Whilst viewing this documentary I was amazed by the amount of secrets and history behind the making of movies, Martin Scoresese offers a personal view as well as the observation of American movies through history, giving me a really interesting insight to the legacy of film.
The documentary really took into account various aspects of the producer, designer and directors view and roles through time and how they took a genre and tried to expand it in as many ways as possible, sometimes taking the same story but switching the genre to offer a new perspective on the subject.
It was particularly interesting to learn how studios seem to phase through various genres, from westerns to gangster films, musicals to dramas, all trying to cash in on a subject or a craze that was culturally and currently pleasing to the public. Within these phases it was intriguing to learn how many ways you can tell a story within the same genre, twisting the viewpoints and 'distorting history' as Martin would put it.
The way directors changed the archetype of the genre, the way they changed peoples point of view on people, the villain, the hero, the anti-hero and the normal man, woman or child puts it into my mind that: Was this really how movies influenced society? Did this aid in changes on how we view people of colour? The criminals, women and countries? Perhaps so.
With the changing of genres and development of works also came the change in technology, the change in how one used the camera, the introduction of cinemascope, close ups. I especially found it interesting on the subject of silent films, how the visuals were used to grasp the viewers attention as sound could not, vast and amazing illusions, scenery and characters.
Spotlights and notable movies/people from this documentary:
- The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
- DW Griffith
- 'A pictorial history to the movies' by Deams Taylor
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