МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

МУНИЦИПАЛЬНОЕ АВТОНОМНОЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ

ГИМНАЗИЯ С УГЛУБЛЕННЫМ ИЗУЧЕНИЕМ ИНОСТРАННЫХ ЯЗЫКОВ №21

Кафедра иностранных языков

Реферат

по английскому языку на тему:

«American Cinema»

Выполнила: ученица 6 «Б» класса

Трофимова Елизавета

Проверил: преподаватель

кафедры иностранных языков

Емельянова Мария Валерьевна

Тюмень 2016

Contents:1

Introduction………………………………………………………………………

Chapter I «History of American cinema»

1.1. Bearing

1.2. Formation

1.3. Classic Hollywood

1.4. New Hollywood …………………………………………………………..6

Chapter II «Genres of Cinema»

2.1 . Pepla Plural, Teenpick, Slasher movie, Vampire movie, Zombie film ………7

2.2. Film Noir ……………………………………………………………………82.3. Musical ……………………………………………………………………...92.4. Western .........................................................................................................10

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...12

References………………………………………………………………………...13

Vocabulary………………………………………………………………………..1

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Introduction

This report is devoted to the topic “American Cinema”. In this report we consider

the history of American cinema. The aim of the report is to learn the basic

information about some genres of cinematography and film companies.

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Chapter I «History of Hollywood cinematography»

1.1.Bearing

As you know, American cinema is the most popular and the most advanced.

That is why at the beginning of 20th century several dozens of small companies

producing movies existed. The bearing of American film industry began in 1892,

when Thomas Edison constructed the kinetoscope. Kinetoscope is the technology

of cinematography for showing picture in motion. The first public screening took

place in New-York. This screening consisted of small humorous and dancing

performances.

1.1. Formation

In 1901 ``nickelodeons`` - cheap cinemas appeared in the USA. The

entrance cost 5 pennies, and by 1908 more than three thousands nickelodeons

existed. The first dream factory appeared in 1911 and the major association like

``Universal Studio`` and ``Paramount Pictures`` appeared in 1912, ``United

Artists`` - in 1919, ``Warner Brothers``- in 1923, ``Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer`` and

``Columbia Pictures``- in 1924. Western «The Squaw Man» was shot in 1913 in

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Hollywood. It was the beginning of Hollywood as a cinematography center. By

1920 800 films were shot every year. During 15 years the village became the

capital of American film industry.

1.2. Classic Hollywood

Classic Hollywood began at the end of 1920 when a sound motion picture

appeared. Film companies developed animated cartoon and film makers from Walt

Disney`s firm released films in channels of United Artists.

Also, it is difficult to imagine the history of the cinema without David Wark

Griffith. Griffith was an American director who pioneered cinema techniques such

as using of advanced camera and techniques and, of course, he popularized feature-

length film.

The most famous films are The Birth of Nation and Intolerance. Film

historians as one of the first feature length American films (most previous films

had been less than one hour) consider the Birth of Nation. In his next

film, Intolerance, Griffith portrayed the effects of intolerance in four different

historical periods.

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David Wark Griffith discovered edition like a creative process – close-up

and long-shot. David was called as the «father» of cinema. At the practice of

American cinema the Griffith’s ways of montage got a special names: cross-cut,

flash-back and switch-back.

1.3. New Hollywood

New period began at the end of 1960s. The interest for films with traditional

stars was falling. A lot of dream factories were close to ruin. Filmmakers invited

young producers. People liked these films and wave of something new and unusual

occupied viewers. New epoch began. Films by S. Kubrick, F. Coppola, M.

Scorsese, R. Polanski, W. Allen, and R. Altman differed high artistic level. The

interest for experiments disappeared at the end of 1970, because «Star Wars» by G.

Lucas and «Jaws» by S. Spielberg were very popular.

Chapter II «Film Genres»

2.1. Pepla Plural, Teenpick, Slasher movie, Vampire movie, Zombie film. 6

System of genres for classic Hollywood is characterized by:

Comedies of M. Linder, Ch. Chaplin, B. Kiton, Marks brothers

Lyric comedies of Ernst Lubitsch and George Cukor

Eccentric comedies of K. Frank and H. Houks

Soap operas with Errol Flynn

Westerns of John Ford

Film-noir with H. Bogart and B. Stanwyck

Musical with F. Astaire and G. Kelly

Thrillers of A. Hitchcock

At the end of 1930 films were shot in color (epoch of Technicolor).

Genre «pepla plural» appeared in post-war period - amplitudinous reels of

films, which were shot by antique plots with grandiose scenes, for example «Ben-

Hur». Popularity of cinemascopic film began from alike films.

Most often narrative films are classified by both the producers of films and

audiences according to the concept of genre; that is they are seen in terms of

categories such as sci-fi, or musical, or western, or horror, or even sub-genres such

as spaghetti western or ‘slasher’ movie.

Teenpick is a film featuring teenagers as the central characters and aimed at

teenage audiences.

Slasher movie is a type of horror film in which the story revolves around

psychotic males with plans to murder a group of young people. This sub-genre

was at its height in the 1970s and early 1980s with films such as The Texas Chain

Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974), Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) and

Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984).

Vampire movie is a horror sub-genre that owes a lot to Bram Stoker’s novel

Dracula (1897) and again tends to feature male characters preying upon female

victims, on this occasion by sucking their blood.7

Zombie film is a horror sub-genre in which the dead (the zombies) come

back to life and attack the living. See Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968)

and Shaun of the Dead (Wright, 2004).

2.2. Film Noir

Film noir was a term initially used by French critics (literally ‘dark’ or ‘black

film’) to describe Hollywood films of the 1940s and early 1950s. They are

characterized by cynicism and pessimism and set within an oppressive urban world

of crime and corruption. The ‘heroes’ are usually disillusioned men who face an

uncertain future alone. Friendship is difficult and only possible at a certain

distance. Love is most usually perverted in some way, and innocence cannot

survive.

The films are usually dark and bleak. The 1940s and 1950s are generally

regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir. Films noir put an emphasis

on women of questionable virtue that had become rare in Hollywood films after

the mid-1930s, for example « Double Indemnity».

The iconic noir is counterpart to the femme fatale in films such as «The Maltese

Falcon» with

Humphrey Bogart as

Sam Spade, and

«Murder, My Sweet»

with Dick Powell as

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Philip Marlowe. Also, noir sleuths exist, Dana Andrews played police detective in

«Laura».

2.3. Musical

Musical won the audience its ease and commonplace storyline. The

audience in the cinema fascinated not only the obligatory happy ending and the

presence of dance and songs. Appearing in the early 30s, the musical was

developed. It was originally Broadway productions ("42 Street") and the usual

musical perfomances. With the coming of stars musical, the genre began to take

his face and he has got its own audience. By the way, studio Metro Goldwyn

Mayer was the main forge musicals in the 40s and 50s.

Uncomplicated storyline is «a father comes home from work and says that

he was offered a job in New York, followed by the immediate negative reaction of

the family and the whole movie they're going to New York». All experiences and

suffering of the protagonist, we learn of the songs that are already considered

classics - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, The Trolley Song, and, of

course, Meet me in Saint Louis. These films will clearly see the director's style, in

which the main thing - to tell an

original story with the help of

musical numbers.

2.4. Western

The Western is a genre of

various arts, often centering on

the life of a nomadic cowboy or

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gunfighter. Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently

set the action in an arid, desolate landscape of deserts and mountains. Specific

settings include ranches, small frontier towns and saloons of the Wild West.

Characters also include Native Americans, bandits, law men, outlaws and soldiers.

The Western film was popular in the 1930s and the 1950s and 1960s.

Classical Western

The Great Train Robbery (1903), Edwin S. Porter's film starring Broncho

Billy Anderson, is considered as the first Western. The films` popularity opened

the door for Anderson to become the screen's first cowboy star; he made several

hundred Western film shorts.

The Golden Age of the Western is works of several directors, most

prominent among them, John Ford (My Darling Clementine). Others: Howard

Hawks (Red River), Anthony Mann (Man of the West), Budd Boetticher (Seven

Men from Now), Delmer Daves (The Hanging Tree), John Sturges (The

Magnificent Seven), and Robert Aldrich (Vera Cruz).

Spaghetti Western

During the 1960s and 1970s, a revival of the Western was appearance in

Italy with the "Spaghetti Westerns" also known as "Italo-Westerns". The most

famous of them is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). Many of these films

are low-budget affairs, shot in locations (for example, the Spanish desert region of

Almería) chosen for their inexpensive crew and production costs as well as their

similarity to landscapes of the Southwestern United States. Spaghetti Westerns

were characterized by the presence of more action and violence than the

Hollywood Westerns. Also, the protagonists usually acted out of more selfish

motives (money or revenge being the most common) than in the classical westerns.

Veteran American actors Charles Bronson, Lee Van Cleef and Clint

Eastwood became famous by starring in Spaghetti Westerns, although the films

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also provided a showcase for other noted actors such as James Coburn, Henry

Fonda, Klaus Kinski, and Jason Robards. Eastwood, previously the lead in the

television series Rawhide, unexpectedly found himself catapulted into the

forefront of the film industry by Leone's a fistful of dollars.

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Conclusion

We have considered the history of American cinema and we have learnt the basic

information about some popular actors and some genres: Pepla Plural, Teenpick,

Slasher movie, Vampire movie, Zombie film, Film Noir, Musical and Western.

We`ve known about major association, which is popular nowadays, such as,

``Universal Studio``, ``Paramount Pictures``, ``Warner Brothers``, ``Metro-

Goldwyn-Mayer`` and ``Columbia Pictures``.

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References

1. Sarah Casey Benyahia, Freddie Gaffney and John White, As Film Studies, The

essential introduction (book)

2. David Bordwell, Film Art (book)

3. https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

4. http://reflexions.ulg.ac.be/upload/docs/image/jpeg/2010-01/

kinetoscope_copie.jpg

5. http://vk.com/doc68236936_437151509?

hash=9002d5f42bdc3d0098&dl=2c13cdeb5bffe057ed

6. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/D_W_Griffith.jpeg

7. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%BD

%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE

%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%84_%D0%A1%D0%A8%D0%90#

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States

9. https://movieclassics.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/fred-and-ginger-6.jpg

10.http://filmforum.org/do-not-enter-or-modify-or-erase/client-uploads/thumbs/

DOUBLE-INDEMNITY_UNDER-TEXT1520.jpg

11. http://www.cityspb.ru/f/a0/ru/auto/201505/13152326.1.jpg

Vocabulary

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1. Kinetoscope is the technology of cinematography for showing picture in motion.

2. Nickelodeons - cheap cinemas in the USA.3. Dream factory – киностудия.4. Sound motion picture – звуковое кино.5. Advanced camera – продвигающаяся камера.6. Feature-length film – полнометражный фильм.

7. Reels – катушка киноплёнки.8. Pepla plural is a genre with amplitudinous reels of films, which were shot by

antique plots with grandiose scenes.9. Cinemascopic – широкоэкранный.10. Sub-genres – производное направление.11. Teenpick is a film featuring teenagers as the central characters and aimed at

teenage audiences.

12. Slasher movie is a type of horror film in which the story revolves around psychotic males with plans to murder a group of young people.

13. Commonplace storyline – банальный сюжет.14. Fascinated – очаровывать.15. Protagonist – главный герой.

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