Beyond Lumières/ Méliès Early French Cinema Industry –Vertical integration –WWI French Art Cinema –Impressionism –Le Septième Art Questions of Nationalism –Imports and co-productions

Production, Distribution, Exhibition Pathé Frères –Charles Pathé –Ferdinand Zecca –Fairgrounds => Nickelodeons –Outsourced production Gaumont –Léon Gaumont –Alice Guy –Louis Feuillade

Case Study: Pathé vs. Gaumont Pathé –Set design –Visual homogeneity –More liberal – m/watch?v=NLNoey5a m58 (“Promenade au Soudan”) m/watch?v=NLNoey5a m58 Gaumont –On-location –Expressive visuality –More liberated – m/watch?v=UJ5blN4c gao&feature=mfu_in_o rder&list=UL (“Miss Dundee”) m/watch?v=UJ5blN4c gao&feature=mfu_in_o rder&list=UL

Early French Cinema Exhibition program Contents themes and genres Film language Stars –Max Linder

Before WWI Declined foothold in US market –Independent companies –MCPP regulations US competition on home soil

WWI and Aftermath Loss of lives Restrictions on the export market Restrictions on capital and material American and Italian imports

Rise of the Art Cinema Case Study: Abel Gance Cine-club movement Impressionism –Case Study: Jean Epstein Other “isms”

Case Study: Abel Gance Fjwqd4 (Kristin Thompson on La Roue) Fjwqd4 Technological experiments –Rhythmic editing Influenced Russian Montage –Polyvision Superimposition, split screen, triptych –Close-up Politics masked in melodrama

Cine-Club Movement Louis Delluc and Germaine Dulac –Critics, filmmakers, champions for the cause Film Clubs Le Septième Art

Impressionism Characteristics –Close-ups –Camera Movement –Optical Devices –Spatial/Temporal Displacement –Nonlinear Editing Jean Epstein – (La Coeur Fidèle Carnival Scene) –In class activity

Other “isms” Modernist movements –Fleeting nature vs. lingering influences –Surrealism –Dadaism

Questions of National Identity International influences and co- productions Distinct “Frenchness” vs. international no man’s land An issue revisited during the Nazi Occupation and Vichy government post WWII (Cinema du Qualité and later the Young Turks’ rejection of it)