Films From Kyle's Skipped Lectures Quiz

Answer: 'Nanook' wasn't actually an eskimo; he was Cree and lived in southern Manitoba.

Often regarded as the first full-fledged documentary film, it's clear that director Robert J. Flaherty made the film as a spectacle and not as an ethnographic depiction of Eskimo/Inuit life. While 'Nanook' really was an Eskimo, he was hardly as primitive as he was depicted.

For example, 'Nanook' (whose real name was Allakariallak) is seen at one point biting into a vinyl record, shocked that a disc could hold music. Many don't cite the film as an accurate depiction of northern tribal life, and they'd probably be right. Nanook never had a wife for example, and many of the shots in the film were clearly staged. Robert J. Flaherty created the movie over a year of filming in northern Quebec, and despite the supposedly unethical manipulation of its content to appeal to an audience, the film is historically important for being a prototypical entry in the genre.

Answer: The Yellow Brick Road

"The Wizard of Oz" originally appeared as a novel for children in 1900. Written by Frank L. Baum, the book was followed by dozens of sequels over the years though the original is by far the most popular. A small girl, Dorothy, and her dog Toto are swept away by a cyclone.

They leave Kansas to find themselves in the magical land of Oz and travel to the Emerald City to find a way home. Camaraderie and witch-melting ensue. While droning on about the film's significance in terms of narrative, the professor never really alerted us to the fact that there are no ruby slippers in the novel.

They're actually silver. Also, Judy Garland is much older than the seven-year-old Dorothy in the book, the Wicked Witch only appears in one chapter of the novel, and Dorothy doesn't have three uncles who look remotely like a scarecrow, tin man, and lion.

The film shows how cinema adapts and shapes its work to appeal to an audience. As the Great Depression rounds out by this time, dustbowl middle America feels the strains.

The film depicts a stasis (there's no place like home, after all), a conflict, and then a resolution in which Dorothy makes a happy return into the arms of her relatives. Happy endings are a motif that has transcended through decades of family films.

Answer: Citizen Kane

"Citizen Kane", I realized, was likely to show up on the course outline since critics adore the film. With the American Film Institute always toting it as the #1 film ever made and a single Academy Award (for its adaptation), it made sense to exhibit the film for us during a lecture.

The opening of the film is the end of Charles Foster Kane's life. He utters one word, 'Rosebud', and passes away. The rest of the film takes the viewer through Kane's life as reporters try and dig up the dirt on what this final word could possibly mean.

In effect, the professor revealed the true ending of the film: 'Rosebud is the sled'. The final scene sees the sled thrown into a furnace and no one but the viewer actually discovers its true meaning. Besides the stellar acting and directing by Orson Welles, the film is also an excellent narrative often praised by critics. "Citizen Kane" lost 'Best Picture' in 1941 to "How Green Was My Valley".

Answer: Yes

Being a precursor to the horror genre, my friends had high expectations that I would stay for this one. Turns out, I'd already seen it. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" was an example of German Expressionism, a movement which preceded the Great Depression and the Second World War.

In a country known for producing melodramas (didn't they all, at some point?), Expressionism melded characters and intricate settings to form new emotional effects in unrealistic settings, something not seen too much in earlier works.

This opened up the market for Europe who, as a result, were more apt to export their films overseas. This also brought a lot of avant-garde directors to Europe before threats of war sent them back over to Hollywood. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" was first released in 1920, before 'talkie' films were introduced.

The film was directed by Robert Wiene, and its settings highly attribute themselves to mise-en-scene. Everything is placed in a distorted fashion to allude to the main character's insanity.

Answer: Un Chien Andalou

Let me tell you, the film isn't made to make logical sense. One minute you'll see a normal scene, then the next there'll be a graphic eye-cutting-open-with-a-razor-scene, then you'll be in a different scenario altogether. That's the beauty of this 'surrealist movement thingy'. "Un Chien Andalou" stands up there with Surrealist Films meant to confuse us; such films are typically disjointed and scenes juxtapose each other here and there to make the audience feel uncomfortable. Taboos of the time are broken, but that's a big part of it. You're not supposed to care too much about the characters or their emotions as the film spends a lot of time tapping into Freudian psychology.

This style never really disappeared - films by Michel Gondry (like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "The Science of Sleep") will flip between disjointed scenes for effect to depict fading memories, for example. "Un Chien Andalou" was a joint-venture between surreal artist Salvador Dali (who painted "The Persistence of Memory" with all those melting clocks) and director Luis Bunuel. Dali also appeared during the film, but his role really has no impact on the film... at least, it's not supposed to. ;)

Answer: Battleship Potemkin

As I later discovered (during intense study periods cramming for my exams), Soviet Montage is a period defined by meticulous editing processes, mostly due to the fact that a certain Sergei Eisenstein wanted to make sure that all moments on his film reel were equal to one another in every way. No scene gets precedence over another, so linear narrative is pretty much torn to pieces.

The well-known 'Odessa Steps' sequence, for example, is a rhythmic montage with a static-placed camera featuring soldiers marching down the steps in unison, firing weapons and killing innocent Russians. Amidst all of this editing, socio-political messages of tsarist Russia are clearly evoked; this is one of the major reasons behind this type of cinema. Eisenstein feels that seemingly unrelated, quick cuts and neutral cinematic elements helps the audience attribute their own meaning to the political outcry exhibited. Sergei Eisenstein himself directed "Battleship Potemkin" which, since its release, has been regarded as the most famous Soviet film by many critics.

While originally released in 1925, the film continues to be known as one of the most important precursors to early propagandist films.

Answer: The protagonist is played by a non-professional actor, and so is his son.

Looking back, "Bicycle Thieves" is actually a really sad film. Only one of my friends stayed in lecture to witness this tragedy in which a man gets a job which requires the use of his bike, but on the first day it gets stolen by a thief. He and his son race across Rome to chase down their bike, the father's livelihood. He and the boy have to make some sad decisions about theft and the end is less than optimistic.
That's the thing with Italian Neorealism though- this movement depicts Italian life from the lower-class in order to give the viewer a sense of the 'real' issues. It's not optimistic, but at least it's 'real'. To emphasize this, director Vittorio De Sica hired a non-actor (he was actually a factory worker) and his real son to work in the piece though, ironically, the man found work in film after being turned down for jobs after his appearance. The film style, prevalent in the late 1940s after World War II, was like Soviet Montage in the sense that the movies were vehicles to evoke socio-political themes.
"Bicycle Thieves", otherwise known as "Ladri di biciclette", was released in 1948 and was nominated for two Academy Awards. It is often recognized as the most influential film in this movement.

Answer: Fahrenheit 9/11

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is perhaps one of the most popular contemporary examples of Viewer-Centered Documentaries as it appeals to patriotic viewers in the wake of the 9/11 twin-tower dilemma and the War on Terrorism. It is no surprise that Michael Moore's take on the Bush Administration received mixed results, but it nevertheless won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.

This type of film doesn't use a categorical nature to sort through subjects or focus on one particular thing. Instead, Moore tugs at the heartstrings of his compassionate audience to evoke his view.

His other films, "Sicko" and "Bowling for Columbine", do similar acts only in regards to American healthcare and teen violence. "Religulous", on the other hand, is Bill Maher's categorical documentary since it focuses entirely on religion, mocking its constructs for viewers and Morgan Spurlock's "Supersize Me", while appealing to American consumers, also bases its entire structure around different aspects of the fast food industry to make his point. "Drop Dead Gorgeous", on the other hand, is a 'mockumentary'... something our professor neglected to mention or screen in class. I probably would've stayed for that.

Answer: Musical

Previewing this lecture in my textbook, I was eager to see a horror film or, at the least, a western (having already sat through a timeline of the film industry since its silent birth). Instead, the professor decides to one-up his already musical-heavy syllabus (didn't we see "The Wizard of Oz" already?) with "Meet Me in St. Louis", a somewhat satirical look at life in Missouri at the turn of the century... and look at that, Judy Garland's in this one too.
"Meet Me in St. Louis", originally released in 1944, was nominated for four Academy Awards (mostly for music). Directed by Vincente Minnelli, who later married Garland and raised Liza Minnelli, the film later became a Broadway show.
The reason behind showing us this film was to emphasize the categorical nature of all films. Every film fits (albeit roughly) into genres and these genres have the tendency to cycle in popularity based on social, political, and cultural movements. If we didn't assume this from the timeline of lectures, we never would have gotten it. Nonetheless, the professor proved to us that there was a time, indeed, when musicals were more important than horror films and westerns. No need to rub it in.

Answer: Across the Universe

Seriously? Another musical? Yeah... he went there.
"Across the Universe" captures the genre film, the propagandist film, and a little bit of almost every movement from the fifties onward to create a visual and vocal masterpiece in which the music of The Beatles from start to finish shapes the narrative. Speaking out against war in the sixties, following the hippie movement, and capturing love on the camera, director Julie Taymor (who previously directed shows like "The Lion King" on Broadway), united many different elements of film.
Released in 2007 and starring Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, and Joe Anderson, and featuring guest vocals from Bono, Eddie Izzard, and Salma Hayek, the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. While it never recouped its budget in the theaters, it remained a classic amongst Beatles fans and musical lovers.