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Viewing entries from category: Cinema in Context

International Film Styles: Neorealism »

jclarke | Friday September 04, 2015

Categories: A Level, EDUQAS A Level, EDUQAS A2, FM4, Section A: World Cinema, Analysis, Film Analysis, Film History, Cinema in Context, Film Industry, Censorship & Regulation, Copyright & Licensing, Film Distribution, Film Marketing, Film Publicity, Film Promotion, Production Companies, Films & Case Studies, Non-Hollywood Films, Kes, World Cinema, Rome, Open City, Genres & Case Studies, Neorealism, Hot Entries, Key Concepts, Audience, Film Language, Representation

Across the varied and diverse ways in which a film text can encode and emphasise meanings and a specific viewpoint on or presentation of a subject, realism is a key aesthetic and formal choice and approach that has functioned as a key creative direction of so much western expression across literature and the visual arts. This resource, then, explores the characteristics of a particular film style that we call neorealism. It stems from post World War Two Italian cinema and its influence has been…
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The Impact of World War Two on British Cinema »

jclarke | Tuesday December 03, 2013

Categories: A Level, OCR A Level, OCR AS, Analysis, Film Analysis, Film History, Cinema in Context, Film Industry, Censorship & Regulation, Copyright & Licensing, Film Distribution, Film Marketing, Film Publicity, Film Promotion, Production Companies, Films & Case Studies, Non-Hollywood Films, In Which We Serve, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Genres & Case Studies, Drama, Romance, War, Hot Entries, Key Concepts, Audience, Film Language, Representation

click on image to enlarge World War Two impacted ferociously on Great Britain: cities were attacked by German bombers, air battles were fought and daily life was severely tested over the six years of conflict. It’s understandable though, if the war seems a long, long time ago to you. Cinema, however, offers us a meaningful way to reconnect with, and reflect on the event and to develop a sense of the relationship between World War Two and British cinema. Attendance at cinemas was acutely…
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Spectatorship and Early Cinema Before 1917 »

jclarke | Saturday November 30, 2013

Categories: A Level, OCR A Level, OCR A2, OCR AS, EDUQAS A Level, EDUQAS A2, FM4, Section B: Spectatorship Topics, Analysis, Film Analysis, Film History, Cinema in Context, Film Industry, Censorship & Regulation, Copyright & Licensing, Film Distribution, Film Marketing, Film Publicity, Film Promotion, Production Companies, Hot Entries, Key Concepts, Audience, Film Language, Representation, Theory, Spectatorship Theory

click on image to enlarge Cinema is now nearly 120 years old and it’s a magnificently broad, deep, complex and exciting subject. It’s understandably easy to think that the way films are now is how they have always been, in terms of their technology and particularly how they organize (tell) their stories. However, this isn’t the case and so it’s important for us to be aware that all forms of cultural expression evolve across time and that they are subject to many influences, intended or…
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Developments in 21st Century Cinema and Film (2000-Present) »

jclarke | Wednesday November 27, 2013

Categories: A Level, OCR A Level, OCR A2, OCR AS, EDUQAS A Level, EDUQAS AS, EDUQAS A2, Film History, Cinema in Context, Film Industry, Censorship & Regulation, Copyright & Licensing, Film Distribution, Film Marketing, Film Publicity, Film Promotion, Production Companies, Films & Case Studies, Hollywood Films, Avatar, World Cinema, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, Hot Entries, Key Concepts, Audience, Film Language, Representation

click on image to enlarge Film is technology. It’s an obvious point, and an essential one. Film established itself as a symbol of the modern, mechanical age of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and so it is particularly interesting to now witness how the medium is moving into the digital age. Indeed, we should perhaps talk not of new technology but of now technology because it is so quickly ever changing and evolving. In Western Europe we live in an increasingly digital and…
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Aspects of National Cinema: Japanese Cinema »

jclarke | Monday November 25, 2013

Categories: A Level, EDUQAS A Level, EDUQAS A2, FM4, Section A: World Cinema, Analysis, Film Analysis, Film History, Cinema in Context, Film Industry, Film Distribution, Production Companies, Films & Case Studies, World Cinema, Grave of the Fireflies, Seven Samurai, Genres & Case Studies, Japanese, Hot Entries, Key Concepts, Audience, Film Language, Representation

click on image to enlarge WJEC A2 Film Studies FM4 Section A World Cinema: Aspects of National Cinema Japanese cinema can be understood as a major presence in the international film style context, not only in terms of its own achievement but also for the influence it has exerted on cinema far beyond its borders.  It’s a national cinema with a very specific set of concerns and stylistic traits and with a number of particular contexts that allow the film texts to be understood in all the…
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Living with Crime »

jclarke | Friday March 22, 2013

Categories: A Level, EDUQAS A Level, EDUQAS AS, Analysis, Film Analysis, Film History, Cinema in Context, Film Industry, Film Distribution, Production Companies, Films & Case Studies, Non-Hollywood Films, London to Brighton, Sweet Sixteen, Genres & Case Studies, British Film, Crime, Independent, Social Realism, Thriller, Hot Entries, Key Concepts, Audience, Film Language, Representation

click on image to enlarge Crime and cinema have a longstanding relationship. Going right back to early cinema one of the landmark silent films was The Great Train Robbery (1903). There is a shot in that film which is overtly referenced as the last shot that we see in the American crime film GoodFellas (1990). click on image to enlarge However, whereas we might argue that the criminal life that’s represented in the Hollywood-produced GoodFellas is somewhat glamourised and told in an overtly…
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European Film Movement: French New Wave »

jclarke | Thursday March 21, 2013

Categories: A Level, EDUQAS A Level, EDUQAS A2, FM4, Section A: World Cinema, Analysis, Film Analysis, Film History, Cinema in Context, Film Industry, Film Distribution, Production Companies, Films & Case Studies, World Cinema, Un Bout de Souffle, Les Quatre Cents Coups, Genres & Case Studies, French New Wave, Key Concepts, Audience, Film Language, Representation

In 1950, when he was only nineteen years old, Jean-Luc Godard, one day to become one the great filmmakers, wrote a piece for the French publication Gazette du Cinema called Towards A Political Cinema. Even at this young age, Godard was aware of cinema’s power to communicate ideas. Jean-Luc Godard examines a strip of film: Film history describes a wide range of film movements that have each had an often-short lifespan that’s been quite specific but the legacies of which have endured.…
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Cinema in Context: Rise of the Blockbuster, Format Wars & Multiplexes (1972-84) »

nicoleponsford | Tuesday September 04, 2012

Categories: A Level, EDUQAS A Level, EDUQAS AS, Film History, Cinema in Context, Hot Entries

The 1970s and 1980s saw a change in film; how we consumed it and how it consumed us. It is no surprise that an actor became the fortieth President of the United States in the early eighties (1981-89). Blockbusters, which were initially screened in the 1970s, over forty years ago, are still known (and loved) today all around the world. Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), The Exorcist (1973), and (1975) Bruce Lee films like Enter the Dragon are just a few examples. A combination of factors including…
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Cinema in Context: Early Cinema (1895-1915) »

nicoleponsford | Monday September 03, 2012

Categories: A Level, EDUQAS A Level, EDUQAS AS, EDUQAS A2, Film History, Cinema in Context, Hot Entries

Where does cinema come from? What drives it? Truth, escapism, verisimilitude, ideas? Today we are aware of red carpets, box office figures and event-movies. Innovation and passion bring the ideas through images and audio. If we go back to the start of film, we see that it was this passion and innovation that led to the new (silent) art form. 1888 | The Birth of the Movie Camera and Projector It starts with the movie camera. The first patented moving image camera was designed by Louis Le Prince…
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