25 Directors to Know for Cinema Appreciation

Visual/Editing Style French illusionist and filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.

Méliès, a prolific innovator in the use of special effects, accidentally discovered the substitution stop trick in 1896

First filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color in his work.

Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality through cinematography, Méliès is sometimes referred to as the first "Cinemagician".

Best Film by Georges Melies Summary: Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, the film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return with a splashdown to Earth with a captive Selenite. It is filmed in the overtly theatrical style for which Méliès became famous.

The film was an internationally popular success on its release, and was extensively pirated by other studios, especially in the United States. Its unusual length, lavish production values, innovative special effects, and emphasis on storytelling were markedly influential on other film-makers and ultimately on the development of narrative film as a whole. Scholars have commented upon the film's extensive use of anti-imperialist satire, as well as on its wide influence on later film-makers and its artistic significance within the French theatrical tradition. Though the film disappeared into obscurity after Méliès's retirement from the film industry, it was rediscovered around 1930, when Méliès's importance to the history of cinema was beginning to be recognized by film devotees. An original hand-colored print was discovered in 1993 and restored in 2011.

A Trip to the Moon was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by The Village Voice, ranked 84th. The film remains the best-known of the hundreds of films made by Méliès, and the moment in which the capsule lands in the Moon's eye remains one of the most iconic and frequently referenced images in the history of cinema. It is widely regarded as the earliest example of the science fiction film genre and, more generally, as one of the most influential films in cinema history.

Early Film History

Visual/Editing Style Innovated Classical Editing/Hollywood Editing Close-ups to show character's emotions Innovated chase scene editing Innovated thematic montage Extreme and dramatic camera angles Epic stories Simultaneous narratives Sophisticated set design Extensive traveling shows which accompanied his films city to city

D.W. Griffith (Father of Film) Best Films

The Birth of a Nation (originally called The Clansman) is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr.

Summary: The film chronicles the relationship of two families in the American Civil War and Reconstruction era: the pro-Union Northern Stonemans and the pro-Confederacy Southern Camerons over the course of several years. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth is dramatized.

The film was a commercial success, though it was highly controversial owing to its portrayal of black men (some played by white actors in blackface) as unintelligent and sexually aggressive towards white women, and the portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan (whose original founding is dramatized) as a heroic force. There were widespread African-American protests against The Birth of a Nation, such as in Boston, while thousands of white Bostonians flocked to see the film. The NAACP spearheaded an unsuccessful campaign to ban the film. Griffith's indignation at efforts to censor or ban the film motivated him to produce Intolerance the following year.

The film is also credited as one of the events that inspired the formation of the "second era" Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia, in the same year. The Birth of a Nation was used as a recruiting tool for the KKK. Under President Woodrow Wilson it was the first American motion picture to be screened at the White House.

Griffith's innovative techniques and storytelling power have made The Birth of a Nation one of the landmarks of film history.

Early Filmmaking

Visual/Editing Style Camera angles Crowd movements Montage-editing could be used for more than just expounding a scene or moment, through a "linkage" of related images. Addressed broad social issues, especially class conflict, without use of professional actors.

Sergei Eisenstein’s 5 Types of Montage 1. Metric-Cutting to the beat (usually every 2 seconds) 2. Rhythmic-Cutting to the rhythm of action in a shot 3. Tonal-Concerning changing tones within a shot 4. Overtonal-Concerning changing tones within a large sequence 5. Intellectual or Ideological-Cutting based upon ideas The first 4 play on the audience’s emotions, but Eisenstein was most interested in the intellectual.

Best Films of Eisenstein

Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Броненосец «Потёмкин», Bronenosets Potyomkin) is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime.

Battleship Potemkin has been called one of the most influential propaganda films of all time and was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958. _______________________________________________________

October: Ten Days That Shook the World (Russian: Октябрь (Десять дней, которые потрясли мир) is a 1928 Soviet silent propaganda film by Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov. It is a celebratory dramatization of the 1917 October Revolution commissioned for the tenth anniversary of the event. Originally released as October in the Soviet Union, the film was re-edited and released internationally as Ten Days That Shook The World, after John Reed's popular book on the Revolution. _______________________________________________________

Early Film History

Visual/Editing Style Stationary Camera Chaplin diverged from conventional slapstick by slowing the pace and exhausting each scene of its comic potential, with more focus on developing the viewer's relationship to the characters. Chaplin's silent films typically follow the Tramp's efforts to survive in a hostile world. Social commentary was a feature of Chaplin's films from early in his career, as he portrayed the underdog in a sympathetic light and highlighted the difficulties of the poor.

Best Films of Charlie Chaplin

Summary: City Lights is a 1931 American silent romantic comedy film written by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. The story follows the misadventures of Chaplin's Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) and develops a turbulent friendship with an alcoholic millionaire (Harry Myers).

City Lights was immediately successful upon release on January 30, 1931, with positive reviews and box office receipts of $5 million. Today, critics consider it not only one of the highest accomplishments of Chaplin's career, but one of the greatest films ever made. In 1992, the Library of Congress selected City Lights for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2007, the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies ranked City Lights as the 11th greatest American film of all time. In 1949, the critic James Agee referred to the final scene in the film as the "greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid". _______________________________________________________

The Great Dictator is a 1940 American satirical political comedy-drama film starring, written, produced, scored, and directed by Charlie Chaplin, following the tradition of many of his other films. Having been the only Hollywood filmmaker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was Chaplin's first true talking picture as well as his most commercially successful film.

At the time of its first release, the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin's film advanced a stirring, controversial condemnation of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini's fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis.

Chaplin's film was released nine months after Hollywood's first parody of Hitler, the short subject You Nazty Spy! by the Three Stooges, which premiered in January 1940. In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin stated that he would not have made his film if he had known about the true extent of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at the time. _______________________________________________________

Early Cinema History

Visual Editing/Style -One of the best-known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism. -Dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute -Metropolis is considered at the 1st great science fiction film. -Dystopian future city of human despair dominated by machines. -1st time cyborgs of people/machines are fused. (Maria looks a lot like C3P0 later). -Science fiction uprising between upper class of leisure, rulers, and businessmen and lower class of working class. -Loner hero who learns about how society works and tries to make changes to the system. -Evil genius laboratory has become a trope in later films from Dr. Frankenstein to Doc in Back to the Future.

Best Film by Fritz Lang

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist epic science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang. Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou wrote the silent film. It is regarded as a pioneering work of the science-fiction genre in movies, being among the first feature length movies of the genre. The Nazis liked the film so much they offered Lang his film industry to promote Nazi-ism, which Leni Riefenstahl did later. Lang's photographic system allowed people and miniature sets to be assembled in a single shot through the use of mirror camera tricks. Fritz Lang treated his actors terribly including standing in cold rain for hours and used real flames for the stake scene of Maria which caused her severe burns.

Summary: Made in Germany during the Weimar Period, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of the city's ruler, and Maria, a poor worker, to overcome the vast gulf separating the classes of their city. Filming took place in 1925 at a cost of approximately five million Reichsmarks, making it the most expensive film ever released up to that point. The motion picture's futuristic style shows the influence of the work of the Futurist Italian architect Antonio Sant'Elia.

The film met with a mixed response upon its initial release, with many critics praising its technical achievements and social metaphors while others derided its "simplistic and naïve" presentation. Because of its long running-time and the inclusion of footage which censors found questionable, Metropolis was cut substantially after its German premiere: large portions of the film went missing over the subsequent decades.

The film was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in the same year, the first film thus distinguished. In 2008 a damaged print of Lang's original cut of the film was found in a museum in Argentina. After a long restoration process, the film was 95% restored.

Visual Elements/Style Berkeley devised elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns.

Berkeley's works used large numbers of showgirls and props as fantasy elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances.

Best Films by Busby Berkeley

Gold Diggers of 1933 is a Pre-Code Warner Bros. musical film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. The story is based on the play The Gold Diggers by Avery Hopwood, which ran for 282 performances on Broadway in 1919 and 1920. In 2003, Gold Diggers of 1933 was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". ________________________________________________________

Footlight Parade is a 1933 American musical film starring James Cagney with musical numbers created and directed by Busby Berkeley. In 1992, Footlight Parade was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The snowflake scene from the film is featured in Disney's The Great Movie Ride as part of the attraction.

Early Film History

Visual/Editing Style

Nonlinear narrative forms Chiaroscuro lighting Unusual camera angles Sound techniques borrowed from radio Deep focus shots Long takes

Best Films of Orson Welles

Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film produced by, co-written by, directed by and starring Orson Welles. The picture was Welles's first feature film. The film was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories; it won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay). Considered by many critics, filmmakers, and fans to be the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane was voted the greatest film of all time in five consecutive Sight & Sound‍ '​s polls of critics. It topped the American Film Institute's 100 Years ... 100 Movies list in 1998. Citizen Kane is particularly praised for its cinematography, music, and narrative structure, which were innovative for its time.

Summary: The film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a character based in part upon the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, and aspects of Welles's own life. Upon its release, Hearst prohibited mention of the film in any of his newspapers. Kane's career in the publishing world is born of idealistic social service, but gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power. Narrated principally through flashbacks, the story is told through the research of a newsreel reporter seeking to solve the mystery of the newspaper magnate's dying word: "Rosebud".

Unusual for an untried director, he was given the freedom to develop his own story, to use his own cast and crew, and to have final cut privilege. Following two abortive attempts to get a project off the ground, he wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane. While a critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office. _______________________________________________________

Walt Disney holds the record for both the most Academy Award nominations (59) and the number of Oscars awarded (22). He also earned four honorary Oscars. His last competitive Academy Award was posthumous.

The awards he won include: 1932: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Flowers and Trees (1932) 1932: Honorary Award for creation of Mickey Mouse 1939: Honorary Award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) The citation read, "For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field." (The award, unique in the history of the Oscars, is one large statuette and seven miniature statuettes.) 1941: Honorary Award for Fantasia (1940), shared with: William E. Garity and J.N.A. Hawkins. The citation for the certificate of merit read, "For their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia." 1943: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Der Fuehrer's Face (1942) 1951: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: In Beaver Valley (1950) 1952: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Nature's Half Acre (1951) 1954: Best Documentary, Features: The Living Desert (1953) 1959: Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects: Grand Canyon (1958) 1969: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) (posthumous) ______________________________________________________

Best Films of Walt Disney

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, it is the first full-length cel animated feature film and the earliest in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.

With international earnings of $8 million during its initial release briefly assumed the record of highest grossing sound film at the time. The popularity of the film has led to it being re-released theatrically many times, until its home video release in the 1990s. Adjusted for inflation, it is one of the top ten performers at the North American box office.

At the 11th Academy Awards, Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Oscar, and the film was nominated for Best Musical Score. It was added to the United States National Film Registry in 1989 and is ranked in the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films, who also named the film as the greatest American animated film of all time in 2008. Disney's take on the fairytale has had a huge cultural impact, resulting in popular theme park attractions, a video game, and a Broadway musical. _______________________________________________________

Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Disney settled on the film's concept as work neared completion on The Sorcerer's Apprentice, an elaborate Silly Symphonies short designed as a comeback role for Mickey Mouse, who had declined in popularity. As production costs grew higher than what it could earn, he decided to include the short in a feature-length film with other segments set to classical pieces. The soundtrack was recorded using multiple audio channels and reproduced with Fantasound, a pioneering sound reproduction system that made Fantasia the first commercial film shown in stereophonic sound.

It received mixed critical reaction and was unable to make a profit because World War II cut off distribution to the European market, the film's high production costs, and the expense of leasing theatres and installing the Fantasound equipment for the roadshow presentations. Fantasia has grossed $76.4 million in domestic revenue and is the 22nd highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. when adjusted for inflation. Fantasia, as a franchise, has grown to include video games, Disneyland attractions, a live concert, and a theatrically released sequel (Fantasia 2000) co-produced by Walt's nephew Roy E. Disney in 1999. Fantasia is widely acclaimed, and in 1998 the American Film Institute ranked it as the 58th greatest American film in their 100 Years...100 Movies and the fifth greatest animated film in their 10 Top 10 list. _______________________________________________________

Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and based on the Italian children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. It was the second animated feature film produced by Disney, made after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

The plot of the film involves an old wood-carver named Geppetto who carves a wooden puppet named Pinocchio. The puppet is brought to life by a blue fairy, who informs him that he can become a real boy if he proves himself to be "brave, truthful, and unselfish". Pinocchio's efforts to become a real boy involve encounters with a host of unsavory characters. Pinocchio was a groundbreaking achievement in the area of effects animation, giving realistic movement to vehicles, machinery and natural elements such as rain, lightning, snow, smoke, shadows and water. The film was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures on February 23, 1940.

Critical analysis of Pinocchio identifies it as a simple morality tale that teaches children of the benefits of hard work and middle-class values. Although it became the first animated feature to win a competitive Academy Award – winning two for Best Music, Original Score and for Best Music, Original Song for "When You Wish Upon A Star" – it was initially a box office disaster. It eventually made a profit in its 1945 reissue, and today it is considered among the finest Disney features ever made, and one of the greatest animated films of all time, with a rare 100% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes. The film and characters are still prevalent in popular culture, featuring at various Disney parks and in other forms of entertainment. In 1994, Pinocchio was added to the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." ______________________________________________________

Visual/Editing Style Frequent use of location shooting Long shots, in which his characters were framed against a vast, harsh and rugged natural terrain His heroes .... may appear simply to be loners, outsiders to established society, who generally speak through action rather than words. But their conflict with society embodies larger themes in the American experience. The musical score, often variations on folk themes, plays a more important part than dialogue in many Ford films. He was relatively sparing in his use of camera movements and close-ups, preferring static medium or long shots, with his players framed against dramatic vistas or interiors lit in an Expressionistic style. Exciting tracking shots, such as the Apache chase sequence in Stagecoach or the attack on the Comanche camp in The Searchers. Recurring visual motifs include trains and wagons—many Ford films begin and end with a linking vehicle such as a train or wagon arriving and leaving—doorways, roads, flowers, rivers, gatherings (parades, dances, meetings, bar scenes, etc.) He also employed gestural motifs in many films, notably the throwing of objects and the lighting of lamps, matches or cigarettes.

Best Films by John Ford

The Searchers is a 1956 American Technicolor VistaVision Western film directed by John Ford, set during the Texas–Indian Wars, and starring John Wayne as a middle-aged Civil War veteran who spends years looking for his abducted niece (Natalie Wood), accompanied by his adoptive nephew (Jeffrey Hunter). Critic Roger Ebert found Wayne's character, Ethan Edwards, "one of the most compelling characters Ford and Wayne ever created".

The film was a commercial success, although it received no Academy Award nominations. Since its release, it has come to be considered a masterpiece, and one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. It was named the greatest American western by the American Film Institute in 2008, and it placed 12th on the same organization's 2007 list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time. Entertainment Weekly also named it the best western. .

In 1989, The Searchers was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in its National Film Registry; it was in the first cohort of films selected for the registry. _______________________________________________________

Visual/Editing Style: French New Wave Style Moving camera Editing, especially using features of discontinuity editing like jump cuts Break the 4th wall with actors talking to the audience Long tracking shots Spirit of youthful iconoclasm taking place in 50’s France Desire to shoot more current social issues on location Intention of experimenting with the film form Using portable equipment and requiring little or no set up time in a documentary style. Existential themes such as stressing the individual and the acceptance of the absurdity of human existence. Improvised dialogue, rapid changes of scene, and shots that broke the common 180° axis of camera. Best Films of Jean-Luc Godard Breathless (French: À bout de souffle; "out of breath") is a 1960 French film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard about a wandering criminal (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and his American girlfriend (Jean Seberg). It was Godard's first feature-length work.

Summary: Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a youthful criminal who is intrigued with the film persona of Humphrey Bogart. After stealing a car in Marseille, Michel shoots and kills a policeman who has followed him onto a country road. Penniless and on the run from the police, he turns to an American love interest Patricia (Jean Seberg), a student and aspiring journalist, who sells the New York Herald Tribune on the streets of Paris. The ambivalent Patricia unwittingly hides him in her apartment as he simultaneously tries to seduce her and call in a loan to fund their escape to Italy. At one point, Patricia says she is pregnant with Michel's child. She learns that Michel is on the run when questioned by the police. Eventually she betrays him, but before the police arrive she tells Michel what she has done. He is somewhat resigned to a life in prison, and does not try to escape at first. The police shoot him in the street and, after a prolonged death run, he dies “à bout de souffle” (out of breath).

Breathless was one of the earliest, most influential examples of the French New Wave (nouvelle vague). Together with François Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour, both released a year earlier, it brought international acclaim to this new style of French filmmaking. At the time, the film attracted much attention for its bold visual style, which included the innovative use of jump cuts.

Classical Filmmaking

Visual Style Cameos (appearing in 39 of his 52 films, holding such high honors as “Man Walking Dogs,” “Guy on the Bus,” and “That Dude Over There")

“The Master of Suspense,” Hitchcock toyed with his audience with twist endings, shadows, mistaken identities, and decoy plots MacGuggin)

Inserting viewers into the film using the camera as the eyes of a character to give the effect of voyeurism.

Likeable criminals

Blondes in leading roles

Signature profile shot

Filming on the studio lot where he could control the lighting and pretty much everything else.

Best Alfred Hitchcock Films

North by Northwest is a 1959 American spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization who want to stop his interference in their plans to smuggle out microfilm containing government secrets. This film is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits.

It is now considered one of the essential Hitchcock pictures and one of the greatest films of all time. In 1995, North by Northwest was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". _______________________________________________________

Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder".

The film is one of Hitchcock's best, and one of the greatest movies ever made. The film received four Academy Award nominations and was ranked #42 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list. In 1997, Rear Window was added to the United States National Film Registry in the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". _______________________________________________________

Vertigo is a 1958 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson. Scottie is forced into early retirement because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia (an extreme fear of heights) and vertigo (a sensation of false, rotational movement). Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as a private investigator to follow Gavin's wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), who is behaving strangely.

It is the first film to utilize the dolly zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective to create disorientation, to convey Scottie's acrophobia. As a result of its use in this film, the effect is often referred to as "the Vertigo effect".

The film received mixed reviews upon initial release, but is now often cited as a classic Hitchcock film and one of the defining works of his career. Attracting significant scholarly criticism, it replaced Citizen Kane as the best film of all time in the 2012 British Film Institute's Sight & Sound critics' poll and has appeared repeatedly in best film polls by the American Film Institute. In 2007, it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the ninth-greatest American movie of all time. _______________________________________________________

Psycho is a 1960 American psychological thriller-horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. The screenplay is by Joseph Stefano, based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch loosely inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin murderer and grave robber Ed Gein.

The film centers on the encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Leigh), who ends up at a secluded motel after embezzling money from her employer, and the motel's disturbed owner-manager, Norman Bates (Perkins), and its aftermath. When originally made, the film was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film North by Northwest, having been filmed on a low budget, with a television crew and in black and white. Psycho initially received mixed reviews, but outstanding box office returns prompted reconsideration which led to overwhelming critical acclaim and four Academy Award nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Leigh and Best Director for Hitchcock.

Ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and is widely considered to be the earliest example of the slasher film genre. In 1992, the US Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. ______________________________________________________

Strangers on a Train is an American psychological crime thriller film with film noir elements, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film is number 32 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills.

The story concerns two strangers who meet on a train, a young tennis player and a charming psychopath. The psychopath suggests that because they each want to "get rid" of someone, they should "exchange" murders, and that way neither will get caught. The first murder is committed; then the psychopath tries to force the tennis player to complete the bargain. _______________________________________________________

The Birds is a 1963 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on the 1952 story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California, which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few days. _______________________________________________________

Visual/Editing Style

Deal with existential questions of mortality, loneliness, and religious faith.

While these topics could seem cerebral, sexual desire found its way to the foreground of most of his films.

His female characters are usually more in touch with their sexuality than the men, and unafraid to proclaim it, sometimes with breathtaking overtness.

Best Ingmar Bergman Films

Summary: The Seventh Seal (Swedish: Det sjunde inseglet) is a 1957 Swedish drama-fantasy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set in Sweden during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death (Bengt Ekerot), who has come to take his life. Bergman developed the film from his own play Wood Painting. The title refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation, used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end, beginning with the words "And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour".[Rev. 8:1] Here the motif of silence refers to the "silence of God," which is a major theme of the film.

The Seventh Seal is considered a classic of world cinema. It established Bergman as a world-renowned director, containing scenes which have become iconic through homages, critical analysis, and parodies. ________________________________________________________

Visual/Editing Style

You might not know Kurosawa’s work, but his films have influenced some of the biggest blockbusters ever.

Pioneered the “wipe effect” transition

Changed the way large scenes were shot by using a telephoto lens (effectively creating a flat image that is two-dimensional, instead of having objects in the foreground appear much larger than objects in the background).

Using weather (typically heavy rain), majestic pageantry, and savage violence

Developed superhero tandems, superheroes falling in love with mortals, and superheroes with issues

Musical score as a motif throughout the film

Bold, dynamic style, which many have compared to the traditional Hollywood style of narrative moviemaking, one that emphasizes, in the words of one such scholar, "chronological, causal, linear and historical thinking".

"Axial cut", in which the camera moves closer to, or further away from, the subject, not through the use of tracking shots or dissolves, but through a series of matched jump cuts. ______________________________________________________

Best Films of Akira Kurosawa

Rashomon (羅生門 Rashōmon?) is a 1950 Japanese period drama film directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. The film is known for a plot device which involves various characters providing alternative, self-serving and contradictory versions of the same incident. The name of the film refers to the enormous city gate of Kyoto. The term Rashomon effect refers to real-world situations in which multiple eye-witness testimonies of an event contain conflicting information.

Rashomon marked the entrance of Japanese film onto the world stage. It won several awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951, and an Academy Honorary Award at the 24th Academy Awards in 1952, and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made.

Rashomon firsts: -First time camera was every pointed at the sun, creating symbolic uses of lights and darks. -Over-exaggerated acting as Kurosawa felt that too much talking was ruining the modern movie. -Simple, cheap sets (e.g., courtroom courtyard, city gate and forest) -Use of rain (and weather) as a symbolic plot device _______________________________________________________

Seven Samurai[2] (七人の侍 Shichinin no Samurai) is a 1954 Japanese Jidaigeki adventure film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Summary: The story takes place in 1586 during the Warring States Period of Japan. It follows the story of a village of farmers that hire seven ronin (masterless samurai) to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.

Since its release, Seven Samurai has consistently ranked highly across critics' greatest film polls such as the BFI's Sight and Sound, Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB polls. It has remained highly influential, often seen as one of the most "remade, reworked, referenced" films in cinema, including the Western The Magnificent Seven. _______________________________________________________

Best Films by Francis Ford Coppola

Summary: The Godfather is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on a screenplay by Mario Puzo and Coppola. Starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino as the leaders of a fictional New York crime family, the story spans the years 1945-55, concentrating on the transformation of Michael Corleone from reluctant family outsider to ruthless Mafia boss while chronicling the Corleones under the patriarch Vito.

Based on Puzo's best-selling novel of the same name, The Godfather is widely regarded as one of the greatest films in world cinema—and as one of the most influential, especially in the gangster genre. Ranked second to Citizen Kane by the American Film Institute in 2007, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1990. It is #21 in the Sight & Sound poll.

The film was for a time the highest grossing picture ever made. It won three Oscars for that year: Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando) and in the category Best Adapted Screenplay for Puzo and Coppola. The success spawned two sequels: The Godfather Part II in 1974, and The Godfather Part III in 1990. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic adventure war film set during the Vietnam War. The film follows the central character, U.S. Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Sheen), of MACV-SOG, on a secret mission to assassinate the renegade and presumed insane U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Brando).

The screenplay by John Milius and Coppola updates the setting of Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness to that of the Vietnam War era. It also draws from Michael Herr's Dispatches, the film version of Conrad's Lord Jim which shares the same character of Marlow with Heart of Darkness, and Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972).

Apocalypse Now was released to wide acclaim. Many critics now regard it as one of the greatest films ever made. It was honored with the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama. The film was also ranked #14 in the Sight and Sound greatest films poll. In 2000, Apocalypse Now was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. _______________________________________________________

Visual/Editing Style

Incessant use of the one-point perspective "Kubrick Stare"--shot of a character with his head down and eyes up Long tracking shots down hallways with parallel walls Pivotal scenes take place in the bathroom (Eyes Wide Shut, Full Metal Jacket, The Shining). Challenging viewer's expectations of film language Every Kubrick film concludes with: “The End.” _______________________________________________________

Best Films by Stanley Kubrick

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, more commonly known as Dr. Strangelove, is a 1964 political satire black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the USSR and the US. The film is loosely based on Peter George's thriller novel Red Alert.

Summary: The story concerns an unhinged United States Air Force general who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. It follows the President of the United States, his advisers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer as they try to recall the bombers to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. It separately follows the crew of one B-52 bomber as they try to deliver their payload.

In 1989, the United States Library of Congress included it in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was listed as number three on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list. ________________________________________________________

Summary: 2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay, written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, was partially inspired by Clarke's short story "The Sentinel". The film follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient computer Hal after the discovery of a mysterious black monolith affecting human evolution. The film deals with the themes of existentialism, human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life. It is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction of space flight, pioneering special effects, and ambiguous imagery. It uses minimal dialogue, and sound in place of traditional narrative techniques; the score consists of classical music such as The Blue Danube and Also sprach Zarathustra.

Despite initially receiving mixed reactions from critics and audiences, Space Odyssey garnered a cult following and slowly became the highest-grossing North American film of 1968. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and received one for its visual effects. Today, critics and filmmakers regard it as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The critics' polls in the 2002 and 2012 editions of Sight & Sound magazine ranked 2001: A Space Odyssey sixth in the top ten films of all time; it also tied for second place in the directors' poll of the same magazine. In 2010, it was ranked the greatest film of all time by The Moving Arts Film Journal. _______________________________________________________

The Shining is a 1980 British-American psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson. The film is based on Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name, although the film and novel differ in significant ways.

Summary: Jack Torrance, a writer and recovering alcoholic, takes a job as an off-season caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel. His young son possesses psychic abilities and is able to see things from the past and future, such as the ghosts who inhabit the hotel. Some time after settling in, the family is trapped in the hotel by a snowstorm, and Jack gradually becomes influenced by a supernatural presence, descends into madness, and ultimately attempts to murder his wife and son.

Unlike previous Kubrick films, which developed an audience gradually by building on word-of-mouth, The Shining was released as a mass-market film. Although initial response to the film was mixed, later critical assessment was more favorable and it is now listed among the greatest horror movies, while some have viewed it as one of the greatest films of all time. Film director Martin Scorsese, writing in The Daily Beast, ranked it as one of the 11 scariest horror movies of all time. _______________________________________________________

Summary: A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess's 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange. It employs disturbing, violent images to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain.

Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the main character, is a charismatic, sociopathic delinquent whose interests include classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and what is termed "ultra-violence." He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls his droogs (from the Russian друг, "friend," "buddy"). The film chronicles the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via controversial psychological conditioning. Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured adolescent slang composed of Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick. Its storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their training and the experiences of two of the platoon's Marines in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The film's title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by infantry riflemen. In 2001, the American Film Institute placed Full Metal Jacket at No. 95 in their "AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills" poll. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Lolita is a 1962 comedy-drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov, about a middle-aged man who becomes obsessed with a teenage girl. Due to the MPAA's restrictions at the time, the film toned down the more provocative aspects of the novel, sometimes leaving much to the audience's imagination. The actress who played Lolita, Sue Lyon, was 14 at the time of filming. Kubrick later commented that, had he realized how severe the censorship limitations were going to be, he probably never would have made the film. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick. It was inspired by the life story of the leader of a slave revolt in antiquity, Spartacus, and the events of the Third Servile War. The film won four Academy Awards in all. It is the only film directed by Kubrick where he did not have complete artistic control.

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted at the time as one of the Hollywood Ten. Kirk Douglas publicly announced that Trumbo was the screenwriter of Spartacus, and President-elect John F. Kennedy crossed American Legion picket lines to view the film, helping to end blacklisting. The film became the biggest moneymaker in Universal Studios' history, until it was surpassed by Airport (1970). _______________________________________________________

Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 American erotic thriller film loosely based upon Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle (Dream Story). It was his last film, as he died six days after showing his final cut to Warner Bros. studios.

Summary: The story, set in and around New York City, follows the sexually charged adventures of Dr. Bill Harford, who is shocked when his wife, Alice, reveals that she had contemplated an affair a year earlier. He embarks on a night-long adventure, during which he infiltrates a massive masked orgy of an unnamed secret society.

The film spent a long time in production, and holds the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous film shoot period, at 400 days. Eyes Wide Shut was released a few months following Kubrick's death, to positive critical reaction and intakes of $162 million at the worldwide box office. Its strong sexual content also made it controversial; to ensure a theatrical R rating in the United States, Warner Bros. digitally altered several scenes during post-production. _______________________________________________________

Visual/Editing Style Frequent use of slow motion Long tracking shots Use of popular music Slow motion has often been used as a way to heighten a moment, particularly during scenes of psychological duress. Tracking shots, on the other hand, are often used for the opposite reason: to ground a moment or scene in reality — such as the long, extended shots in Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. _______________________________________________________

Best Martin Scorsese Films

Summary: Taxi Driver is a 1976 American vigilante film with neo-noir and psychological thriller elements, directed by Martin Scorsese. Set in New York City soon after the end of the Vietnam War, the film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, and Albert Brooks.

The film is regularly cited by critics, film directors, and audiences alike as one of the greatest films of all time. Nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, it won the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. The American Film Institute ranked Taxi Driver as the 52nd-greatest American film on its AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies. In 2012, Sight & Sound named it the 31st-best film ever in its decennial critics' poll, ranked with The Godfather Part II, and the fifth-greatest film of all time on its directors' poll. The film was considered "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant by the US Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1994. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical black-and-white sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, an Italian American middleweight boxer whose self-destructive and obsessive rage, sexual jealousy, and animalistic appetite destroyed his relationship with his wife and family. Also featured in the film are Joe Pesci as Joey, La Motta's well-intentioned brother and manager who tries to help Jake battle his inner demons, and Cathy Moriarty as his wife.

During principal photography, each of the boxing scenes was choreographed for a specific visual style and De Niro gained approximately 60 pounds (27 kg) to portray La Motta in his later post-boxing years.

After receiving mixed initial reviews (and criticism due to its violent content), it went on to garner a high critical reputation and is now regarded among the greatest American films ever made. It was listed in the National Film Registry in 1990, its first year of eligibility. Raging Bull is voted by many critics including Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel as the best film of the 1980s. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Goodfellas is a 1990 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi. The film narrates the rise and fall of Lucchese crime family associate He4nry Hill (the first-person narrator in the film) and his friends over a period from 1955 to 1980.

According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals wherein Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines he liked best, and put them into a revised script the cast worked from during principal photography.

It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Goodfellas is often considered one of the greatest films of all time, both in the crime genre and in general, and was deemed "culturally significant" and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Both its content and style have been emulated in numerous other films and television shows. Scorsese followed up making this film with two more about organized crime: Casino (1995) and The Departed (2006). ________________________________________________________

Summary: Gangs of New York is a 2002 American fictionalized historical drama film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of Lower Manhattan in 1863. It was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Most of the film takes place in 1863. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the ongoing Civil War. The story follows Bill "the Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863. _______________________________________________________

Summary: The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 American-Canadian epic drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. The film depicts the life of Jesus Christ and his struggle with various forms of temptation including fear, doubt, depression, reluctance and lust. This results in the book and film depicting Christ being tempted by imagining himself engaged in sexual activities, a notion that has caused outrage from some Christians. The film includes a disclaimer explaining that it departs from the commonly accepted Biblical portrayal of Jesus' life, and is not based on the Gospels. Scorsese received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. _______________________________________________________

Summary: The Wolf of Wall Street is a 2013 American biographical black comedy film, directed by Martin Scorsese. The screenplay by Terence Winter is adapted from the eponymous memoir by Jordan Belfort and recounts from Belfort's perspective his career as a stockbroker in New York City and how his firm Stratton Oakmont engaged in rampant corruption and fraud on Wall Street that ultimately led to his downfall. Leonardo DiCaprio (who also produced the film) stars as Belfort, with Jonah Hill as his business partner and friend Donnie Azoff

The film was the first to have been released entirely through digital distribution. It was a major commercial success, grossing more than $392 million worldwide during its original theatrical run to become Scorsese's highest-grossing movie to date and the 17th-highest-grossing film of 2013. The film was controversial for its morally ambiguous depiction of events, explicit sexual content, profanity, depiction of hard drug use, and the use of animals during production.

The film received mostly positive reviews from critics with praise and awards, including five nominations at the 86th Academy Awards ceremony: Best Picture, Best Director for Scorsese, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) for Winter, and Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor nominations for DiCaprio and Hill, respectively. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Casino is a 1995 American crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. In Casino, De Niro stars as Sam "Ace" Rothstein, a Jewish American top gambling handicapper who is called by the Italian Mob to oversee the day-to-day operations at the fictional Tangiers casino in Las Vegas. His character is based on Frank Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust, Fremont, and Hacienda casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago Outfit, from the 1970s until the early 1980s.

Joe Pesci plays Nicky Santoro, based on real-life Mob enforcer Anthony Spilotro. A made man, Nicky is sent to Vegas to make sure money from the Tangiers is skimmed off the top and the mobsters in Vegas are kept in line. ________________________________________________________

Summary: The Departed is a 2006 American crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by William Monahan. A critical and commercial success, the film won several awards, including four Oscars at the 79th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Scorsese), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

The film takes place in Boston. Irish Mob boss Francis "Frank" Costello (Jack Nicholson) plants Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) as a mole within the Massachusetts State Police; the two characters are loosely based on famous gangster Whitey Bulger and corrupt FBI agent John Connolly, who grew up with Bulger.Simulta neously, the police assign undercover state trooper William "Billy" Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) to infiltrate Costello's crew. When both sides realize the situation, Sullivan and Costigan each attempt to discover the other's identity before his own cover is blown. ________________________________________________________

Summary: Hugo is a 2011 American 3D historical adventure drama film directed and co-produced by Martin Scorsese. It is about a boy who lives alone in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris in the 1930s. Hugo received eleven 2011 Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture), more than any other film that year, and won five Oscars: Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. _______________________________________________________

Visual/Editing Style Spielberg likes to tell his story through emotion.

"Spielberg Face"--extreme close-up of a character’s face to show emotion. Like Scorsese, Spielberg also employs a handful of other techniques, such as: reflections, shadows, and using circles to go against the natural square/rectangle frame of movies.

Most of his films deal with ordinary characters searching for or coming in contact with extraordinary beings or finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances.

The most persistent theme throughout his films is tension in parent-child relationships.

Tendency to focus on inanimate objects (the ration tin filled with dirt in Saving Private Ryan, the necklace in Catch Me If You Can, the rolling ball in Minority Report).

Tends to use a 90-degree character shot: positioning the two cameras parallel to each other, putting both characters in profile.

In later years, his films began addressing humanistic issues such as the Holocaust (in Schindler's List), the transatlantic slave trade (in Amistad), war (in Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, and War Horse), and terrorism (in Munich).

Spielberg known for long-takes called Spielberg “ones,” usually 3 minutes long and focused on dialogue and setting up a “path.”

Focuses on wide shots with realistic features.

Loves the “Hitchcock Vertigo Effect” using the dolly zoon effect. _______________________________________________________

Best Films of Steven Spielberg

Summary: Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film centers on the fictional Isla Nublar, an islet located off Central America's Pacific Coast, near Costa Rica, where a billionaire philanthropist and a small team of genetic scientists have created a wildlife park of cloned dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs were created with groundbreaking computer-generated imagery by Industrial Light & Magic and with life-sized animatronic dinosaurs built by Stan Winston's team. To showcase the film's sound design, which included a mixture of various animal noises for the dinosaur roars, Spielberg invested in the creation of DTS, a company specializing in digital surround sound formats.

Following an extensive $65 million marketing campaign, which included licensing deals with 100 companies, Jurassic Park grossed over $900 million worldwide in its original theatrical run. It surpassed Spielberg's 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to become the highest-grossing film worldwide until Titanic (1997). Jurassic Park was well received by critics, who praised its special effects, John Williams' musical score, and Spielberg's direction. The film won more than 20 awards (including 3 Academy Awards), mostly for its technical achievements. Following a re-release in 2011, and a 3D reissue in 2013 to celebrate its 20th anniversary, Jurassic Park became the 17th film to surpass $1 billion in ticket sales, and is currently one of the highest-grossing films of all time.

Jurassic Park is considered by many to be one of the greatest films of all time, as well as a landmark in the development of computer-generated imagery and animatronic visual effects. ________________________________________________________

Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel of the same name. The prototypical summer blockbuster, its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history.

Summary: In the story, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional New England summer resort town, prompting the local police chief to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter. The film stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as oceanographer Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw as shark hunter Quint, Murray Hamilton as the mayor of Amity Island, and Lorraine Gary as Brody's wife, Ellen.

Shot mostly on location on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, the film had a troubled production, going over budget and past schedule. As the art department's mechanical sharks suffered many malfunctions, Spielberg decided to mostly suggest the animal's presence, employing an ominous, minimalistic theme created by composer John Williams to indicate the shark's impending appearances. Spielberg and others have compared this suggestive approach to that of classic thriller director Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures gave the film what was then an exceptionally wide release for a major studio picture, over 450 screens, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign with a heavy emphasis on television spots and tie-in merchandise.

Generally well received by critics, Jaws became the highest-grossing film in history at the time, a distinction it held until the release of Star Wars. Along with Star Wars, Jaws was pivotal in establishing the modern Hollywood business model, which revolves around high box-office returns from action and adventure pictures with simple "high-concept" premises that are released during the summer in thousands of theaters and supported by heavy advertising. In 2001, Jaws was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". _______________________________________________________

Summary: Raiders of the Lost Ark (later marketed as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark) is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. It pits Indiana Jones (Ford) against a group of Nazis who are searching for the Ark of the Covenant, which Adolf Hitler believes will make his army invincible. The film originated from Lucas' desire to create a modern version of the serials of the 1930s and 1940s.

Raiders of the Lost Ark remains one of the highest-grossing films ever made. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1982, including Best Picture, and won four (Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects) and a fifth Special Achievement Award for its Sound Effects Editing. The film's critical and popular success led to three additional films, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992–1996), and 15 video games as of 2009. In 1999, the film was included in the U.S. Library of Congress' National Film Registry as having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Raiders is ranked among the greatest films of all time in the action-adventure genre and often in general. _______________________________________________________

Summary: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (often referred to simply as E.T.) is a 1982 American science fiction-family film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg. It tells the story of Elliott (Thomas), a lonely boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed "E.T.", who is stranded on Earth. He and his siblings help it return home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government.

The concept for the film was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents' divorce in 1960. In 1980, Spielberg met Mathison and developed a new story from the stalled science fiction/horror film project Night Skies. It was shot from September to December 1981 in California on a budget of US$10.5 million. Unlike most motion pictures, it was shot in roughly chronological order, to facilitate convincing emotional performances from the young cast.

E.T was a blockbuster, surpassing Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope to become the highest-grossing film of all time—a record it held for eleven years until Jurassic Park, another Spielberg-directed film, surpassed it in 1993. It remains the 50th highest-grossing film of all time, and the highest-grossing film of the 1980s. Critics acclaimed it as a timeless story of friendship, and it ranks as the greatest science fiction film ever made in a Rotten Tomatoes survey. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical period drama, directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the life of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Amon Goeth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.

Often listed among the greatest films ever made, it was also a box office success, earning $321.2 million worldwide on a $22 million budget. It was the recipient of seven Academy Awards (out of twelve nominations), including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked the film 8th on its list of the 100 best American films of all time. The Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2004. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American epic war drama film set during the Invasion of Normandy in World War II. Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat, the film is notable for its graphic and realistic portrayal of war, and for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depict the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944. It follows United States Army Rangers Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) and a squad (Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Adam Goldberg, and Jeremy Davies) as they search for a paratrooper, Private First Class James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), who is the last-surviving brother of four servicemen.

Saving Private Ryan received universal critical acclaim, winning several awards for film, cast, and crew as well as earning significant returns at the box office. The film grossed US$481.8 million worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing film of the year. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated the film for eleven Academy Awards; Spielberg's direction won him a second Academy Award for Best Director, with four more awards going to the film. In 2014, Saving Private Ryan was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry as per being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." _______________________________________________________

Summary: Minority Report is a 2002 American neo-noir science fiction mystery-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and loosely based on the short story of the same name by Philip K. Dick. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia in the year 2054, where "PreCrime", a specialized police department, apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by three psychics called "precogs". The film is a combination of whodunit, thriller and science fiction.

Spielberg has characterized the story as "fifty percent character and fifty percent very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery and plot". The film's central theme is the question of free will versus determinism. It examines whether free will can exist if the future is set and known in advance. Other themes include the role of preventive government in protecting its citizenry, the role of media in a future state where technological advancements make its presence nearly boundless, the potential legality of an infallible prosecutor, and Spielberg's repeated theme of broken families.

Minority Report has a unique visual style. It uses high contrast to create dark colors and shadows, much like a film noir picture. The film's overlit shots feature desaturated colors which were achieved by bleach-bypassing the film's negative in post-production.

The film was a commercial success, earning over $358 million worldwide against an overall budget of $142 million (including advertising). ______________________________________________________

Summary: Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film, written and directed by Steven Spielberg and featuring Richard Dreyfuss. It tells the story of Roy Neary, an everyday blue collar worker in Indiana, whose life changes after an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO).

Close Encounters was a long-cherished project for Spielberg. In late 1973, he developed a deal with Columbia Pictures for a science fiction film. Made on a production budget of $18 million, Close Encounters was released in November 1977 to critical and financial success, eventually grossing over $337,700,000 worldwide.

The film received numerous awards and nominations at the 50th Academy Awards. In December 2007, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. ______________________________________________________

Summary: SLincoln is a 2012 American epic historical drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as United States President Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln. The screenplay by Tony Kushner was based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and covers the final four months of Lincoln's life, focusing on the President's efforts in January 1865 to have the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed by the United States House of Representatives.

Lincoln received widespread critical acclaim, with major praise directed to the acting, especially Day-Lewis' performance, as well as the direction and production merits. At the 85th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for 12 Academy Awards including Best Picture; it won for Best Production Design and Best Actor for Day-Lewis. The film was also a commercial success, having grossed more than $275 million at the box office. _______________________________________________________

Summary: The Color Purple is a 1985 American period drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Alice Walker. It was Spielberg's eighth film as a director, and was a change from the summer blockbusters for which he had become famous. The film tells the story of a young African American girl named Celie Harris and shows the problems African American women faced during the early 1900s, including poverty, racism, and sexism. Celie is transformed as she finds her self-worth through the help of two strong female companions. ________________________________________________________

Film Style

George Lucas has credited Kurosawa as one of his influencers and it’s easy to see why. Like Kurosawa, Lucas also uses the “wipe effect.”

Master-student storyline involving a heroic champion.

Wilhelm Scream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio&feature=youtu.be _______________________________________________________

Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas.

The plot focuses on the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia (Fisher), and its attempt to destroy the Galactic Empire's space station, the Death Star. This conflict disrupts the isolated life of ambitious farmhand Luke Skywalker (Hamill) when he inadvertently acquires a pair of droids that possess stolen architectural plans for the Death Star. After the Empire begins a destructive search for the missing droids, Skywalker agrees to accompany Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Guinness) on a mission to return the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance and save the galaxy from the tyranny of the Galactic Empire.

Lucas began writing the script to Star Wars after completing his 1973 comedy-drama, American Graffiti. He based the plot outline on the 1936 Flash Gordon serials and the 1958 Akira Kurosawa film The Hidden Fortress. Shot mostly in Tunisia, England, and Guatemala, the film was met with numerous problems during production, including bad weather conditions, malfunctioning equipment, and financial difficulties. The script underwent numerous changes, and Lucas founded Industrial Light & Magic specifically to create the groundbreaking visual effects needed for the film.

It earned $461 million in the United States and $314 million overseas, totaling $775 million. It surpassed Jaws (1975) to become the highest-grossing film until E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1983. When adjusted for inflation as of 2013, Star Wars was the second-highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada, and the third-highest-grossing film in the world. It received 10 Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture), winning six; it is often regarded as one of the best films of all time. It was selected to become part of the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in its first year of opening as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"; at the time, it was the newest film to be selected, and it was the only film from the 1970s to be chosen. The film's soundtrack was added to the United States National Recording Registry 15 years later.

The film's massive success led to the production of two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), both of which became critically and commercially successful. A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005; all three films were again commercially successful, but did not match the level of critical and fanatical acclaim of the original trilogy. _______________________________________________________

Visual Style

Grand digital effects are to James Cameron what explosions are to Michael Bay. The man simply loves stunning, over-the-top visuals. Although he, too, enjoys explosions (and crashes) as many of his films involve fighting and war.

Cameron frequently colors his films with a blue overlay, featuring a strong female character, while the men struggle (and often fight) with technology.

Another Cameron trademark is a close-up of feet/wheels (typically executed when trampling occurs).

Using a video monitor as the perspective of the camera (surveillance cameras in True Lies, video log in Avatar, beginning of Titanic).

Best Films of James Cameron

Titanic Summary: Cameron expressed interest in the famous sinking of the ship RMS Titanic. The picture revolved around a fictional romance story between two young lovers from different social classes who meet on board. Before production began, he took dives to the bottom of the Atlantic and shot actual footage of the ship underwater, which he inserted into the final film. Much of the film's dialogue was also written during these dives.

Cameron's budget for the film reached about $200 million, making it the most expensive movie ever made at the time. Before its release, the film was widely ridiculed for its expense and protracted production schedule. Titanic grossed less in its first weekend ($28.6 million) than in its second ($35.4 million), an increase of 23.8%. This is unheard of for a widely released film, which is a testament to the movie's appeal. This was especially noteworthy, considering that the film's running time of more than three hours limited the number of showings each theater could schedule. It held the No. 1 spot on the box-office charts for months, eventually grossing a total of $600.8 million in the United States and Canada and more than $1.84 billion worldwide. Titanic became the highest-grossing film of all time, both worldwide and in the United States and Canada, and was also the first film to gross more than $1 billion worldwide. It remained the highest-grossing film since 1998, until Cameron's 2009 film Avatar surpassed its gross in 2010.

The CG visuals surrounding the sinking and destruction of the ship were considered spectacular. Despite criticism during production of the film, it received a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations (tied with All About Eve) at the 1998 Academy Awards. It won 11 Oscars (also tying the record for most Oscar wins with Ben-Hur and later The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), including: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Original Song.[37] Upon receiving the Best Director Oscar, Cameron exclaimed, "I'm king of the world!", in reference to one of the main characters' lines from the film. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Avatar is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the mineral unobtanium,a room-temperature superconductor. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's title refers to a genetically engineered Na'vi body with the mind of a remotely located human that is used to interact with the natives of Pandora.

The film made extensive use of new motion capture filming techniques, and was released for traditional viewing, 3D viewing (using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D, and IMAX 3D formats), and for "4D" experiences in select South Korean theaters. The stereoscopic filmmaking was touted as a breakthrough in cinematic technology.

During its theatrical run, the film broke several box office records and became the highest-grossing film of all time, as well as in the United States and Canada, surpassing Titanic, which had held those records for twelve years (and was also directed by Cameron). It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion. Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three, for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. _______________________________________________________

Summary: The Terminator is a 1984 American science fiction action film directed by James Cameron. Schwarzenegger plays the Terminator, a cyborg assassin sent back in time from the year 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, played by Hamilton, whose son will one day become a savior against machines in a post-apocalyptic future. Biehn plays Kyle Reese, a soldier from the future sent back in time to protect Sarah.

Though not expected to be either a commercial or critical success, The Terminator topped the American box office for two weeks and helped launch the film career of Cameron and consolidate that of Schwarzenegger. In 2008, The Terminator was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the American National Film Registry, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". ______________________________________________________

Summary: Aliens is a 1986 American science-fiction action horror film written and directed by James Cameron. It is the sequel to the 1979 film Alien and the second installment in the Alien franchise. The film follows Weaver's character Ellen Ripley as she returns to the planet where her crew encountered the hostile Alien creature, this time accompanied by a unit of space marines. The script was written with a war film tone influenced by the Vietnam War to contrast the horror motifs of the original Alien. It was filmed in England at Pinewood Studios and at a decommissioned power plant in Acton, London.

Aliens grossed $180 million worldwide. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including a Best Actress nomination for Sigourney Weaver, winning both Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. Aliens is considered one of the greatest films of all time. _______________________________________________________

Visual Style

Coming from an art and animation background, the first thing you’ll notice in Burton’s films is a strict adherence to gothic color palettes, production design, and costume design.

In general, Burton’s film and production tend to employ designs that harken back to expressionist filmmaking, specifically German filmmakers like Fritz Lang or Robert Wiene's silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)f, using the work as inspiration for Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, among others.

Tim Burton has the distinguished honor of being the “dark” director of Hollywood, frequently using a black-and-white color scheme along with sharp contrasts (often red) to give his films a gothic look.

Most people can identify a Burton film based on his signature creatures, ominous characters, and their battle between the light and dark world.

Another distinct Burton move is to alter the studio logo during the opening titles.

In addition to these, Tim Burton also regularly casts Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in his films, and for whatever reason, the man loves putting his characters in snow. _______________________________________________________

Best Films by Tim Burton

Summary: The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 American stop motion musical fantasy film. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, a being from "Halloween Town" who opens a portal to "Christmas Town" and decides to celebrate the holiday, with some dastardly and comical consequences.

The Nightmare Before Christmas originated in a poem written by Tim Burton in 1982, while he was working as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation. Over the years, Burton's thoughts regularly returned to the project, and in 1990, he made a development deal with Disney. Production started in July 1991 in San Francisco. Disney originally released the film through the Touchstone Pictures banner because the studio believed the film would be "too dark, and scary for kids."

The Nightmare Before Christmas was met with both critical and financial success. The film has since been reissued by Walt Disney Pictures and re-released annually in the Disney Digital 3-D format from 2006 until 2009, making it the first stop-motion animated feature to be entirely converted to 3D. ______________________________________________________

Summary: Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 American romantic dark fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. The film shows the story of an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation who has scissors for hands. Edward is taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter Kim.

Burton conceived the idea for Edward Scissorhands from his childhood upbringing in suburban Burbank, California. During pre-production of Beetlejuice, Caroline Thompson was hired to adapt Burton's story into a screenplay, and the film began development at 20th Century Fox, after Warner Bros. passed on the project. Edward Scissorhands was then fast tracked after Burton's success with Batman.

Edward Scissorhands was released with positive feedback from critics, and was a financial success. The film received numerous nominations at the Academy Awards, British Academy Film Awards, Saturn Awards, as well as winning the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. Burton considers Edward Scissorhands his most personal and favorite work. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Beetlejuice is a 1988 American comedy fantasy film directed by Tim Burton. The plot revolves around a recently deceased young couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) who become ghosts haunting their former home, and an obnoxious, devious ghost named Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetlejuice, portrayed by Michael Keaton) from the Netherworld who tries to scare away the new inhabitants.

The film spawned an animated television series that Burton produced and a planned unproduced sequel, Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Batman is a 1989 American superhero film directed by Tim Burton, based on the DC Comics character of the same name. It is the first installment of Warner Bros.' initial Batman film series. In the film, Batman deals with the rise of a costumed criminal known as "The Joker".

Batman was a critical and financial success, earning over $400 million in box office totals. It was the fifth-highest grossing film in history at the time of its release. The film received several Saturn Award nominations and a Golden Globe nomination, and won an Academy Award. It also inspired the equally successful Batman: The Animated Series, paving the way for the DC animated universe, and has influenced Hollywood's modern marketing and development techniques of the superhero film genre. ______________________________________________________

Summary: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 2007 musical horror/slasher film directed by Tim Burton. It is an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Tony Award-winning 1979 musical of the same name and re-tells the Victorian melodramatic tale of Sweeney Todd, an English barber and serial killer who murders his customers with a straight razor and, with the help of his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, processes their corpses into meat pies.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was released in the United States on December 21, 2007, and in the United Kingdom on January 25, 2008, to largely enthusiastic reviews. The film won a number of awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. Helena Bonham Carter was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Johnny Depp was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. ______________________________________________________

Summary: Planet of the Apes is a 2001 American science fiction film directed by Tim Burton and starring Mark Wahlberg. It tells the story of astronaut Leo Davidson crash-landing on a planet inhabited by intelligent apes. The apes treat humans as slaves, but with the help of an ape named Ari, Leo starts a rebellion. ______________________________________________________

Features of Miyazaki Films -Animation to explore human nature realistically. -Anthropomorphic figures with restrained emotions. Only human characters get emotions. -Landscapes as protagonist experiences them. -Human emotions are set to the weather. -Quiet moments emphasized to connect with characters (unlike Hollywood). -Follows the golden rule of art--show don't tell. -Character's imperfections/shortcomings make them like us. -Animism (spiritual connection) of all things and all have tenderness and gruesomeness and explore complex morality. -Protagonist doesn't win but grows to adapt to the limitations of the world.

Best Films of Miyazaki Spirited Away (Japanese: 千と千尋の神隠し) is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino (Hiiragi), a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters the spirit world. After her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba (Natsuki), Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world.

Miyazaki wrote the script after he decided the film would be based on the ten-year-old daughter of his friend, associate producer Seiji Okuda, who came to visit his house each summer. At the time, Miyazaki was developing two personal projects, but they were rejected. With a budget of US$19 million, production of Spirited Away began in 2000. During production, Miyazaki realized the film would be over three hours long and decided to cut out several parts of the story. Pixar director John Lasseter, a fan of Miyazaki, was approached by Walt Disney Pictures to supervise an English-language translation for the film's North American release.

The film was released on 20 July 2001, and became the most successful film in Japanese history, grossing about $289 million worldwide and receiving widespread critical acclaim. The film overtook Titanic (at the time the top grossing film worldwide) in the Japanese box office to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history with a ¥30.4 billion total. Spirited Away is frequently ranked among the greatest animated films. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards, the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival (tied with Bloody Sunday) and is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.

Tarantino's Style

Tarantino often uses graphic violence that has proven seductive to audiences, and he has been harshly criticized for his use of gore and blood in an entrancing yet simultaneously repulsive way. His films have been staunchly criticized and scorned for their use of violence, blood and action as a "color" within cinema, and rebuked for allegedly using human suffering as a punchline.

He often seeks to harness, manipulate and ultimately imitate the aesthetic elements and conventions typically used in the cartoon medium. More specifically, he often attempts to meld comic strip formulas and aesthetics within a live action film sequence, in some cases by the literal use of cartoon or anime images.

Tarantino often manipulates the use of commodities in order to propel plot development or to present an intriguing juxtaposition that ultimately enhances his notorious combination of humor and violence, equating a branded genre with branded consumption. He often pairs bizarre props with an equally bizarre scene, in which the prop itself develops into something of higher substance. Likewise, he often favors particular brand names of his own creation to make promotional appearances. The typical brands he uses within his films are "Acuña Boys Tex-Mex Food", "Big Kahuna Burger", "G.O. Juice", "Jack Rabbit Slim's", "K-Bill", "Red Apple cigarettes", "Tenku Brand Beer" and "Teriyaki Donut". ______________________________________________________

Camera Angles and Shots

Quentin Tarantino has trademarked the trunk shot camera angle and he's used it in every movie he has directed. He also uses reverse trunk shots with characters being watched from outside the trunk.

The Corpse POV

The God's Eye POV This shot is filmed with the camera directly above the actors. It is used to convey something bigger than the characters is watching them and what they are doing. In other words, a cinematic inner conscious. In Kill Bill, the Gods Eye POV seems to be accompanying The Bride on her justified journey of revenge.

QT has had black and white sequences in two of his films. They appear in Kill Bill and Death Proof. These sequences are definitely inspired by his love of the way movies looked in the early days of cinema up to the way it was used in the French New Wave era. ______________________________________________________

Recurring Themes

Foot Fetish Quentin Tarantino has a foot fetish? Nawww. Its gotta be a coincidence that feet play a huge part in his films!

The Mirror Shot Tarantino characters often speak and look at themselves in a mirror. It literally reflects the intimate moments of being alone.

The Dance Scene Tarantino dance scenes are (usually) a very joyous time.

The Torture Scene The torture scenes in Tarantino films are what make audiences squirm the most. When these characters are being held hostage it feels like we are too!

The Bathroom Scene

The Restaurant & Bar Scene

The Car Scene

The Black and White Suits Tarantino has stated that these are his characters' suits of armor.

What is on Television?

Who's On The Phone? _______________________________________________________

Best Films of Quentin Tarantino

Summary: Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American black comedy crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film is known for its eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and a host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references. The film was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture; Tarantino and Avary won for Best Original Screenplay. A major critical and commercial success, it revitalized the career of its leading man, John Travolta, who received an Academy Award nomination, as did costars Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman.

Directed in a highly stylized manner, Pulp Fiction connects the intersecting storylines of Los Angeles mobsters, fringe players, small-time criminals, and a mysterious briefcase. Considerable screen time is devoted to monologues and casual conversations that reveal the characters' senses of humor and perspectives on life. The film's title refers to the pulp magazines and hardboiled crime novels popular during the mid-20th century, known for their graphic violence and punchy dialogue. Pulp Fiction is self-referential from its opening moments, beginning with a title card that gives two dictionary definitions of "pulp". The plot, as in many of Tarantino's other works, is presented out of chronological sequence.

The picture's self-reflexivity, unconventional structure, and extensive use of homage and pastiche have led critics to describe it as a prime example of postmodern film. The nature of its development, marketing, and distribution and its consequent profitability had a sweeping effect on the field of independent cinema. Considered a cultural watershed, Pulp Fiction's influence has been felt in several other media, and was judged the greatest film between 1983–2008 by Entertainment Weekly.

Pulp Fiction is considered by some critics' polls to be one of the greatest films of all time. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". _______________________________________________________

Summary: Reservoir Dogs is a 1992 American neo-noir crime thriller that depicts the events before and after a botched diamond heist. The film was the debut of director and writer Quentin Tarantino. It incorporates many themes that have become Tarantino's hallmarks—violent crime, pop culture references, profanity, and a nonlinear storyline.

The film has become a classic of independent film and a cult hit. It was named "Greatest Independent Film of all Time" by Empire magazine. Reservoir Dogs was generally well received, and the cast was praised by many critics. Although it was not given much promotion upon release, the film became a modest success in the United States after grossing $2,832,029, recouping its $1.2 million budget. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Kill Bill Volume 1 is a 2003 American martial arts action film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the first of two Kill Bill films produced at the same time, and was followed by Kill Bill Volume 2 (2004). It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who seeks revenge on an assassination squad led by Bill (David Carradine) after they try to kill her and her unborn child. The film received positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 American war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film tells the fictional alternate history story of two plots to assassinate Nazi Germany's political leadership, one planned by a young French Jewish cinema proprietor (Laurent), and the other by a team of Jewish-American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt). The film's title was inspired by director Enzo G. Castellari's macaroni combat film, The Inglorious Bastards (1978).

The film was commercially successful, grossing over $321 million in theaters worldwide, making it Tarantino's highest-grossing film at that point, and second-highest to date, after Django Unchained (2012). It received multiple awards and nominations, among them eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Django Unchained is a 2012 American western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Set in the Old West and Antebellum South, it is a highly stylized variation of the spaghetti Western.

The story is set in early winter and the following spring, during the antebellum era of the Deep South, with preliminary scenes taking place in Old West Texas. The film follows Django (Foxx), an African-American slave, and Dr. King Schultz (Waltz), an English-speaking German bounty hunter posing as a traveling dentist. Schultz buys and then promises to free Django in exchange for his help in collecting a large bounty on three outlaws. Schultz subsequently promises to teach Django bounty hunting, and split the bounties with him, if Django assists him in hunting down other outlaws throughout the winter. Django agrees – on the condition that they also locate and free his long-lost wife (Washington) from her cruel plantation owner (DiCaprio).

The film was a major critical and commercial success and was nominated for several film industry awards, including five Academy Awards. Waltz won several awards for his performance, among them Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and Academy Awards. Tarantino won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA award for writing the film's original screenplay. The film grossed over $425 million worldwide in theaters against its $100 million budget, making it Tarantino's highest-grossing theatrical release. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Natural Born Killers is a 1994 American black comedy crime film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson, and Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey, Jr. The film was released in the United States on August 26, 1994. The film tells the story of two victims of traumatic childhoods who became lovers and mass murderers, and are irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.

The film is based on an original screenplay by Quentin Tarantino. Notorious for its violent content and inspiring "copycat" crimes, the film was named the eighth most controversial film of all time by Entertainment Weekly in 2006. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Grindhouse is a 2007 American horror film double feature co-written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. The double feature consists of two feature-length segments, Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof, and is bookended by fictional trailers for upcoming attractions, advertisements, and in-theater announcements. The film's title derives from the U.S. film industry term "grindhouse", which refers to (now mostly defunct) movie theaters specializing in B movies, often exploitation films, shown in a multiple-feature format.

Death Proof, focuses on a misogynistic, psychopathic stuntman who targets young women, murdering them with his "death proof" stunt car. Each feature is preceded by faux trailers of exploitation films in other genres that were developed by other directors.

After the film was released on April 6, 2007, ticket sales performed significantly below box office analysts' expectations despite mostly positive critic reviews. In much of the rest of the world, each feature was released separately in extended versions. ______________________________________________________

Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. Following his commercial breakthrough with the science-fiction horror film Alien (1979), his best known works are the neo-noir dystopian science fiction film Blade Runner (1982), crime drama Thelma & Louise (1991), historical drama and Best Picture Oscar winner Gladiator (2000), war film Black Hawk Down (2001), crime thriller Hannibal (2001), biographical film American Gangster (2007), and science fiction films Prometheus (2012) and The Martian (2015).

Visual Style: -Scott is known for his atmospheric, highly concentrated visual style. -Though his films range widely in setting and period, they frequently showcase memorable imagery of urban environments, whether 2nd century Rome (Gladiator), 12th century Jerusalem (Kingdom of Heaven), medieval England (Robin Hood), contemporary Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down), or the future cityscapes of Blade Runner.

Best Films of Ridley Scott Alien is a 1979 British-American science fiction-horror film. The film's title refers to a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature that stalks and kills the crew of a spaceship. Alien received both critical acclaim and box office success, receiving an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. It has remained highly praised in subsequent decades, being considered one of the greatest films of all time. In 2002, the film was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 2008, it was ranked as the seventh-best film in the science fiction genre by the American Film Institute, and as the 33rd greatest film of all time by Empire magazine. The success of Alien spawned a media franchise of novels, comic books, video games, and toys. It also launched Weaver's acting career by providing her with her first lead role, and the story of her character Ellen Ripley's encounters with the Alien creatures became the thematic thread that ran through the sequels Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997). _______________________________________________________

Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film is a modified film adaptation of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. The film depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in which genetically engineered replicants, which are visually indistinguishable from adult humans, are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation. The use of replicants on Earth is banned and they are exclusively utilized for dangerous or menial work on off-world colonies. Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and killed ("retired") by special police operatives known as "Blade Runners". The plot focuses on a group of recently escaped replicants hiding in L.A. and the burnt-out expert Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment to hunt them down.

Blade Runner initially polarized critics: some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. The year following its release, the film won the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. Blade Runner underperformed in North American theaters, but has since become a cult film. Hailed for its production design, depicting a "retrofitted" future, it remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre. Ridley Scott regards Blade Runner as "probably" his most complete and personal film. ________________________________________________________

Thelma & Louise is a 1991 American road film. At the intersection of several genres, it is now considered a classic, influenced other films and artistic works, and became a landmark of feminist film. ________________________________________________________

Gladiator is a 2000 British-American epic historical drama film about a loyal Hispano-Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed when Commodus, the ambitious son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, murders his father and seizes the throne. Reduced to slavery, Maximus rises through the ranks of the gladiatorial arena to avenge the murders of his family and his emperor. The film grossed $457.6 million worldwide. The film won multiple awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Crowe, and three other Academy Awards at the 73rd Academy Awards. It has also been credited with rekindling interest in the historical epic. ________________________________________________________

The Martian is a 2015 American science fiction film based on Andy Weir's 2011 novel The Martian. The film depicts an astronaut's struggle to survive and others' efforts to rescue him. It received positive reviews and has grossed over $630 million worldwide, becoming Scott's highest-grossing film to date, as well as the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2015. _________________________________________________________

Christopher Edward Nolan is an English-American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor. He is one of the highest-grossing directors in history, and among the most successful and acclaimed filmmakers of the 21st century.

Having made his directorial debut with Following (1998), Nolan gained considerable attention for his second feature, Memento (2000). The acclaim garnered by his independent films gave Nolan the opportunity to make the big-budget thriller Insomnia (2002), and the mystery drama The Prestige (2006). He found further popular and critical success with the The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014). His nine films have grossed over US$4.2 billion worldwide and garnered a total of 26 Oscar nominations and seven awards. Nolan has co-written several of his films with his younger brother, Jonathan Nolan, and runs the production company Syncopy Inc. with his wife Emma Thomas.

Nolan's films are rooted in philosophical, sociological and ethical concepts, exploring human morality, the construction of time, and the malleable nature of memory and personal identity. His body of work is permeated by labyrinthine plots, nonlinear storytelling, temporal shifts, solipsistic perspectives, practical special effects, and analogous relationships between visual language and narrative elements.

Best Films of Christopher Nolan Memento is a 2000 American neo-noir psychological thriller film about a man who, as a result of a past trauma, suffers from anterograde amnesia, the inability to form new memories and suffers short-term memory loss approximately every five minutes. He is searching for the persons who attacked him and killed his wife, using an intricate system of Polaroid photographs and tattoos to track information he cannot remember. Memento is presented as two different sequences of scenes interspersed during the film: a series in black-and-white that is shown chronologically, and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order (simulating for the audience the mental state of the protagonist). The two sequences "meet" at the end of the film, producing one complete and cohesive narrative. The film was subsequently ranked one of the best films of its decade by several critics and media outlets. _________________________________________________________

In the Dark Knight trilogy Nolan aimed for a darker and more realistic tone, with humanity and realism being the basis of the film. The film relied on traditional stunts and scale models with minimal use of computer-generated imagery. Batman Begins grossed $48 million in its opening weekend, eventually grossing over $372 million worldwide, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

Dark Knight film set numerous records during its theatrical run. With over $1 billion in revenue worldwide, it is the sixteenth-highest-grossing film of all time, unadjusted for inflation. The film received eight Academy Award nominations; it won the award for Best Sound Editing and Ledger was posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor.

The Dark Knight Rises went on to out-gross the both of its predecessors and become the fourteenth-highest-grossing film of all time grossing over $1.08 billion. _________________________________________________________

Inception is a 2010 science fiction heist thriller stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious, and is offered a chance to have his criminal history erased as payment for a seemingly impossible task: "inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious. After the 2002 completion of Insomnia, Nolan presented to Warner Bros. a written 80-page treatment about a horror film envisioning "dream stealers" based on lucid dreaming. Inception grossed over $800 million worldwide. The home video market also had strong results, with $68 million in DVD and Blu-ray sales. Inception opened to acclaim from critics, who praised its story, score, and ensemble cast. ________________________________________________________

Interstellar is a 2014 epic science fiction film about a crew of astronauts that travel through a wormhole in search of a new home for humanity. The film was successful at the box office with a worldwide gross of over $675 million, and received positive reviews from critics, who gave particular praise to the film's science fiction themes, Hans Zimmer's musical score, visual effects, and the performances of McConaughey, Hathaway, Chastain, Caine, Damon, Bill Irwin, and Mackenzie Foy. It received several awards and nominations. At the 87th Academy Awards the film won the Best Visual Effects award and was also nominated for Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Production Design. ________________________________________________________

John Alan Lasseter (born January 12, 1957) is an American animator and film director, who is the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and DisneyToon Studios. He is also the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering.

Lasseter began his career as an animator with The Walt Disney Company. After being fired from Disney for promoting computer animation, he joined Lucasfilm, where he worked on the then-groundbreaking use of CGI animation. The Graphics Group of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm was sold to Steve Jobs and became Pixar in 1986. Lasseter oversees all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer. In addition, he directed Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Cars (2006), and Cars 2 (2011). He is currently directing Toy Story 4, scheduled for a 2019 release. Since 2007, Lasseter also oversees all of Walt Disney Animation Studios' (and its division DisneyToon Studios') films and associated projects as executive producer.

Best Films of John Lasseter Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated buddy comedy adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The directorial debut of John Lasseter, Toy Story was the first feature-length computer-animated film and the first theatrical film produced by Pixar. Taking place in a world where anthropomorphic toys pretend to be lifeless whenever humans are present, the film's plot focuses on the relationship between Woody, a pullstring cowboy doll (voiced by Tom Hanks), and Buzz Lightyear, an astronaut action figure (voiced by Tim Allen), as they evolve from rivals competing for the affections of Andy, their owner, to friends who work together to be reunited with Andy as his family prepares to move to a new home. It is now considered by many critics to be one of the best animated films ever made. _________________________________________________________

Cars is a 2006 American computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and co-written by John Lasseter, it is Pixar's final independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney. It was nominated for two Academy Awards including Best Animated Feature, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Merchandise based on the film (including scale models of several of the cars) broke records for retail sales of merchandise based on a Disney/Pixar film, bringing an estimated $10 billion for 5 years after the film's release. _________________________________________________________

Early Film History

Visual/Editing Style His work spans experimental film, melodrama, satire, musical, erotica, comedy, romance, costume dramas, fantasy, crime film, adventure, and western.

Leading surrealist filmmaker

Summary: Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 with a limited showing at Studio des Ursulines in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months.

The film has no plot in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the initial "once upon a time" to "eight years later" without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes.

The film opens with a title card reading "Once upon a time". A middle-aged man (Luis Buñuel) sharpens his razor at his balcony door and tests the razor on his thumb. He then opens the door, and idly fingers the razor while gazing at the moon, about to be engulfed by a thin cloud, from his balcony. There is a cut to a close-up of a young woman (Simone Mareuil) being held by the man as she calmly stares straight ahead. Another cut occurs to the moon being overcome by the cloud as the man slits the eye of a calf with the razor, and the vitreous humour spills out from it. Visually, the suggestion seems to be that it's the woman's eye that's been cut.

The subsequent title card reads "eight years later". A slim young man (Pierre Batcheff) bicycles down a calm urban street wearing what appears to be a nun's habit and a striped box with a strap around his neck. A cut occurs to the young woman from the first scene, who has been reading in a sparingly furnished upstairs apartment. She hears the young man approaching on his bicycle and casts aside the book she was reading (revealing a reproduction of Vermeer's The Lacemaker). She goes to the window and sees the young man lying on the curb, his bicycle on the ground. She emerges from the building and attempts to revive the young man.

Later, the young woman assembles pieces of the young man's clothing on a bed in the upstairs room, and concentrates upon the clothing. The young man appears near the door. The young man and the young woman stare at his hand, which has a hole in the palm from which ants emerge. A slow transition occurs focusing on the armpit hair of the young woman as she lies on the beach and a sea urchin at a sandy location. There is a cut to an androgynous young woman in the street below the apartment, poking at a severed hand with a cane while surrounded by a large crowd and a policeman.

The crowd clears when the policeman places the hand in the box previously carried by the young man and gives it to the young woman. The androgynous young woman contemplates something happily while standing in the middle of the now busy street clutching the box. She is then run over by a car and a few bystanders gather around her. The young man and the young woman watch these events unfold from the apartment window. The young man seems to take sadistic pleasure in the androgynous young woman's danger and subsequent death, and as he gestures at the shocked young woman in the room with him, he leers at her and grasps her breasts.

The young woman resists him at first, but then allows him to touch her as he imagines her nude from the front and the rear. The young woman pushes him away as he drifts off and she attempts to escape by running to the other side of the room. The young man corners her as she reaches for a racquet in self-defense, but he suddenly picks up two ropes and drags two grand pianos containing dead and rotting donkeys, stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, and two rather bewildered priests (played by Jaime Miravilles and Salvador Dalí) who are attached by ropes. As he is unable to move, the young woman escapes the room. The young man chases after her, but she traps his hand, which is infested with ants, in the door. She finds the young man in the next room, dressed in his nun's garb in the bed.

The subsequent title card reads "around three in the morning". The young man is roused from his rest by the sound of a door-buzzer ringing (represented visually by a martini shaker being shaken by a set of arms through two holes in a wall). The young woman goes to answer the door and does not return. Another young man dressed in lighter clothing (also played by Pierre Batcheff) arrives in the apartment, gesturing angrily at him. The second young man forces the first one to throw away his nun's clothing and then makes him stand against a wall.

The subsequent title card reads "Sixteen years ago." We see the second young man from the front for the first time as he admires the art supplies and books on the table near the wall and forces the first young man to hold two of the books as he stares at the wall. The first young man eventually shoots the second young man when the books abruptly turn into pistols. The second young man, now in a meadow, dies while swiping at a nude figure which suddenly disappears into thin air. A group of men come and carry his corpse away.

The young woman returns to the apartment and sees a death's-head moth. The first young man sneers at her as she retreats and wipes his mouth off his face with his hand. The young woman very nervously applies some lipstick in response. Subsequently the first young man makes the young woman's armpit hair attach itself to where his mouth would be on his face through gestures. The young woman looks at the first young man with disgust, and leaves the apartment sticking her tongue out at him.

As she exits her apartment, the street is replaced by a coastal beach, where the young woman meets a third man with whom she walks arm in arm. He shows her the time on his watch and they walk near the rocks, where they find the remnants of the first young man's nun's clothing and the box. They seem to walk away clutching each other happily and make romantic gestures in a long tracking shot. However, the film abruptly cuts to the final shot with a title card reading "In Spring," showing the couple buried in sand up to their elbows.

Visual/Editing Style "Felliniesque"-any kind of extravagant, fanciful, even baroque imagery in art. Personal and highly idiosyncratic visions of society, Fellini's films are a unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire.

Italian Neo-Realism National film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class, filmed on location, frequently using non-professional actors. Italian neorealism films mostly contend with the difficult economic and moral conditions of post-World War II Italy, representing changes in the Italian psyche and conditions of everyday life, including poverty, oppression, injustice and desperation.

Best Films by Fellini

8½ (Italian title: Otto e mezzo) is a 1963 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini. Its title refers to Fellini's eight and a half films as a director.

Summary: Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), a famous Italian film director, is suffering from "director's block". Stalled on his new science fiction film that includes veiled autobiographical references, he has lost interest amid artistic and marital difficulties. As Guido struggles half-heartedly to work on the film, a series of flashbacks and dreams delve into his memories and fantasies; they are frequently interwoven with reality.

8½ won two Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design (black-and-white). Acknowledged as an avant-garde film and a highly influential classic, it was among the top 10 on BFI The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time, ranked third in a 2002 poll of film directors conducted by the British Film Institute and is also listed on the Vatican's compilation of the 45 best films made before 1995, the 100th anniversary of cinema. _______________________________________________________

Summary: La Dolce Vita; Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life") is a 1960 Italian comedy-drama film written and directed by Federico Fellini. The film follows Marcello Rubini, a journalist writing for gossip magazines, over seven days and nights on his journey through the "sweet life" of Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness. La Dolce Vita won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Costumes. _______________________________________________________

Summary: La Strada (The Road) is a 1954 Italian drama film directed by Federico Fellini from his own screenplay. The film portrays a brutish strongman (Anthony Quinn) and the naïve young woman (Giulietta Masina) whom he buys from her mother and takes with him on the road; encounters with his rival the Fool (Richard Basehart) end with their destruction.

Fellini has called La Strada "a complete catalogue of my entire mythological world, a dangerous representation of my identity that was undertaken with no precedent whatsoever." As a result, the film demanded more time, effort and suffering than any of his other films. Just before shooting was completed, Fellini suffered a nervous breakdown that necessitated medical treatment in order to complete principal photography. Initial critical reaction was harsh, and the film's screening at the Venice Film Festival was the occasion of a bitter controversy that escalated into a public brawl between Fellini's supporters and detractors.

Subsequently, however, La Strada has become "one of the most influential films ever made", according to the American Film Institute. It won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1956. It was placed fourth in the 1992 British Film Institute directors' list of cinema's top 10 films.

Visual/Editing Style Highly liberal viewpoints presented as facts rather than opinions

Cameos as Moore appears on screen as the interview

Best Films by Moore

Summary: Bowling for Columbine is a 2002 American documentary film written, directed, and narrated by Michael Moore. The film explores what Moore suggests are the main causes for the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 and other acts of violence with guns. Moore focuses on the background and environment in which the massacre took place and some common public opinions and assumptions about related issues. The film also looks into the nature of violence in the United States.

The film brought Moore international attention as a rising filmmaker and won numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature, a special 55th Anniversary Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, and the César Award for Best Foreign Film. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Sicko is a 2007 documentary film by American filmmaker Michael Moore. The film investigates health care in the United States, focusing on its health insurance and the pharmaceutical industry. The movie compares the for-profit, non-universal U.S. system with the non-profit universal health care systems of Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Cuba. Sicko was made on a budget of approximately $9 million, and grossed $24.5 million theatrically in the United States. _______________________________________________________

Summary: Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker, director and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media.

In the film, Moore contends that American corporate media were "cheerleaders" for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and did not provide an accurate or objective analysis of the rationale for the war or the resulting casualties there. The film generated intense controversy, including disputes over its accuracy.

The film debuted at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival in the documentary film category and received a 20-minute standing ovation, among the longest standing ovations in the festival's history. The film was also awarded the Palme d'Or, the festival's highest award.

The title of the film alludes to Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian view of the future United States, drawing an analogy between the auto-ignition temperature of paper and the date of the September 11 attacks; the film's tagline is "The Temperature at Which Freedom Burns". ______________________________________________________

Visual/Art Style Experimental Filmmaking

Overview of Warhol's Films

Warhol worked across a wide range of media—painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture. In addition, he was a highly prolific filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than 60 films, plus some 500 short black-and-white "screen test" portraits of Factory visitors. One of his most famous films, Sleep, monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. The 35-minute film Blow Job is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from filmmaker Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this. Another, Empire (1964), consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. The film Eat consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes. Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by LaMonte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films including Kiss, Eat, and Sleep (for which Young initially was commissioned to provide music). Uwe Husslein cites filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere, and who claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance.

Batman Dracula is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman series, Warhol's movie was an "homage" to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.

Warhol's 1965 film Vinyl is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Others record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico, and Jackie Curtis. Legendary underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film Camp.

His most popular and critically successful film was Chelsea Girls (1966). The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm-films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silk-screen works of the early 1960s.

Other important films include Bike Boy, My Hustler, The Nude Restaurant, and Lonesome Cowboys, a raunchy pseudo-western. These and other titles document gay underground and camp culture, and continue to feature prominently in scholarship about sexuality and art. Blue Movie—a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love and fools around in bed with a man for 33 minutes of the film's playing-time—was Warhol's last film as director. The film was at the time scandalous for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. For many years Viva refused to allow it to be screened. It was publicly screened in New York in 2005 for the first time in over thirty years.