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History of Cinema
Key Terminology and Concepts

 

Use this page as a study guide for the terms we're learning for Introduction to Film.

The Birth of Cinema

Optical Illusions
Persistence of Vision
Phi Phenomenon
Stroboscopic Toys
Phenakistoscope
Zoetrope
Camera Obscura
Daguerreotypes
Eadweard Muybridge
Etienne-Jules Marey
Thomas Edison
W.K.L. Dickson
Black Maria
Kinetograph
Lumiere Brothers
Cinématographe
Alice Guy
Georges Méliès
Edwin S. Porter

Silent Auteurs

Mack Sennett
Keystone Studios
Slapstick
Mabel Normand
Charles Chaplin
Buster Keaton
Fatty Arbuckle
D.W. Griffith
Oscar Micheaux
Paul Robeson

German Expressionism & Soviet Montage

Fritz Lang
Thea von Harbou
F.W. Murnau
Karl Freund
UFA
Expressionism
Kammerspiel
Constructivism
Bolshevik Revolution
Vladimir Lenin
Moscow Film School
Agitprop
Aleksander Medvedkin
Lev Kuleshov
Mozhukin
Sergei Eisenstein
Intellectual / Dialectical Montage
Dziga Vertov
Joseph Stalin

Conversion to Sound, Production Code, Poetic Realism

WKL Dickson/Edison
Alice Guy
Tri-Ergon Process
Sound on Disc
Vitaphone
Movietone
Sound on Film
Lee de Forest
Phonofilm
Optical Soundtrack
New Genres
Production Code Administration
Legion of Decency
Joseph Breen
Hays Code
Carl Theodor Dreyer
French Impressionism
Photogénie
Abel Gance
Polyvision
The Triptych
Poetic Realism
Julien Duvivier
Marcel Carné
Jean Gabin
Jean Renoir

The Studio Years

Oligopoly
Vertical Integration
Classical Hollywood Style
Irving Thalberg
Louis B. Mayer
David O. Selzick
Five Majors
Minor Three
Poverty Row
B Pictures
Independents
Howard Hawks
World War II
William Wyler
Orson Welles
William Randolph Hearst
Gregg Toland
Perry Ferguson
Bernard Hermann
Linwood Dunn
Alfred Hitchcock

Film Noir, Decline of CHC, and Italian Neorealism

Nino Frank
Pulp Fiction Novels/Magazines
Raymond Chandler
James M. Cain
Graham Greene
Dashiell Hammett
Wartime Period
Postwar Realistic Period
Psychotic/Suicidal Period
Neo-noir
Block Booking
Television
Paramount Decision
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
The Hollywood Ten
Drive-Ins
Widescreen
Cinerama
VistaVision
Cinemascope
Color
Genre Transformation
Benito Mussolini
White Telephone Films
Cinecitta Studios
Cesare Zavattini
Neorealist Themes & Stylistic Conventions
Roberto Rossellini
Vittorio de Sica
Luchino Visconti

French New Wave and Art Cinema

Tradition of Quality
Cinémathèque française
Henri Langlois
Cahiers du Cinéma
André Bazin
Alexandre Astruc
Le Camera Stylo
A Certain Tendency in French Cinema
La Pollitique des Auteurs
Cannes Film Festival
Self-reflexive
Intertextuality
Left Bank Group
Ambiguity
Psychology
Reality
Auteur
3 Levels

Experimental / Avant-garde and Documentary Cinemas

Personal & political expression
Surrealism
Cubism
Abstraction
New American Cinema
Trance Films
Alexander Hammid
John Cage
Teiji Ito
Super8, 16mm
Pop Art
Structural Films
Identity Politics/Performative/Postmodernism
Video and Installations
Museum Sponsorship
Associational Form
Grierson
Definition
Actualities
Silent Era
Sound Era
Postwar Era
Direct Cinema
Cinéma Vérité
Synthetic Documentary
Meta-Documentary

New Hollywood 1960s-1970s

Film Changes
Audience Demographic Shifts
Independent Small Studio Prioduction
Roger Corman
Russ Meyer
Hollywood Renaissance
Arthur Penn
Mike Nichols
MPAA CARA Ratings
Blockbusters
Independent Auteurs
Blaxploitation
Gordon Parks
Roman Polanski
John Cassavettes
Terrence Malick
Movie Brats
William Friedkin
Francis Ford Coppola
Walter Murch
Gordon Willis
Steven Spielberg
George Lucas
Merchandising
Martin Scorsese
Woody Allen

1980s Hollywood Blockbusters

Technology
Business
Content
Blockbuster
Sequel
Franchise
Vertical Integration
Dolby Sound
VCR/VHS
Laserdisc
Steadicam
Garrett Brown
Haskell Wexler
CGI
Product Placement
Tie-ins
Cable
George Lucas
Steven Spielberg
Ridley Scott
James Cameron
Oliver Stone
Spike Lee
Ernest Dickerson
New New Hollywood
Alice Guy
Lillian Gish
Mary Pickford
Margaret Winkler Mintz
Lois Weber
Dorothy Arzner
Ida Lupino
Amy Heckerling
Susan Seidelman
Penny Marshall
Kathryn Bigelow
Penelope Spheeris
Nora Ephron

1980s-1990s-2000s+ Independent Cinemas

Arty Indies
Off-Hollywood Indies
Retro-Hollywood Indies
DIY Indies
Hal Hartley
Richard Linklater
Jim Jarmusch
David Lynch
Woody Allen
Robert Altman
Steven Soderbergh
Coen Brothers
Quentin Tarantino
John Travolta
Pam Grier
John Stahl
Bryan Singer
Lana and Lillly Wachowski
Victor Nunez
James Mangold
Kimberly Peirce
Kenneth Lonergan
Robert Rodriguez
Kevin Smith
Shane Carruth
Julie Dash
Gina Prince-Bythewood
Euzhan Palcy
Leslie Harris
John Singleton
Hughes Brothers
F. Gary Gray

Political Cinemas by Third World and Women Filmmakers

Imperialism
Colonialism
Revolutionary Cinema
Cinema Novo
Direct Cinema
Soviet Montage
Third Cinema
Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino
First Cinema
Second Cinema
Argentine Cinema
Cuban Cinema
African Cinema
Ousmane Sembene
Griot
Jean-Luc Godard
Dziga Vertov Group
May 1968
Henri Langlois
Charles deGaulle
Vietnam War
Agnes Varda
Black Panthers
Chantal Akerman
Claire Denis
Denise Gamze Erguven
Andrea Arnold
Celine Sciamma

European Cinemas

Arresting Image
Colonialism
International Co-productions
Michael Haneke
Werner Herzog
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Tom Tykwer
Cinema du Look
Jean-Jacques Beineix
Luc Besson
Leos Carax
Krystof Kieslowski
Andrei Tarkovsky
Alexandr Sokurov
Abbas Kiarostami
Moshen Makhmalbaf
Pedro Almodovar
Ken Loach
Guy Ritchie
Andrea Arnold

South American and Mexican Cinemas

Fernando Meirelles
Lucrecia Martel
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo Navarro
Spanish Civil War
Alfonso Cuarón
Emmanuel Lubezki
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Cha Cha Cha Films

Pacific Asian and Oceania Cinemas

Peter Weir
Baz Luhrman
Jane Campion
Lee Tamahori
Peter Jackson
Communist Revolution
Fifth Generation
Chen Kaige
Zhang Yimou
Sixth Generation
Seventh Generation
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Ang Lee
Bruce Lee
Jackie Chan
Wong Kar-Wai
Johnnie To
Park Chan-wook
Bong Joon-ho
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Hiyao Miyazaki
Anime

Global Digital New Waves

Digital Media Convergence
Global Blockbusters
Marketing Strategies
Saturation Advertising
Merchandising
Video Games
Lars von Trier
Zentropa
Dogme 95
Digital Filmmaking
CGI
35mm Film Stock
Miguel Arteta
Mike Figgis
Richard Linklater
Motion Capture
Digitial Internegative
Sampling
Fan Sites
Rotoscope
Rendering
Digital Projection
DVD Commentary
Peter Jackson
Tarsem Singh
Ryan Coogler
Globalization