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.…
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Modernism in Australia and Oceania
(Previously published as 'The Experience of Aboriginality in the Creation of the Radically New' in Ross, S. (ed.) (2014) Modernist World, Abingdon: Routledge.)1
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…
Miranda, Carmen (1909–1955)
Portuguese-born Brazilian singer, dancer and actress Carmen Miranda defied twentieth-century social and theatrical conventions to become a modern pop icon, an emblem of Hollywood’s Latina…
Modotti, Tina (1895–1942)
Tina Modotti, an Italian-born photographer who lived much of her life in the United States, was an actress in silent movies in Hollywood, and in…
Hawks, Howard (1896–1977)
Born Howard Winchester Hawks in Goshen, Indiana, to a wealthy industrialist family, he is considered one of the major directors of the classical Hollywood studio…
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…
Cassavetes, John (1929--1989)
John Nicholas Cassavetes (1929--1989) was born to Greek parents in New York. He originally trained in the theater. His acting in commercial Hollywood films such…
West, Nathanael (1903–1940)
Nathanael West was an author and screenwriter whose work spanned the decade of the 1930s. He was born Nathan Weinstein on 17 October 1903 in…
Lang, Fritz (1890–1976)
Fritz Lang was a film director central to the development of German expressionist cinema and American film noir. Born Friedrich Christian Anton Lang in Vienna,…
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…
Samba
Modern samba music and dance began in Rio de Janeiro’s Afro-Brazilian communities in the early 1900s and spread rapidly to international audiences through twentieth-century technologies…
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), an experimental film by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, is considered an American avant-garde watershed. The husband–wife team played the…
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief, 1948) is a neorealist film by Vittorio De Sica, considered modern and revolutionary because it radically broke with pre-World…
Baum, Vicki (1888–1960)
Vicki Baum was born as Hedwig Baum to a Jewish family in Vienna. Trained as a musician in her youth, Baum studied the harp at…
New American Cinema
The New American Cinema was a movement to create independent films that expressed the countercultural moods and sensibilities of the late 1950s and early 1960s;…
Von Sternberg, Josef (1894–1969)
Born in Vienna as Jonas Sternberg to impoverished Orthodox Jewish parents, Josef von Sternberg (1894–1969) migrated to New York in his teens; there he changed…
Odets, Clifford (1906–1963)
One of the foremost American playwrights of the first half of the twentieth century, Clifford Odets is best known for his social realist plays and…
Sirk, Douglas (1900–1987)
Douglas Sirk was a German émigré director who was widely celebrated for his melodramas produced for Universal Studios during the 1950s, which inspired generations of…
Itō, Michio (1893–1961)
Itō Michio’s creative endeavors spanned dance, theatre, and film, just as his career spanned the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, however, his life as a…
Chaplin, Charlie (1889–1977)
Charles Spenser Chaplin was born in London on April 16, 1889, and died on Christmas Day, 1977, at home in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. He had been…
Ophüls, Max (1902–1957)
Max Ophüls is an important critic and filmmaker of the postwar period, known for his opulent set design, kinetic long-takes, and proto-feminist melodramas, a source…
Yamanaka, Sadao (1909–1938)
Sadao Yamanaka was a Japanese film director known for bringing a modern, critical touch to period films in the 1930s. Born in Kyoto, he entered…
Döblin, (Bruno) Alfred (1878-1957)
Alfred Döblin’s contributions to modern literature consist primarily of his montage style, epic narrative structures and critical eye toward contemporary culture. His masterpiece Berlin Alexanderplatz.…
Delluc, Louis (1890–1924)
A prolific film reviewer and director of eight films in the early 1920s, Louis Delluc is renowned for being France’s first film critic—a justifiable status…