The presentation talks about the filmmaking movements in the history of world cinema. it highlights the french style of characterization which potrayals the psychological depth in the story progression

1. Dr. J.JANARDHAN
French Impressionism & Surrealism

2. FILM MOVEMENTS
• There are different movements during the silent era in France
• France's film exports were mostly limited to Belgium,
Switzerland, and the French colonies
• This created the opportunity and needed for films of a
distinctly French style
• The films like Pathé Freres and Leon Gaumont began to be
important to keep their business going
• American films began to flood into France in 1915.

3. FILM MOVEMENTS

4. FILM MOVEMENTS
• After WW-I, many film studios were transposed to wartime uses
• Hollywood cinema prevailed during WW-I time, while French film
find it hard to recover
• Until, different extraordinary films arose between 1918 and 1928.
• Young directors introduced the alternative theme
• One of the movements are Impressionism
• The other alternative movement is called Surrealism in mid 1920s.

5. Impressionism
• Impressionism gives narration to the psychological depth
• Revealing the play of a character’s consciousness
• It does not focus on the external or physical means
• It emphasizes on the character’s personal emotion that reveals
psychological focus
• Editing in impressionism paved way to intensify the
subjectivity

6. Characteristics of Impressionism
Flashback and Fantasy
Superimposition
Slow motion
Camera movement
Distortions
Filters
Framing
Rhythmic editing

7. Characteristics of Impressionism
Flashback and fantasy
• Impressionist film manipulates plot time and subjectivity through
flashbacks
• It is very common, and sometimes it might be a series of
flashbacks in a film
• In Wong Kar-Wai (1997), from the bed scene until lost are the
flashbacks
• The exploration of psychological had been emphasized and causes
to reveal of character’s mental states, dreams or fantasies

8. Characteristics of Impressionism
Superimposition
• It is when two or more images are placed over each other in
the frame
• Superimposition may convey a character’s thought or
memories.
• Ex. La Roue, Coeur Fidèle (Jean Epstein, 1923)

9. Characteristics of Impressionism
Slow motion
• The visual depiction of mental states in French Impressionist
film through cinematography and editing.
• One of the cinematography is slow motion shot to focus on a
significant element in a character’s subjectivity.
• For ex: Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai, 1997)

10. Characteristics of Impressionism
Camera movement
• Camera movement also one of the aspects that very impactful
in French Impressionist film,
• It can affect how the audiences feel the moment of the
characters.
• Christopher Doyle utilizes the shaky camera movement in the
scene of Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai, 1997)

11. Characteristics of Impressionism
Distortions
• It uses to show the occurrence of an event or incident
• When a character gets drunk or dizzy, the filmmaker shows
the experience through distorted or filtered shots or
vertiginous camera movements.
• Normally, the Impressionists would shoot into a curved
mirror to create a distortion effect such
as in Eldorado Howard Hawks, (1921)

12. Characteristics of Impressionism
Filter
• Filter in French films is to show the mood of that moment
• It can be colorful, black and white or even in a specific color
• Mostly black and white indicates the character or that
moment is sad or negative.
• For Ex: Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai, 1997)

13. Characteristics of Impressionism
Framing
• The framing of a shot can be seen as characters’ points of
view or inner states
• Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai, 1997), the whole movie is
the point-of-view of Lai Yiu-Fai.
• We can hear that he is the narrative of the film

14. Characteristics of Impressionism
Rhythmic Editing
• Used rhythmic editing to suggest the pace of an experience as
a character feels it, moment by moment.
• The rhythm accelerates and the shots getting shorter and
shorter, building to a climax in order to unstable mental state.
• This also helps to influence the audience to be involved
nervous environment of the scene.
• For Ex: La Roue (Abel Gance, 1923)

15. Surrealism
• It grown out of the artistic or intellectual movement
• Surrealist film depends on private funds and small screening
Sexuality and sexual
Desires, love,
Violence, religion,
Blasphemy, terror, black
• Strange humors were among its central themes

16. Surrealism
• Surrealist film forms disregards the conventional narrative
principles
• The central theme of surrealist cinema is the idea of freedom
• Freedom from being rational, freedom from the society and
from its constraints and conventions.
• It is structure-less and does not have traditional style and
plots

17. Surrealism
• Cuts and editing are unpredictable and/or disorienting
• Laws of time and space are ignored
• Mise-en-scene is often influenced by Surrealist painting
• The Surrealist editing is a mix of some Impressionist and
some of the dominant cinema devices

18. THANK YOU