The Story of Film: An Odyssey – Episodes 5&6
It’s time for my overview of the third set of episodes from The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Episode 5: Post-War Cinema
This episode featured discussions of post-war film styles, such as Italian Neo-Realism and the increased use of deep staging and focus. The use of deep focus is extreme prevalent in a certain film that came out in the time period called Citizen Kane. The episode also talked about how Hollywood films started getting darker following World War II, which resulted in the rise of Film Noir. There was also some talk about the McCarthy era and how it was a very dark time in the history of cinema, which included some filmmakers (such as Elia Kazan) became finger-pointers, which resulted in others being blacklisted. Episode 6: Sex and Melodrama in the 50s
I thought that this episode was a little all over the place. It began by focusing on new global film industries that were rising in countries such as Egypt, India, and Japan. However, there was also focus with how films were starting to get a new “attitude” of sort with films such as Rebel Without a Cause and On the Waterfront. Movies were now starting to get a little more bold and were finding ways to sneak sexual content pass the censors. There was some talk in this episode about melodramas from the likes of Douglas Sirk. Until next week.
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