81-83). The post-classical era followed closely the World War II, which brought new kinds of movies because of the great depression of the 1930s permitted arrival of new viewers and new filmmakers. With better production values and available film technology, audiences started enjoying slapstick films, gangster films, comedies, and few science fiction offerings, consequently, referred to as the richest Era of the film history (Keil, 81-83).

The most characteristic elements of the revolutionaries during that time were Nichols, Rafelson, Altman, Peckinpah, Penn, Scorsese, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Donen, and Schlesinger. They attached to film's vocabulary, outspread film's language, and presented awareness to the audience while they were watching a movie, what the formal elements of the film are and how a film is constructed (Keil, 81-83). One of the significant variations in the post-classical sometimes related to as MTV style of editing, and the classic continuity way of editing is that the post-classical strategy stresses space and less on time than a film edited with continuity does. For instance, the film the "Three Kings (War/Heist)" runs nearly for two hours (Keil, 81-83)

Works Cited

Howe, Andrew. "A Postmodern Take on the Classical Journey." The Twenty-First-Century Western: New Riders of the Cinematic Stage (2019): 205.

https://books.google.co.ke/books/about/The_Twenty_First_Century_Western.html?id=AeDBDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=yKeil, Charlie. "George Kleine and American Cinema: The Movie Business and Film Culture in the Silent Era." (2017): 81-83. doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/CJFS.26.1.BR1

Ruan, Jian. "Interpretation of Costume Design in Science Fiction Films from the Perspective of Postmodernism." 3rd International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education (ICASSEE 2019). Atlantis Press, 2019. doi: https://doi.org/10.2991/icassee-19.2019.96

Wood, Mary P. "Italian film noir." european film noir. Manchester University Press, 2019. https://www.manchesterhive.com/view/9781526141361/9781526141361.00016.xml