IdaZFilmNoirClassNotes

 8.6 Summary: Module 8 Cinematographer James Wong Howe worked with Frankenheimer to shoot a highly unconventional feature film - here a wheelchair dolly is used to capture a handheld shot in the airport allowing greater freedom of movement in the camerawork. RECAP In this module To demonstrate your learning, you completed the following activities and assessments:  1. Read  Paul Schrader's "Notes on Film Noir" (I have the book) Download "Notes on Film Noir" and all module content 2. Watch Seconds and clips 3. Complete the Midterm RESOURCES "Through the Lens: James Wong Howe" ( Links to an external site .) "The Surreal Images of Seconds," American Cinematographer ( Links to an external site .) "How to Write a Film Noir Utilizing the 8 Essential Pillars of Film Noir" Industrial Scripts ( Links to an external site .) THIS IS A GOOD ARTICLE THAT DESCRIBES NOIR**** John Frankenheimer, Director's Club Podcast ( Link Here ) Note on Fil...

Midterm Paper assignment:  Please watch Seconds ,  read Paul Schrader’s “Notes on Film Noir”  Download PDF Paul Schrader’s “Notes on Film Noir”(1971) and read Vincent LoBrutto's  "The Surreal Images of Seconds." ( Links to an external site .) The only other sources you may use and/or quote in this assignment is our textbook James Naremore's Film Noir A Very Short Introduction and module materials. Include these  sources on your Works Cited page. Citation formatting can be found on easybib ( Links to an external site .). If you need to review instructions for taking screenshots please review Module 0. Please cite any quotes using footnotes or MLA formatted citation with a separate Works Cited page. You can find a comprehensive resource for formatting at the Purdue Owl Writing site ( Links to an external site .) online. Considering our framing, discussion, and viewing of 7 films so far this semester choose 1 to compare and contrast with our class screening of Joh...

 8.4 Screening: Seconds Arthur undergoes his rebirth Frankenheimer had a gift for capturing the zeitgeist, and in the first two installments of his paranoia trilogy , he had already taken on some of postwar America’s most emotionally charged topics: brainwashing, commie bashing, and political assassination in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), about a man hypnotically programmed to kill, and then nuclear dread, Cold War anxiety, and neofascist skullduggery in Seven Days in May (1964), about a military plot to seize the American government. Seconds cuts even closer to the bone, exposing the precariousness of the American dream through a vertiginous blend of genre elements: horror, noir, and science fiction collide with suspense worthy of Hitchcock, outrageousness worthy of Kafka, and an acid critique of American capitalism. Every shot and scene unfolds with the inexorable (il)logic of a nightmare—but a lucid nightmare, since Frankenheimer’s fierce intelligence is at work along with...

  8.3 The Surreal Images of Seconds  Film historians generally acknowledge that the transformation from the Hollywood studio system to the American “New Wave” occurred with the 1969 release of Easy Rider . This counterculture classic, directed by Dennis Hopper and photographed by László Kovács, ASC, revolutionized cinematic storytelling with a visually and aurally driven style that broke away from the classic literary, narrative and pictorial devices familiar to older moviegoers .  But the liberation of the motion picture camera had actually occurred a bit earlier, in the mid-Sixties . It's ironic that during a highly politicized era in which anyone over 30 was subject to mistrust, a leader of this cinematic insurrection was the renowned 67-year-old cinematographer James Wong Howe , ASC ( Links to an external site .), who had been born at the end of the 19th Century. The veteran cameraman’s work on director John Frankenheimer’s 1966 film Seconds , a controversial and misu...

 8.2 John Frankenheimer John Frankenheimer directs Along with Sidney Lumet, John Frankenheimer w as the major director to emerge from and be influenced by the aesthetics of live television drama , which flourished briefly in the US before it became commercially and technologically obsolete around 1960 . Frankenheimer’s later fame, and his oft-repeated nostalgia for live television, have designated him as the quintessential exponent of the form. This is a crucial misconception. The aesthetics of live television were defined by their temporal and spatial limitations: all that could be shown was what could be physically created within an hour or half-hour and photographed within the confines of a small space. The work of the young generation of television writers – Rod Serling, Paddy Chayefsky, Reginald Rose – emphasised cramped blue-collar settings (“kitchen drama”) because these were the most easily staged for live broadcast. Whereas Sidney Lumet or Delbert Mann, who rehearsed and ...

 8.1 "From failure to classic without ever becoming a success" John Frankenheimer's would-be blockbuster was booed at Cannes and failed commercially, but its twisted tale of a mid-life crisis was ahead of its time. Seconds is different from most "cult" films. The director was still young but at the height of his fame, having made the political thrillers Manchurian Candidate , Seven Days in May , and The Train , each with Academy Award-nominated work.  The cinematographer, James Wong Howe, was one of Hollywood's most original directors of photography.  Rock Hudson, cast against his usual light-romantic type , gave an often strikingly intense performance (requiring professional football players hired as extras to hold him on a gurney). The score from Oscar-nominated rising star Jerry Goldsmith was eerily apt. Sets blended with striking and sometimes bizarre location shots, including an actual slaughterhouse that advertised itself as a "used cow dealer....

 8.0 Significant Shift in Perspective: Cult Noir Seconds (1966) Rock Hudson is a revelation in this sinister, science-fiction-inflected dispatch from the fractured 1960s. Seconds , directed by John Frankenheimer, concerns a middle-aged banker who, dissatisfied with his suburban existence, elects to undergo a strange and elaborate procedure that will grant him a new life. Starting over in America, however, is not as easy as it sounds. This paranoiac symphony of canted camera angles (courtesy of famed cinematographer James Wong Howe), fragmented editing, and layered sound design is a remarkably risk-taking Hollywood film that ranks high on the list of its legendary director’s achievements. Learning Objectives By the end of this module, you will be able to: 1.Describe stylistic and thematic elements of noir and how they change in the 1960s utilizing     blacklisted actors and taking on themes such as the precariousness of the American dream and    critique of Ameri...

 7.6 Module Summary Whit threatens Kathie RECAP In this module we considered a penultimate noir, Out of the Past . Complete with a man with no future and a "woman with a past " the film stands as evidence of peak noir as well as RKO signature style developed by Producer Val Lewton , executed by director Jacques Tournier . There are multiple reasons why Out of the Past   is such an exemplary work, and in part has to do with how faithfully and inventively it adheres to the form , where themes of betrayal, corruption and fatalism are interwoven and entangled together in a perplexing and convoluted plot.  Unlike most noirs, however, much of the drama is played out not in the typical confined corners of a shadowy city, but in broad daylight and natural settings – in this case, the sundrenched backdrops of Lake Tahoe and Puerto Vallarta . Throughout, cinematographer, Nicholas Musuraca –who also filmed Tourneur’s Cat People  (1942) – utilises stark imagery , contrasting t...