A brief history of cinema from the middle of the 20th century to the present: an excerpt from the book by Anton Dolin

The heyday of auteur cinema

Since the mid-1950s, filmmakers and filmmakers have emerged around the world, each with their own style and style. Some of them respect each other, others, on the contrary, despise, and the majority build their own artistic universe, inhabited by associates and fans.

The 1950s – 1970s saw the peak of the popularity of auteur cinema: people watch it, ban it, extol it, fiercely argue about it, write articles and whole books. For the first time, theorists are seriously talking about cinema as an art that is in no way inferior to its older brothers - theater, literature, painting or music.

In the Soviet Union, despite the censorship, an uncompromising author's movie and unique artists: Andrei Tarkovsky, Elem Klimov, Aleksey German Sr., Kira Muratova.

Ten films to try:

• Tokyo Story, 1953, Yasujiro Ozu, Japan;
• Seven Samurai, 1954, Akira Kurosawa, Japan;
• The Word, 1955, Karl Theodor Dreyer, Denmark;
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• The Seventh Seal, 1957, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden;
• "Adventure", 1960, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy;
• La Dolce Vita, 1960, Federico Fellini, Italy;
• A Clockwork Orange, 1971, Stanley Kubrick, UK / USA;
• Beauty of the Day, 1967, Luis Buñuel, France;
• Fear Eats the Soul, 1973, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany;
• Mirror, 1974, Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR.

New hollywood

This trend of American auteur cinema was influenced in part by European and Asian cinema, as well as the festival movement. His birth is associated with the abolition of the Hayes censorship code, which prescribed strict rules for what is allowed and what cannot be shown in the movies, and with the crisis of the American "studio" system, drowned in self-repetition and tired spectators.

Young filmmakers-moviegoers felt themselves to be a part of the world cultural community. They abandoned all restrictions and explored the taboo areas of American life. At the same time, their films were popular and received full houses, were nominated for film awards and won them.

The Social Issues and Trauma Research of the Common American in New Hollywood Films Replaced conventional cinematic laws of genre cinema with its obligatory and often on duty happy ends.

Five films to try:

• The Graduate, 1967, Mike Nichols, USA;
• Easy Rider, 1969, Dennis Hopper, USA;
• The Godfather, 1972, Francis Ford Coppola, USA;
• Wicked Streets, 1973, Martin Scorsese, USA;
• "Scarface", 1983, Brian De Palma, USA.

Blockbusters

In the mid-1970s, a commercial revolution took place in American and then world cinema. Young immigrants from New Hollywood George Lucas and Steven Spielberg they shoot incredibly popular genre films for a young audience that break all box office records. From this point on, America is gradually switching from mass production of serious cinema to adult audience for teenage entertainment films - real commercial machines for making money money. They are called "blockbusters" - literally "neighborhood destroyers".

Blockbusters are still the backbone of Hollywood's studio power and the reason for the vitality of the American film industry.

Five films to try:

• Jaws, 1975, Steven Spielberg, USA.
• Star Wars, 1977, George Lucas, USA.
• Alien, 1979, Ridley Scott, USA.
• The Terminator, 1984, James Cameron, USA.
• Die Hard, 1988, John McTiernan, USA.

Postmodernism

This word scares many. On the one hand, no one is able to briefly and clearly describe what is meant by it. On the other hand, so many studies and books have been written about him that too much is meant.

In cinema, clear manifestations of postmodernism are disregard for the system of hierarchies (both copyright and commercial cinema), pervasive irony, ubiquitous quotes from the classics of cinema, lack of moralism and instructive. As well as a mixture of genres and styles, non-distinction between "high" art and mass culture, the inclusion of the viewer in viewing as a kind of cultural game in which he is asked to guess what actually has in mind the author.

Since the mid-1980s, postmodernism has taken over cinematography around the world.

Ten examples to try:

• Blue Velvet, 1986, David Lynch, USA;
• "ASSA", 1987, Sergey Solovyov, USSR;
• "Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown", 1988, Pedro Almodovar, Spain;
• Nikita, 1990, Luc Besson, France;
• Sonatina, 1993, Takeshi Kitano, Japan;
• «Crime novel», 1994, Quentin Tarantino, USA;
• Dead Man, 1995, Jim Jarmusch, USA;
• Breaking the Waves, 1996, Lars von Trier, Denmark;
• Funny Games, 1997, Michael Haneke, Austria;
• “About Freaks and People”, 1998, Alexey Balabanov, Russia.

Festivals

The first film festivals began to be held even before World War II. The most influential film show was Venice, founded in 1932 on the personal initiative of the dictator Benito Mussolini. The Cannes Festival was first conceived to be held at the end of the same decade as an alternative and counterbalance to the Venice Festival, where fascist ideas were becoming more and more influential. The plans were not destined to come true: the war began. As a result, the first Cannes Festival took place in 1946.

The most important film shows in Europe are traditionally considered the festivals in Berlin (February), Cannes (May) and Venice (August-September), the most prestigious are their prizes: "Golden Bear", "Golden Palm" and "Golden Lion" respectively. In addition, famous festivals have been held for a long time in Locarno and Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary and San Sebastian, Toronto and Busan.

There are more international film festivals in the world than days a year.

Twenty festival winners to try:

• Rashomon, 1951, Akira Kurosawa, Japan (Venice);
• "Pay for Fear", 1954, Henri-Georges Clouzot, France (Cannes);
• "12 Angry Men", 1957, Sidney Lumet, USA (Berlin);
• Viridiana, 1961, Luis Buñuel, Spain (Cannes);
• Ivan's Childhood, 1962, Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR (Venice);
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964, Jacques Demy, France (Cannes);
• Military Field Hospital, 1970, Robert Altman, USA (Cannes);
• The Canterbury Tales, 1972, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy (Berlin);
• "Ascent", 1977, Larisa Shepitko, USSR (Berlin);
• All That Jazz, 1980, Bob Fosse, USA (Cannes);
• “Name: Carmen”, 1983, Jean-Luc Godard, France (Venice);
• "Paris, Texas", 1984, Wim Wenders, Germany (Cannes);
• Red Gaoliang, 1988, Zhang Yimou, China (Berlin);
• Barton Fink, 1991, Ethan and Joel Coen, USA (Cannes);
• The Piano, 1993, Jane Campion, New Zealand (Cannes);
• Long Live Love, 1994, Tsai Mingliang, Taiwan (Venice);
• Spirited Away, 2002, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan (Berlin);
• Still Life, 2006, Jia Zhangke, China (Venice);
• “4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days”, 2007, Cristian Mungiu, Romania (Cannes);
• "Uncle Boonmi Who Remembers His Past Lives", 2010, Apichatpong Weerasetakun, Thailand (Cannes).

"Oscar"

Humanity is sure that the highest award in the field of cinema is the Oscar, and it is impossible to convince him. But the Oscar is a purely American industrial award, in the limited coordinates of which there are often whole cinematography unnoticeable: after all, only films released during the year are awarded USA.

Perhaps they attach such importance to the award because the Oscars are a spectacular show. Or because the most famous
the stars in the world are Hollywood. But above all, of course, because American cinema is the most popular in the world.

The reason is simple. The French make films for the French, the Danes for the Danes, the Indians for the Indians, the Chinese for the Chinese, and the Russians for the Russians. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are rare and insignificant. And only Hollywood makes films not for Americans, but for the whole world.

Twenty Best Oscar Films to Try:

• It Happened One Night, 1935, Frank Capra, USA;
• Gone with the Wind, 1940, Victor Fleming, USA;
• Rebecca, 1941, Alfred Hitchcock, USA;
• All About Eve, 1951, Joseph Mankiewicz, USA;
• Ben-Hur, 1960, William Wyler, USA;
• The Apartment, 1961, Billy Wilder, USA;
• West Side Story, 1962, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, USA;
• Lawrence of Arabia, 1963, David Lin, UK;
• Midnight Cowboy, 1970, John Schlesinger, USA;
• "The Godfather - 2", 1975, Francis Ford Coppola, USA;
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1976, Milos Forman, USA;
• Annie Hall, 1978, Woody Allen, USA;
• Platoon, 1987, Oliver Stone, USA;
• Rain Man, 1989, Barry Levinson, USA;
• «Silence of the Lambs», 1992, Jonathan Demme, USA;
• Schindler's List, 1994, Steven Spielberg, USA;
• Forrest Gump, 1995, Robert Zemeckis, USA;
• Titanic, 1998, James Cameron, USA;
• No Country for Old Men, 2008, Ethan & Joel Coen, USA;
• Birdman, 2017, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, USA.

Well-known Russian journalist and film critic Anton Dolin wrote a book for children and adults, where he analyzed important questions about cinema. Why do we watch movies? How to understand cinematic language? What if you're bored? How is cinema changing and what will become of it in the distant future? A very nice bonus - the illustrations for the publication were drawn by Konstantin Bronzit, an artist, animator and an Oscar nominee.

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