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Aspects of the American Independent Movement:
- -improvisational acting
- -hand held, light weight cameras
- -location filming
- -usually one star (not major) with a cast of unknowns
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What was the first major film of the American indie movement?
Shadows by John Cassavetes (1959)
Concerned inter-racial relationships
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What did the French New Wave have in common with Italian Neo-Realism?
- -location shooting (urban settings)
- -rebelled against white telephone, studio films
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Where did the French New Wave differ from Italian neo-realism?
- -focused on relationships rather than politics
- -directed towards young, urban Parisiens
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What influenced the New Wave movement?
- -Neo-Realism
- -American gangster films
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Two major contributions of the New Wave movement?
- Breathless- Jean Luc Godard- introduced the jump cut- "reality at 24 fps"
- The 400 Blows- Francois Truffaut- introduced the freeze frame
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Characteristics of Film Noir:
- -dark, low key lighting
- -urban setting
- -sophisticated killer
- -derived from German Expressionism
- -images with bars (people trapped in physical and emotional mazes)
- -mirrors and reflections (Freudian darkness v. light)
- -dark, wet urban streets at night
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Common Film Noir arc
- -crime is committed or plotted within an intimate relationship
- -eccentric minor characters: no loyalty in relationships- bad marriages, husbands plot to kill wives or vice versa
- -no payoff for characters, everyone loses
- -coincidence abounds but helps to drive the story
- -femme fatale- narcissistic woman who drives the action
- -private detective- generally a loner with his own code of ethics against the ineffective justice system
- -karmic cause and effect cosmos wrapped around a moral choice
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Common French New Wave arc
Personal relationships set against a contemporary urban background with unresolved ending.
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