An Exploration Of The Great Dictator

The important use of film as an influence for audiences has remained central all throughout the history of cinema. Mainly with the incorporation of formal film elements and technique, composers are able to bring to the screen their intentions and point of view. In particular, the method of sound, visual and physical manipulation have been prominent techniques used by composers to express more subtle notions. The outcomes achieved from this manipulation guides audiences through the nuances which may not be expressed in more straightforward and direct techniques such as dialogue. A short sequence taken from Robert Weine’s 1920’s film “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari” demonstrates

Sound is an imperative aspect of film that allows the audience to perceive a movie with a deeper sense of reality. Sounds do more than just inform the audience of the actions occurring in the film, they evoke feelings from them. Music is especially exceptional at causing audience reactions because people connect with music and seem to understand what it is trying to convey. Bram Stoker’s Dracula uses music and sound to make the audience respond a certain way and to assist in telling the tale of a treacherous vampire who is on a quest to reclaim his true love.

     In the movie Citizen Kane , young Charles Foster Kane is very energetic, optimistic and has a very positive outlook on life. At the same time he hates his old and bitter guardian, Mr. Thatcher, who has secluded himself from the everyday man and the only thing he is after is money and stature. Later on in life Charles Kane turns into an exact carbon copy of Mr. Thatcher, even though that is exactly what he wanted to get away from. In this essay I will prove how the used of sound, in the scenes in Thatcher¡¦s library and Xanadu, as compared to the earlier scenes in young Kane¡¦s newspaper office, help establish this development in Kane¡¦s character.

The Blue Angel is a German film directed by Josef von Sternberg, from 1930. In 1929, there a clear division in film, the division was between sound and silence. Sound was a major attraction to audiences during the Great Depression. The Blue Angel was Germany’s first complete movie with speech. There are four types of soundtrack materials in films, such as speech, music, noise, and silence. I am focusing on silence, which contains three subcategories, such as absolute, virtual, and selective. The characters in The Blue Angel who are associated with silence are Professor Rath and the clown. Silence for both characters signifies madness and sadness.

“The most exciting moment is the moment when I add the sound… At this moment, I tremble.” (Akira Kurosawa) Sound is arguably the most important concept in cinema studies, being there ever since the beginnings. It can radically change the way a motion picture is looked at and it can render what the director may sometimes find hard to depict using only his camera. Looking upon silent cinema one discovers an era which wasn’t at all silent, but rich in sound of different forms, from the simple narration of the images shown on screen, accompanied by a piano, to the complex score later composed specifically for that film. An example of that complex score is shown in Sunrise, a film by F.W. Murnau, which lies at the border between silent cinema and sound cinema. Considered to be one of the first films with an actual score, Sunrise is a great example of the multitude of dimensions and effects sound can have.

The triumph of the will is considered one of the major visual icons of Nazism . As the Historian William Shirer said "many of the most enduring images of the Nazi regime and its leader derive from Riefenstahl's film “ . This movie is truly an artistic endeavor that shows how art can often be beyond the surface purpose of a project, that explicates in the cinematic techniques that work in concert with one another to create a cohesive portrait of this political and military leader, Adolph Hitler. Riefenstahl’s movie is a great example of how can the rhetorical appeals Ethos , Pathos , Logos be melted together to produce one of the best convincing weapons . This can be obviously implied in the choice of music , gestures

While watching Fritz Lang’s M, besides the importance of the movie’s subtext and theme, one notable aspect is the use and subsequence importance of sound. From the beginning until the end of the movie we could see that sound is not just there as the latest trend in technology during that time, but used to illustrate each character. In Kaes’ essay, he writes that “M’s sound collages often express the unconscious of a character or the unspoken implications scene.” Lang did not show the characteristic of a certain character by showing his or her backstory, but with sounds : “sound alone demoted the criminal”. Kaes states that many feature films were utilizing sound for the musical number or comedy; Lang, on the other hand did something completely

Sound is a very important aspect to a movie. Previously, we were to watch historical films for our film class. These movies were somewhat difficult to watch because they had no sound. In relation, sound is another elemental system that is organized into a series of dialogue, music, ambience, and effects tracks. Various sounds were heard throughout this movie.

Nazi Germany, under the rule of Adolf Hitler, was harrowing, with fanatical Nazis repeatedly undertaking inhumane acts of violence. Despite the disturbing facts of the period, to this day many films are directly, or indirectly, based around the actions of Nazism. Specifically focusing on The Lion King, Cabaret, Sophie Scholl, Schindler’s List, and The Downfall, Nazism is heavily illustrated. These films focus on various parts of Hitler’s timeline, and the actions of the Nazi Party, with society continuously being intrigued with media based around these themes.

By 1938 Chaplin was one of the greatest writers, directors and actors in the film industry, well known for his socioeconomic and political satire within The United States. He felt so confident in his ability in mocking the world’s most dangerous man that he was willing to spend $1.5 million of the $2 million budget. The two differences in this later film from his earlier work were the introduction of sound in films and the disappearance of his reoccurring protagonist “The Little Tramp”. Chaplin’s use of sound in this film was a huge factor in history, not

Films made during World War II provide a unique insight into the relationship between film and society. Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series, produced from 1942 to 1945, emphasises the use of film by government for the purpose of propaganda. The representations of war within similar texts promote an incomplete understanding of popular conceptions of life during the period. Consequently, the issues with this film as a historical source stress the overt influence of the director, and by extension, the government. This underlying intent behind the film is seen through the distinct purpose of propaganda strategy. The purpose-based production highlights the reciprocal relationship concerning popular conceptions of the war between society and film. Accordingly, study of these texts demonstrates how the ability of film to foster social cohesion in war complements its function as a shared cultural event.

The perspectives presented in Fritz Lang’s avant-guarde silent film, ‘Metropolis’ (1927), and George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949), are reflections on the zeitgeist in their milieus. Though the texts were composed only twenty years apart, they both explore their composer’s respective personal, social, cultural and political contextual tensions and concerns. These include the dystopian concept of unmediated use and abuse of power and its threat to individualism, reflective of the rise of totalitarian regimes such as Stalin and Hitler; and the reliance on and dehumanising impact of technology, emblematic of the Machine Age across twentieth century Europe. While, Lang opts to use the medium of film, experimenting with

From the first scenes the viewer can clearly notice how the machines (often seen in the foreground of the frames) are ruling the life of the workers. As for his most appreciated works, Chaplin’s view is between slapstick and satire, showing the spectator a visualization of the Great Depression by enhancing the tragicomic situation of his factory-owned Tramp, in his last appearance on screen.

Films with no spoken dialogue can be confusing to understand, but it shows you many expressions like the music or the actor's face or gestures. When you hear the music and understand the gesture than it won’t be difficult to understand what is going on. This silent film is about Charlie, who is the tramp, fells in love with a blind woman but has trouble with paying her rent. Charlie meets a drunk millionaire who becomes his friend after saving him, when he isn’t drunk, he doesn’t remember Charlie. Moreover he gives Charlie money when he is drunk to give it to the blind women. Charlie Chaplin’s rough city, City Lights uses love between a blind woman and the instrumental music to develop the film’s theme of love and beauty during the busy society.

The banned of foreign films by the German government led to an increase of domestic film productions, giving way for film artist to embrace the change and experiment with bold ideas and artistic styles to make up for their lack of budgets. Such film includes The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920) and Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) often dealt with plots concerning with insanity, betrayal, authority and other issues that were triggered by WWI. This paper will primarily discuss on how these silent films disregard realism because of Germany’s unconventional shift towards Modernism and its socio-political conditions. The second part of this paper will enlighten on how German Expressionist film acts as an influence in the cinematic world.