Countdown 43

Fine Arts: Film
Notes from SHOF - Chapter 5

International Cinema through WWII
1933 Alexander Korda does The Private Life of Henry VIII which becomes the first British film to win an Academy Award for best actor (Charles Laughton)
1937 Jean Renoir - The Grand Illusion
1942 Rene Clair - I Married A Witch
1930 Jean Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet with music by Georges Auric - lots of trick photography to create this opium dream
1950 Jean Cocteau's masterpiece Orphee
Propagandist and documentarian Nazi Leni Riefenstahl
Luchino Visconti version of the Postman always rings twice "Obsession"

Notes from SHOF - Chapter 6

Postwar Challenges to the Movies
Italy - De Sica's "The Bicycle Thief" - plot reminiscent and probably influenced recent movie "Beijing Bicycle".
1944 - US Supreme Court "de Havilland decision" rules that the 7 year contract for actors could not be indefinitely lengthened by suspensions.
1947 - US Supreme Court declares practice of Block Booking a violation of antitrust laws.

James Steward becomes the first actor to command a percentage of film gross.

Rossellini's work "The Miracle" is banned by Catholic Church. The Supreme Court in 1952 decides that this is a violation of church and state separation and that Movies fell under the 1st Amendment of "Freedom of Speech"

Film Noir
Newman's Abandoned
Siodmaks's The Killers
Dassin's The Naked City
George Marshall's The Blue Dahlia

Women as the vicious femme fatale. Barbara Stanwyck "Double Indemnity"
1945 Joan Crawford "Mildred Pierce"

HUAC starts the Communist scare in Hollywood and the blacklist
Rise of Television
3D and Cinerama (early 3 projector wide screen) Roller coaster rides like Disneyworld Circlevisions, etc.

Auteur Theory makes the director the most important person involved in the creation of a film.
Marlon Brando "rebel" formla with Laszlo Benedeks "The Wild One" 1953
Roger Corman's "Little Shop of Horrors" 1960. Low budget crime, horror and sci fi thrillers.

Musicals
Billy Wilder's 1955 - Seven Year Itch with Marilyn Monroe

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Watched ROPE by Hitchcock. The main reason for seeing this movie was to see how the long takes were done. The movie looks like a play and after looking up the info on imdb this proves to be its origins. Another interesting point was the veiled gender issues. Hubby didn't pick up on this but I suspected.
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Philosophy: Listened to 3 lectures from audio book - Ideas that Shaped Mankind
Lecture 4 - From Settlement to Civilization - Crisis and Wars. The reign of Kings.
Lecture 5 - Thus Spake Zarathustra - The fall of the early civilizations, zoroastrism
Lecture 6 - The Age of Sages - Plato, Buddha, Confucius