Film Subject Overview
The Film Section includes entries on a variety of modernist genres, periods, movements, directors, films, and critical modes aligned with modernist aims and intellectual attitudes.…
Search Results 1 - 25 of 155
Expressionism
Expressionism was one of the foremost modernist movements to emerge in Europe in the early years of the twentieth-century. It had a profound effect on…
Paik, Nam June (1932–2006)
Nam June Paik was a Korean-born American artist who achieved international notoriety for his destructive, neo-dada activities and visionary, esthetic experiments with electronic media. Born…
Borderline (1930)
An experimental production of an avant-garde collective of poets and artists known as the POOL group, Borderline is a key example of modernist montage techniques…
Bresson, Robert (1901–99)
Robert Bresson was a film director and one of the most important representatives of French cinema. His work with its stark, austere style and focus…
Altman, Robert (1925–2006)
Robert Bernard Altman (February 20, 1925, Kansas City, Missouri–November 20, 2006, Los Angeles) was an American director of television, theatre, and, most famously, films, including…
Tarkovsky, Andrei (1943–1986)
The cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky stands at the zenith of high-modernist cinema. Amongst the many technical achievements that characterize Tarkovsky’s total art approach to cinema,…
Penn, Arthur (1922–2010)
Arthur Penn was an American stage director, television producer, and filmmaker. During the 1950s, Penn’s successful run as a director of television dramas led to…
Bergman, Ernst Ingmar (July 14, 1918–July 30, 2007)
Perhaps the exemplification of the European art-film director throughout the late 1950s and the 1960s, Ingmar Bergman developed what would become an almost instantly recognizable…
Brakhage, Stan (1933–2003)
Stan Brakhage (born Robert Sanders) was an American filmmaker and one of the most important figures of experimental cinema, noted for his abstract, lyrical style.…
Breathless (1960)
Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless captures French New Wave’s rejection of traditional cinematic form, and its style has influenced alternative, political, and documentary filmmakers.
Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich (1898–1948)
Sergei Eisenstein was an early Soviet film director and theorist who produced widely acknowledged masterpieces of both silent and sound cinema, such as Strike (1924),…
French New Wave
The French New Wave is a term associated with a group of French filmmakers and the films they directed from the late 1950s until the…
Mass Observation
Mass Observation was founded in 1937 by filmmaker Humphrey Jennings, poet Charles Madge, and ethnologist and explorer Tom Harrisson. It was originally conceived as a…
Renoir, Jean (1894–1979)
Jean Renoir was a French director and writer responsible for over 40 films from the silent period to 1970. He was born in Paris as…
Rice, Ron (1935–1964)
Ron Rice was a central figure in the 1960s American avant-garde cinema. His films are closely affiliated with beat literature given their emphasis on improvisation…
Rocha, Glauber (1939–1981)
Glauber Rocha de Andrade (Vitória da Conquista, 1939–1981) was a Brazilian film critic, screenwriter, producer, and director. Arguably the most important director of the cinema…
Ruttmann, Walter (1889–1941)
Born in Frankfurt, Ruttmann studied architecture and design, and started his career as a painter and lithographer before turning to film. His earliest films, Lichtspiel:…
Saura, Carlos (1932–)
Carlos Saura, screenwriter and film director, has often been praised as representing the summit of the Spanish post-war filmic universe. His film style throughout his…
Strike (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
The first feature film of legendary Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein, Strike, is an anatomy of the germination of collective action, its surveillance within modern networks…
Švankmajer, Jan
Jan Švankmajer (1934–) is a Czech surrealist visual artist, primarily known for his film works. He studied puppetry and theatre at university and began his…
Tezuka, Osamu (1928–1989)
Tezuka Osamu was a manga (comic) artist, animator, and film director often called the “God of Manga” for his enormous lasting impact upon the manga…
The 400 Blows (1959)
The 400 Blows (Les 400 Coups), a black-and-white French feature film directed by François Truffaut, is one of the most influential works of the French…
The British Documentary Film Movement (1926–1946)
The British Documentary Film Movement refers to the film units pioneered by John Grierson. With the benefit of state sponsorship, Grierson and the filmmakers that…
UPA (United Productions of America)
Hollywood cartoon studio UPA (United Productions of America) was founded in 1943 by former Disney animators Steven Bosustow, Zachary Schwartz, and David Hilberman. It profoundly…