20 Camera Shot for 6 Seconds of Film
Remarks on cinema of the 90s. Excerpt from the book 'Movies of the 90s', by Jürgen Müller
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In only one scene does the director clearly borrow from the original classic: when Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks meet for a blind date with disastrous consequences, you expect the original to outshine the modern version. Meg Ryan is disappointed because, instead of the e-mail friend she had hoped for, she meets only her professional adversary, who, moreover, conceals his e-mail identity. A heated argument ensues, at the end of which Tom Hanks leaves the bar. This scene makes it clear how mistaken ideals stop people from realising what they really are. In some respects, the film really ends here, and not with ist happy ending. However, whereas Lubitsch leaves it up to the audience to judge, Ephron brings an added dimension to the touching closing scene of the film with the use of the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the soundtrack, thereby deliberately overdoing it and allowing for the possibility of an ironic reading.
Quotation and Hollywood films
It's often said that the cinema of the 1990s is allusive. Video is clearly important here too, as it supports this trend. But others feel that the idea of allusive cinema is a figment of some critics' imagination. These critics are selective when choosing films to prove their hypothesis. People who claim that the cinema of the 1990s is postmodern and allusive cite Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992), but not Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993, p. 162). Whereas the first film can be related to many precursors and does actually represent a museum of film history, the second has to be seen in relation to real events of the past.We can also argue against the hypothesis of allusive cinema by saying that there have always been directors who have frequently displayed their knowledge of cinematic history. It was not only in the 1990s that Brian de Palma's works made reference to earlier films; they had been doing so for years.We need think only of the end of The Untouchables (1987), when the American director alludes to the famous scene from Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925), in which a pram clatters down a steep flight of steps. He quotes again but less obviously in Mission: Impossible (1995), a film which refers to The Lady From Shanghai (1948) and represents a homage to its creator, Orson Welles. Thus in de Palma's work, the desire to quote is in no way the exclusive preserve of the 1990s.
Whatever the objections to this idea of the cinema of quotation, it is true that the audience changed in the 1990s. The constant mass-media distribution of films means that there are more viewers who can recognise quotes and therefore know how to appreciate films. It is now much more a matter of course for films to be part of the cultural common knowledge. Without any jury having to rule on it, everybody knows today that Psycho (1960), Ben Hur (1959) and Casablanca (1942) belong to the canon of classic films on which film history is based and from which it continues to develop.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
In only one scene does the director clearly borrow from the original classic: when Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks meet for a blind date with disastrous consequences, you expect the original to outshine the modern version. Meg Ryan is disappointed because, instead of the e-mail friend she had hoped for, she meets only her professional adversary, who, moreover, conceals his e-mail identity. A heated argument ensues, at the end of which Tom Hanks leaves the bar. This scene makes it clear how mistaken ideals stop people from realising what they really are. In some respects, the film really ends here, and not with ist happy ending. However, whereas Lubitsch leaves it up to the audience to judge, Ephron brings an added dimension to the touching closing scene of the film with the use of the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the soundtrack, thereby deliberately overdoing it and allowing for the possibility of an ironic reading.
Quotation and Hollywood films
It's often said that the cinema of the 1990s is allusive. Video is clearly important here too, as it supports this trend. But others feel that the idea of allusive cinema is a figment of some critics' imagination. These critics are selective when choosing films to prove their hypothesis. People who claim that the cinema of the 1990s is postmodern and allusive cite Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992), but not Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993, p. 162). Whereas the first film can be related to many precursors and does actually represent a museum of film history, the second has to be seen in relation to real events of the past.We can also argue against the hypothesis of allusive cinema by saying that there have always been directors who have frequently displayed their knowledge of cinematic history. It was not only in the 1990s that Brian de Palma's works made reference to earlier films; they had been doing so for years.We need think only of the end of The Untouchables (1987), when the American director alludes to the famous scene from Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925), in which a pram clatters down a steep flight of steps. He quotes again but less obviously in Mission: Impossible (1995), a film which refers to The Lady From Shanghai (1948) and represents a homage to its creator, Orson Welles. Thus in de Palma's work, the desire to quote is in no way the exclusive preserve of the 1990s.
Whatever the objections to this idea of the cinema of quotation, it is true that the audience changed in the 1990s. The constant mass-media distribution of films means that there are more viewers who can recognise quotes and therefore know how to appreciate films. It is now much more a matter of course for films to be part of the cultural common knowledge. Without any jury having to rule on it, everybody knows today that Psycho (1960), Ben Hur (1959) and Casablanca (1942) belong to the canon of classic films on which film history is based and from which it continues to develop.
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