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Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Land, and I'm

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and we're back to finish out our discussion

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Speaker 1: of the invention in the early days of the motion picture.

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Speaker 1: Now last time I think should have been the episode

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Speaker 1: where we talked with Scott Benjamin about the murder mystery

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Speaker 1: or the maybe murder mystery, the disappearance mystery of louis

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Speaker 1: La Prince, the person who actually did shoot inventive film

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Speaker 1: camera and shot movies before anybody before Lumire Brothers, before

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Speaker 1: Edison and his team. But in the episode before that

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Speaker 1: we talked about the earliest commercially viable motion picture technologies.

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Speaker 1: So by the mid eighteen nineties you had the flourishing

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Speaker 1: of Thomas Edison and W. K. L. Dixon's kinematograph and

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Speaker 1: kinematoscope in America, which made roughly fifteen to sixteen second

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Speaker 1: movies that you could watch by sticking your head and

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Speaker 1: a viewfinder in a cabinet. Um Again, I love the

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Speaker 1: image like you just got your face down in the

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Speaker 1: cabinet and somebody walks up behind you and puts the

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Speaker 1: Kickney sign on or whatever happens in these parlors. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure it was a rowdy scene. And then around the

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Speaker 1: same time, you've also got the cinematograph of the Lumier

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Speaker 1: Brothers in France, which projected films on a wall. And

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Speaker 1: this is a kind of different thing because it allowed

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Speaker 1: this communal viewing experience, which is last time we talked

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Speaker 1: about how we think this is sort of important both

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Speaker 1: culturally and economically, that you can show films for a

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Speaker 1: for a big audience all at the same time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and I think that when we look at the

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Speaker 1: history of film viewing and film technology, we see that

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Speaker 1: that push and pull between the communal experience and the

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Speaker 1: individual experience, whether it's the communal experience of of the

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Speaker 1: Lumiar Brothers invention, or movie houses or let's go, or

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Speaker 1: places where we go back towards the the individual experience,

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Speaker 1: such as suddenly being able to watch films at home

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Speaker 1: on television, or watch films on a vcr um other

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Speaker 1: home media advancements, right down to our our modern use

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Speaker 1: of smartphones where you can you can just crawl underneath

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Speaker 1: the blanket and watch whatever you want with your headphones in,

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Speaker 1: and it's you know, you're you're all but just shoving

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Speaker 1: the screen directly into your brain. And I do think

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Speaker 1: I would bet that film historians have some interesting thoughts

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Speaker 1: about how the changes in technology, especially like home video,

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Speaker 1: changed the art of film itself. Yeah. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: it's had major certainly that I've I've read some about

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Speaker 1: its effects, say on the adult cinema industry, where they're

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Speaker 1: obvious clearly there, yeah, clear clearly there, you know, obvious

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Speaker 1: influences the technology on on that genre. But I was

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Speaker 1: thinking just the other night about a different avenue of

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Speaker 1: film enjoyment, that being writhing. Oh yes, So we're of

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Speaker 1: course both big fans of Mystery Science Theater three thousand.

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Speaker 1: If you've never seen it, it's well, you've probably seen

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Speaker 1: images of it. It's the old TV show where they

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Speaker 1: it was a sci fi comedy premise where they take

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Speaker 1: old movies that were generally very bad and poorly made,

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Speaker 1: and you'd have hosts who made jokes about the film.

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Speaker 1: As you watch, you'd see a little silhouettes bobbing in

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Speaker 1: front of the screen. A human and two robots forced

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Speaker 1: to watch bad movies, and in order to survive the experience,

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Speaker 1: they riff on and they make jokes, they talk back

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Speaker 1: to the screen. Um, you know, all the sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, humorous shenanigans created by the great Joe Hodgson. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but this is of course turned into a wider genre

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Speaker 1: than just the show Mystery Science Theater three thousand that's

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Speaker 1: been off the air for twenty years or whatever. Well

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Speaker 1: it's back on Netflix. Well that's true, but so it

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Speaker 1: was off the air for a long time, but the

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Speaker 1: the tradition continued. I think it inspired a sort of

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Speaker 1: style of media presentation. And it wasn't the only one.

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Speaker 1: I mean there's also you were talking before we went

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Speaker 1: on Mike Today about this other phenomenon of not people

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Speaker 1: talking during the movie, but the TV movie host what

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Speaker 1: do you call that? Like a daytime horror host. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like Grandpa Monster hosting movies back back in the nineties

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Speaker 1: on like the Turn Channelsvira Helvira or Joe Bob Briggs

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Speaker 1: Monster Vision where they're not chatting during the movie, but

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Speaker 1: they're these bumper segments where they're saying, Hey, how about

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Speaker 1: that film you're just watched, how about those how about

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Speaker 1: that scene with that monster? And then maybe they crack

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Speaker 1: a few jokes. Right, So even if you're at home

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Speaker 1: alone watching the movie. It's kind of like when you

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Speaker 1: go out to the movies with your friends and if

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Speaker 1: it's a bad movie, lean over next to each other

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Speaker 1: and make jokes about what you're watching. Yeah, so I

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Speaker 1: wondered to what extent like these are reactions to to

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Speaker 1: these these different technological advancements where movie viewing has leaned

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Speaker 1: away from the communal towards the individual experience. But then

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Speaker 1: we compensate for that through the pseudo communal experience of

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Speaker 1: riffing or the host speaking to you about the film.

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Speaker 1: And then later on when we get more into the

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Speaker 1: DVD age, you of course have commentary tracks, which I

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Speaker 1: think the better commentary tracks I'm thinking of, particularly like

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Speaker 1: the John Carpenter and Kurt Russell commentaries. That's commentary tracks,

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Speaker 1: you know, where it's it's like you're hanging out in

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Speaker 1: the room with them listening to them. You're watching the

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Speaker 1: film with them. To a certain extent, listening to any

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Speaker 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger commentaries track where it just explains what's happening

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Speaker 1: in the scene and it's in total re called the

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Speaker 1: the unbelievable distortion of the face. But yeah, even that

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Speaker 1: is you know, sort of a communal experience. It's like

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Speaker 1: you're you're watching the film with Arnold, So anyway, that's it.

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Speaker 1: I haven't researched that to see if anybody else's has

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Speaker 1: given you know, a lot more serious and structured thought

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Speaker 1: to the nature of riffing and when it's important. But

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Speaker 1: it came to mind thinking about the way the technology

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Speaker 1: influences our experience. Yeah, I have a hunch that you're

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Speaker 1: exactly right that there is this push and pull and

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Speaker 1: that we want, you know, we want to be able

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Speaker 1: to have privacy privacy bound experiences, you know, within our

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Speaker 1: own boundaries, within our own you know, the convenience of

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Speaker 1: being able to do it at home whenever we want

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Speaker 1: to watch a movie or something. But also there's there's

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Speaker 1: part of us that cries out for that kind of

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Speaker 1: instant reaction. You're wanting to be able to lean over

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Speaker 1: to the person next to you and talk about what

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Speaker 1: you're seeing right like, and a counter to that would

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Speaker 1: of course be some of these examples that you've seen

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Speaker 1: of movie theater innovations designed to limit the communal experience.

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Speaker 1: When you're like dividers next to your head, that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. Well, I mean I guess it's it's also

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Speaker 1: going to be annoying if you're just trying to pay

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Speaker 1: attention to the movie and the people right in front

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Speaker 1: of you or having a conversation about whatever. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's the human experience as a whole. Right. We want

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Speaker 1: to be alone, but we want to be surrounded by people.

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Speaker 1: And if we're and we have we have whichever we are,

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Speaker 1: we want the other one exactly. The grass is always

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Speaker 1: a little greener, right, But so we should come back

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Speaker 1: to the early days of film and pick up on

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Speaker 1: this technological journey. Okay, So yeah, So we had the

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Speaker 1: Edison and Dixon kinematograph and kinematoscope, and then you had

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Speaker 1: the Lumier brothers with their cinematograph, and these established some

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Speaker 1: slightly different early traditions of films. And one of the

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Speaker 1: things we talked about before is that there weren't already

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Speaker 1: films waiting to be shown. So the people who invented

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Speaker 1: these camera and projector technologies had to make their own

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Speaker 1: films to go in them. They had to be not

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Speaker 1: only inventors of the technology but media producers. So Edison

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Speaker 1: and Dixon's early films were usually like short recordings of

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Speaker 1: things that would be kind of like circus acts or

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Speaker 1: vaudeville performances. Here's the strong Man, here's a dancer, acrobats,

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Speaker 1: or something something quick and interesting to look at that

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Speaker 1: would be interesting without sound and last about fifteen seconds,

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Speaker 1: because that's how long the films could be. Based on

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Speaker 1: the limitations of their technology, the loomis Are Brothers created

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Speaker 1: these short documentaries of real life with scenes like a

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Speaker 1: train approaching the camera, or I was reading about one

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Speaker 1: that's just five men diving off of a jetty and

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Speaker 1: bathing in the sea. There's one that's got a bunch

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Speaker 1: of photographers getting off of a riverboat for a photography

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Speaker 1: conference in Leone. It's riveting stuff, but people were really

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Speaker 1: into it. Yeah, I mean, just it's the magic of

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Speaker 1: seeing the moving picture or without with with without living

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Speaker 1: in an age of just ubiquitous moving pictures like we

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Speaker 1: have today, exactly. Uh. And so the Lumiar Oh, but

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Speaker 1: the Lumiar Brothers also created at least one fictional story

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Speaker 1: that we mentioned in that previous episode, the classic The

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Speaker 1: Sprinkler Sprinkled Yes, which is yeah, this is one of

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Speaker 1: the first ten films that they that they unleashed and

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Speaker 1: It is clearly a humorous little fiction piece where a

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Speaker 1: gardener's hose is uh is stepped on by a child

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Speaker 1: and then of course he does the natural thing, right

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Speaker 1: then I comedic clown choice and looks down the hose,

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Speaker 1: and then that's when the water squirts him in the face.

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Speaker 1: I actually watched it today, and not only does he

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Speaker 1: get squirted in the face, then he chases down the

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Speaker 1: child and beats the child savagely. That's how it ends.

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Speaker 1: You know, it was a different, different type of type

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Speaker 1: of humor back in those days. Uh, if only we

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Speaker 1: could have had the sprinkler sprinkled cinematic universe where they

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Speaker 1: come back and and and that would be explored in

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Speaker 1: a later film. But but you know, take the beating aside.

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Speaker 1: It is exactly the type of human that has continued

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Speaker 1: to be an important part of motion pictures like right

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Speaker 1: up until today. Oh of course, yeah, I mean slapstick humor.

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Speaker 1: It's still a very cheap way to make a movie

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Speaker 1: that can make a lot of money. But by the

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Speaker 1: mid eighteen nineties films, we we should say we're still

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Speaker 1: mostly something like a curiosity and a technological spectacle and

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Speaker 1: less like a fundamental medium. For stories and mass culture

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Speaker 1: the way they are in our culture today. So what

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Speaker 1: changed in between? You know, how do we get from

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Speaker 1: that point to this point? One thing that I think

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Speaker 1: is really important along that journey is that, of course,

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Speaker 1: there were plenty of technological upgrades that came along to

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Speaker 1: improve what people could do with motion picture filming and

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Speaker 1: projection early on. But the one innovation that I think

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Speaker 1: might be most important early on is something that is

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Speaker 1: usually called the Latham loop. Now, we've talked before about

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Speaker 1: how early films were less than a minute long, right there.

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Speaker 1: There were technical reasons for this. It wasn't an artistic choice.

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Speaker 1: One of the technical reasons was the strains put on

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Speaker 1: recording media, and so these early films were shot on

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Speaker 1: celluloid film strip and celluloid film was good. It was

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Speaker 1: more durable than the flimsy paper film of the past,

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Speaker 1: but still it had its limits, and one was this,

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Speaker 1: the more film you've got coiled up on a roll

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Speaker 1: and you know you're pulling on it, the harder it

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Speaker 1: is to pull to feed along past the shutter. Like

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Speaker 1: you can sort of imagine the physics of this, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, trying to pull tape off of a huge

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Speaker 1: role and pull it really fast. And the way film

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Speaker 1: cameras and projectors worked at the time was to grab

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Speaker 1: the film along these perforated holes along the side. So

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Speaker 1: if you've seen film before, you know you see these

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Speaker 1: sprocket holes along the side of it. That's so the

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Speaker 1: latch or the lever can grab the film advanced at

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Speaker 1: exactly one frame in front of the shutter and then

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Speaker 1: move it along another frame after that. Uh. And so

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Speaker 1: if you try to record or project a really long

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Speaker 1: piece of motion picture, you would inevitably end up tearing

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Speaker 1: it in the process, often by ripping through the sprocket

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Speaker 1: hole as you tried to advance the film, and this

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Speaker 1: actually put an artistic limit on the medium. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was reading a article for the American Society of Cinematographers

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Speaker 1: by the film filmographer and film historian David Samuelson, and

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Speaker 1: Samuelson writes that in the nineties, the problem with the

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Speaker 1: tension on celluloid film meant that you couldn't pull more

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Speaker 1: than maybe like a hundred feet or so about thirty

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Speaker 1: meters of film through the camera projector without tearing it,

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Speaker 1: and this limited films to roughly two minutes run time.

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Speaker 1: Now in our brands that we're thinking like, how do

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Speaker 1: you tell the story of RoboCop in two minutes? This

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Speaker 1: is a robocopless world, you can't have it. But but

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Speaker 1: it was actually a different question that led to the

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Speaker 1: defeat of this technological hurdle. And that question was a

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Speaker 1: more I don't know, kind of maybe more mercenary economic one.

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Speaker 1: But maybe that's just me saying that because I'm not

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Speaker 1: a big, big sports fan. The question was how do

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Speaker 1: you shoot and play back an entire boxing match? Now,

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Speaker 1: it's funny that and this reveals how little, uh interest

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Speaker 1: I have in sports that I didn't even think about

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Speaker 1: the idea of filming and exhibiting sports matches as like

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Speaker 1: a major early use of film. But of course this

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Speaker 1: is this is going to be big money, right yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I was mainly thinking about the you know,

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Speaker 1: the artistic possibilities here and maybe do a certain extent

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Speaker 1: of journalistic opportunity possibilities. But then again, journalism would cover

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Speaker 1: sports as well. There will be an interest in capturing

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Speaker 1: what occurred exactly. So there's a family company run by

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Speaker 1: an American named Woodville Latham and his sons, and they

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Speaker 1: wanted to pioneer this process to make money off of

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Speaker 1: exhibiting boxing matches after they had happened. So the idea,

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Speaker 1: as you film the fight, you screen it later, and

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Speaker 1: you charge admission. And obviously most boxing matches would have

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Speaker 1: been too long, they would tear the film because they're

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Speaker 1: going to need more than a hundred feet there. So

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Speaker 1: the answer is something called a film loop or a

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Speaker 1: Latham loop. And this invention essentially used wheels to spool

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Speaker 1: out a kind of short, slackened loop of film ahead

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Speaker 1: of the camera or projector shutter, so that when the

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Speaker 1: lover grabs the film to pull it down rapidly advanced

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Speaker 1: it past the shutter frame by frame, it wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: pulling tight on the entire roll of film and just

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Speaker 1: be pulling down from this sort of slackened loop of

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Speaker 1: film right above it. Does that make sense, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: absolutely so. According to Samuelson, though Woodville Latham gets the

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Speaker 1: name credit for this invention the Latham loop, a sworn

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Speaker 1: statement by our old friend W. K. L. Dixon, who

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Speaker 1: remember invented Edison's kinetograph, indicated that the invention was actually

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Speaker 1: the work of a guy named Eugene Lost, who was

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Speaker 1: otherwise known for inventing the idoloscope, which was a wide

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Speaker 1: film projector, and also as a side note, Samuelson notes

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Speaker 1: that years later, in nineteen eleven, Lost would also travel

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Speaker 1: to America to quote give the first demonstration there of

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Speaker 1: a combined sound on film recording and reproduction system, though

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Speaker 1: his method was not ever success fully commercialized, and actually

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Speaker 1: synchronized sound didn't become mainstream in films until the late

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, so there was a ways to go before

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Speaker 1: that became big. Lost by the way, it spelled l

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Speaker 1: A U s T. Yeah, maybe that's Lost day or

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Speaker 1: maybe lust day. I don't I don't know either way,

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Speaker 1: he was quite the inventor. Yeah, totally double innovator here.

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Speaker 1: The Latham loop was a big deal. In addition to this,

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Speaker 1: this later uncommercialized sound on film process uh and the

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Speaker 1: Latham loop was such a big deal that Samuelson writes

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Speaker 1: about it, quote for filmmakers of the time, it was

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Speaker 1: as big a breakthrough as anything that has happened since.

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Speaker 1: And think about it again. This is so important because

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Speaker 1: this is what makes it possible to have long films.

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Speaker 1: Without it, we couldn't have long films right now, obviously,

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Speaker 1: I mean Obviously, prior to this technology, we we had

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Speaker 1: all these other storytelling mediums that were long form. We

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Speaker 1: had books, we had we had plays especially uh. But

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Speaker 1: but it but clearly like the medium was not to

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Speaker 1: receive uh, those longer form stories. Yet this allowed them

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Speaker 1: to receive those forms exactly. And I think this is

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Speaker 1: one reason early on you wouldn't have had people quite

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Speaker 1: yet thinking yes, this, you know, the film will become

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Speaker 1: the medium for visual novels, that we will adapt a

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Speaker 1: novel for film. If it would be like saying, look

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Speaker 1: at postage stamps, think of the stories we can tell

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Speaker 1: with postage stamps. And you're like, no, you can't. It's

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Speaker 1: just not that big. You can't put Macbeth on a

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Speaker 1: postage stamp. But then suddenly it's like, hey, we just

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Speaker 1: figured out whether a way that makes the stamps so

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Speaker 1: much bigger. And then suddenly the sky's the limit. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so there's another piece I read emphasizing the importance

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Speaker 1: of the loop that was pretty interesting. It's an article

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Speaker 1: I found in the Atlantic in two seventeen by Henry Giardina,

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Speaker 1: though originally it was from an essay series called object Lessons,

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Speaker 1: and its title is the Camera Technology that turned films

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Speaker 1: into stories and just talking about the Latham loop there. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and so it notes several things. Of course, I wanted

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Speaker 1: to know what's the deal with this boxing match that

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Speaker 1: the Lathams were into. Well, it's got the deets on that.

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Speaker 1: In May of eighteen nine, the Latham family successfully screened

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Speaker 1: a boxing match in New York City and the boxers

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Speaker 1: were Charles Barnett and somebody named Young griff. Oh so,

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Speaker 1: I'm wondering, is this the inspiration of the character in

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Speaker 1: A Song of Ice and Fire. There's a young Griffo.

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Speaker 1: You don't remember Young griff He's in the books, but

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Speaker 1: not the show. I don't remember Young Griffin. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: well he's a young griff. I don't know who won

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Speaker 1: the fight. By the way, I'm pulling for Young Griffo though.

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Speaker 1: But so, this invention obviously wasn't just for boxing. The

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Speaker 1: film loop or the Latham loop, made longer motion pictures possible,

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Speaker 1: and we all know the stuff that came along with that.

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Speaker 1: Uh though. Giardina's article is also interesting in documenting the

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Speaker 1: obsessive tactics that Thomas Edison pursued in order to hinder

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Speaker 1: the early production of independent films and extract every dime

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Speaker 1: he could out of anybody trying to make a movie,

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Speaker 1: mostly through you know, uh, obnoxious patent claims, like you

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Speaker 1: try to patent every part of the process, and and

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Speaker 1: if somebody's doing it, he's going to be making money

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Speaker 1: on it. And remember early on, films were not thought

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Speaker 1: of yet as primarily as art or in terms of

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Speaker 1: copyright law. They were technology primarily framed in terms of

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Speaker 1: patent law. So ultimately they I mean, all these films

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Speaker 1: that are being produced, like there's still nothing but um

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Speaker 1: proof for the technology at this point, like that, like

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Speaker 1: the films have not really taken out of life of

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Speaker 1: their own, yeah exactly. I mean audiences were enjoying them,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think they thought of films yet. The

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Speaker 1: way we think of films is like this is another medium.

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Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's like the written word, and

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Speaker 1: we think of film as being something like that. And

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Speaker 1: before we move on, I just have to mention also

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Speaker 1: that in this Jardina piece, it talks about how it's

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Speaker 1: been alleged that Edison didn't just use patent harassment on

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Speaker 1: on people who were trying to make films at the

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Speaker 1: around the turn of the twentieth century. UH. It's also

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Speaker 1: been alleged that he used sheer, muscle and intimidation to

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Speaker 1: control the early film industry, And the author here talks

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Speaker 1: about an interview between Peter Bogdanovich, the you know, the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies filmmaker and UH and an early film director

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Speaker 1: who was working in the earliest days named Alan Duan,

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Speaker 1: who said that quote Edison sent gangsters across the country

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Speaker 1: to follow them when they when they went west, and

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Speaker 1: that the gangsters would shoot at their cameras. Quote most

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Speaker 1: companies only had one. Sometimes they'd wait until a fellow

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Speaker 1: was cleaning the camera and take a shot at it,

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Speaker 1: anything to destroy it. So I don't know if that

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Speaker 1: story is accurate, but wow, it does seem like another

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Speaker 1: tally in the Edison as villain column. Absolutely absolutely the

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Speaker 1: idea that you, I mean, there's so much um, I mean,

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Speaker 1: any film that gets made, it's kind of a miracle, right,

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Speaker 1: There's so much work that goes into it. And in

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Speaker 1: these days that was that was still the case as well.

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Speaker 1: But on top of that, you're gonna have Edison's gangsters

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Speaker 1: allegedly showing up and UH and potentially messing your camera.

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Speaker 1: That's awful. Yeah, So whether or not that story is true,

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Speaker 1: of course, Edison couldn't stop, you know, independent films entirely.

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Speaker 1: Films continued to develop in France and elsewhere, and then

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Speaker 1: even in the United States, filmmakers moved west and spread

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Speaker 1: out all over the place, and Edison's power wane. So

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Speaker 1: he just he couldn't put a lid on all of it.

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Speaker 1: So I think it's clear that the film loop or

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Speaker 1: the Latham loop, was a crucial invention enabling the transformation

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Speaker 1: of motion picture from just a technological spectacle into a

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Speaker 1: mainstream storytelling medium in an art form. Like it allowed

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Speaker 1: the creation of longer films, and it made possible new

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Speaker 1: you know, things that you could do with film editing.

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Speaker 1: Now we'll have to ask the question in a minute

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Speaker 1: who who picked up on this opportunity, Like who were

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Speaker 1: the artists who realized I can make art, I can

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Speaker 1: tell stories with this new medium? Uh, you know who

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Speaker 1: took advantage of the technology. But also I was just

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Speaker 1: wondering first about a question about film history as an

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Speaker 1: example of something that can be generalized, How does a

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Speaker 1: new media technology come to be perceived in culture as

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Speaker 1: a legitimate art form? Because I remember maybe you weren't

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Speaker 1: aware of this, but I remember some debate in the

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Speaker 1: mid to late two thousands where people would go back

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Speaker 1: and forth about whether or not video games can ever

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Speaker 1: be considered art, And uh, I don't maybe people still

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Speaker 1: have that debate today. I would say that to me,

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Speaker 1: you know, most video games to me don't seem like

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Speaker 1: things that I really think of as art. But I

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Speaker 1: don't have any problem at all with the idea that

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Speaker 1: they potentially can be, and some probably are. And you're

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Speaker 1: talking about the piece itself being in its entirety of

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Speaker 1: work of art, not merely like encompassing nice production design. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a good question. I mean, certainly video games today,

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Speaker 1: you know, a lot of them have some beautiful designs

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Speaker 1: in them that you would think of as visual art.

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Speaker 1: So the question is once it incorporates gameplay, mechanics and

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Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, like, does does it lose

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Speaker 1: some artistic quality? Then? I don't know. I mean people

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Speaker 1: have to work that out among themselves. But I also

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Speaker 1: think about the same thing with the virtual reality. Can

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Speaker 1: you just take a virtual reality environment and say, you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: this is art. I mean, it seems to me that

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Speaker 1: virtual reality is sort of in a space kind of

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Speaker 1: like the films of the first decade of films, where

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Speaker 1: in you know, where it's still maybe like a question

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Speaker 1: of like is this just sort of a new technology

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Speaker 1: and a spectacle that makes use of it. Well, I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of it comes down to you how

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Speaker 1: you're utilizing the new medium. Because we mentioned plays earlier,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of us. I don't know about

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Speaker 1: all of us, but I've certainly seen my share of

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Speaker 1: filmed plays, especially when it's like taking Shakespeare courses in

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Speaker 1: college and so, and many of them were very good

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Speaker 1: because you're in many cases it is a film of

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Speaker 1: a wonderful performance. But if it's if the cameras not

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Speaker 1: moving or it's barely moving, you know, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's not the same as watching a film. It's

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Speaker 1: not using all of the the the tricks available to

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Speaker 1: the filmmaker. U. So it's it's very difficult, I think,

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Speaker 1: to make an argument that a film to play is

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Speaker 1: a good film, uh, even if it is a great play. Likewise,

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Speaker 1: when you're looking at virtual reality or a video game,

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Speaker 1: it's like, is the video game just giving me some

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Speaker 1: nice visuals and I'm having some fun playing it, or

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Speaker 1: is it doing something with gaming itself. They're doing something

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Speaker 1: with the way that I interact with it, that it

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Speaker 1: is that is refreshing and unique. And likewise with the

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Speaker 1: virtual reality, are the mechanics of the invention or the

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Speaker 1: technology integral to what the art is or how the

430
00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:42,800
Speaker 1: art works in the same way that they are with films? Yeah, exactly.

431
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 1: I mean, for example, film, the simplest thing you can

432
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 1: think of, a film can use an edit to make

433
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 1: a point. You know, a film can like jump cut

434
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:55,720
Speaker 1: between two things to cause you to have a connection

435
00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:58,200
Speaker 1: between them in your mind. And that's the thing that's

436
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:02,520
Speaker 1: sort of unique to fill them as a medium, right, absolutely, Yeah,

437
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:04,600
Speaker 1: So I guess the question is are there things similar

438
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 1: in games in virtual reality where the mechanics of it,

439
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:10,640
Speaker 1: sort of the physical characteristics of the medium are used

440
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:13,760
Speaker 1: to do things that other media don't do in service

441
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:17,439
Speaker 1: of an artistic design. Yeah, well, you know, in in gaming,

442
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:19,919
Speaker 1: I'm thinking the examples would big games that kind of

443
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:23,760
Speaker 1: lean into trying to create the feeling of watching a

444
00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 1: motion picture. But but but but feels that way, you

445
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:29,959
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like it feels like, oh, this

446
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:32,399
Speaker 1: is this is almost like watching a movie. I'm almost

447
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:36,240
Speaker 1: achieving something, but I'm not, you know, fully immersed in

448
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:38,879
Speaker 1: the experience. Maybe you're being you know, hit on the

449
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:40,960
Speaker 1: head with a bunch of cut scenes, and then in

450
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: between the cut scenes there's more traditional video game like maneuvers.

451
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 1: But then a game like well Soma comes to mind

452
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 1: is a recent game that that we both played. It's

453
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:55,119
Speaker 1: a horror horrorci fi game, and like that game felt

454
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:58,360
Speaker 1: like as I recall it, it was not heavy on

455
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 1: on cut scenes. You were controlling the elements for the

456
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,679
Speaker 1: most part, and and the way that you interacted with

457
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: elements helped tell the story of your experience. I agree. Yeah,

458
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 1: I think that's a very good candidate for that kind

459
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:15,159
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, as opposed to say many say fighting

460
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,159
Speaker 1: games or shooting games, where you're just doing the fighting

461
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 1: and the shooting, and then there are moments that come

462
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: along we're like, hey, I'm here to tell you what

463
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 1: the narrative is and how the story is progressing, and

464
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 1: then you move back to the thing you were doing.

465
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 1: If I know anything, it's the twisted metal is art. Well. Yeah,

466
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,840
Speaker 1: I mean I was thinking about the most recently Mortal

467
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 1: Kombat game of those. Yeah, but you know, you know,

468
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 1: I would never say that. I didn't mean that it's

469
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:45,880
Speaker 1: it's not a game that I would say is art,

470
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: though it combined. It clearly it was built on the

471
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 1: talents of of numerous you know, very accomplished artists. There's

472
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 1: a lot of cool art in the game. And then

473
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 1: there is a certain amount of storytelling that takes place

474
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: in the game, But the core game experience, it's is

475
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 1: still not a narrative. It is fighting. Yeah, I mean,

476
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: to a certain extent of fight is a narrative. But

477
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Then again, if we're starting

478
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 1: to set a high bar about what counts as art

479
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:12,640
Speaker 1: and what doesn't, most films probably don't count either. I mean,

480
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:16,680
Speaker 1: who knows. I'm sorry. I guess this is a pretentious discussion.

481
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 1: It's my fault because I started. I mean, we're not

482
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: the Council of Wizards that decides what is art and

483
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 1: what is not. Well, but I think here's one of

484
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: the things that about it though, is like, are you

485
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: using tricks in various bells and whistles of the medium

486
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,399
Speaker 1: to engage the audience? And I think one of the

487
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: important things to keep in mind about about cinema, about

488
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 1: filmmaking is that a filmmaker benefits from a great number

489
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: of tricks and effects to capture our attention, to manipulate

490
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 1: our feelings. And these were these weren't just all rolled

491
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 1: out at once. So it's not like Edison or anybody

492
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 1: else came along and said, all right, here's here's how

493
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: you make a film. Here all the techniques you can do.

494
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: Here are the types of cuts, et cetera. Like these

495
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: were all developed mostly through trial and error over decades

496
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: in deck gades of of filmmaking. And that means the

497
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 1: work of you know, highly acclaimed and serious filmmakers as

498
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: well as uh, everybody else involved in the game of

499
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 1: making films. This was pointed out by the way in

500
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: Psycho Cinematics Issue and Directions by author P. Shimamura. So,

501
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: you know, little changes here in their new advancements in

502
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: cinema that allow a film to get its hooks into us.

503
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: So ultimately, I don't know, I don't think it, you know, matters.

504
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 1: They say the Blob is a work of art, uh,

505
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: but but clearly it's using all of these various artistic

506
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: tools that were created, uh to better tell the story,

507
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: to better engage a viewer. Through the medium of cinema. Yeah,

508
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:42,880
Speaker 1: and I would also say that I think you can

509
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,639
Speaker 1: make the make the point that commercial cinema develops te

510
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 1: techniques that are crucial to later art. Yeah. Anyway, so

511
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:52,439
Speaker 1: I think maybe we should take a break and then

512
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:54,199
Speaker 1: when we come back, we will discuss some of these

513
00:26:54,280 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: early innovators in the art form of film. All right,

514
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: we're back, Okay. So we've been asking this question throughout

515
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: of how did film and motion picture transition from being

516
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 1: just a technological curiosity, you know, a new invention and

517
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:19,400
Speaker 1: a spectacle into something that was more oriented around narrative

518
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 1: and story and something that might be considered a legitimate

519
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 1: art form. Uh. And so we want to talk about

520
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: just a couple of important figures here. One that I

521
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 1: think is definitely worth mentioning is an interesting figure named

522
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 1: Alice gi Blush. In the words of the American filmmaker

523
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 1: and film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln,

524
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: she was quote the foremost pioneer of cinema, which I

525
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: think is interesting because before preparing for this episode, I

526
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: want to be honest, I had not heard of her. Yeah,

527
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:52,919
Speaker 1: and most of the names that come up are our

528
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 1: men from cinema history, so it's refreshing to see a

529
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 1: woman playing such an important role early on. And I

530
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 1: think it is highly possible that her gender might have

531
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:05,879
Speaker 1: had something to do with the reasons she wasn't remembered

532
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: as much as she probably should have been. So. Alice

533
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: Ki Blasche was born Alice ge in France in eighteen

534
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,679
Speaker 1: seventy three. She grew up going to Catholic school and

535
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: she early on had a love of narrative literature and theater.

536
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 1: She you know, she was a fan of the arts,

537
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: and she began her career in eighteen ninety four as

538
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: a secretary working for the engineer, inventor and industrialist Leon Gomant.

539
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,880
Speaker 1: In the mid eighteen nineties, Gomont ran a photography company

540
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,159
Speaker 1: and so he made equipment and materials for this brand

541
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: new film industry. For example, this company had a relationship

542
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: producing equipment for the loumi Are Brothers, and through her

543
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: work with Gomant's company, she was able to attend the

544
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: loumi Are Brothers projected film premiere in eighteen We talked

545
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: about this in the previous episode, so she she got

546
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: to see the sprinkler sprinkle at the premiere. She was

547
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: there and by by the way, all of these old

548
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 1: films were talking about these these little short films. They

549
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: are all available on YouTube. Well, the Loomis Air Brothers ones,

550
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, well yeah, but as some of these

551
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: others that we are discussing, like, we've looked up on YouTube.

552
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: So there's a YouTube for all of its crimes. And since, uh,

553
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: it's still a great place to find these little tidbits

554
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: of cinematic history. Yeah, well, the ones that are available, yeah,

555
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: you should definitely look up and check out. A lot

556
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: of them are actually lost to history. The ones that

557
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: are lost you're not going to find on YouTube. But

558
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: the others are fair game. We'll talk about that in

559
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: a minute. So so, yeah, so she's working for Gomants company,

560
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: she attends the Loomis Air premiere. Uh, and by eighteen

561
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: ninety six it appears she'd gotten a bug. Even though

562
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: she was still officially only a secretary at Gomant's company.

563
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: He had become interested in filmmaking as an art form

564
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: and wanted to see what she could do crafting films herself. Now,

565
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: remember this is an age dominated by films that are

566
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: less than one minute long. They're mostly like documentaries about

567
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: people getting off a boat, you know. Yeah, So that

568
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 1: year in eighteen, Gee got Gomant to let her use

569
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 1: the company's equipment to direct her own feature, to direct

570
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: a roughly one minute film of her own called The

571
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: Cabbage Fairy or Lafe oh Shoe on her lunch break.

572
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: This is she made. So she made the movie at lunch.

573
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: And this film involves this beaming fairy woman in a

574
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: gated garden pulling real babies out of giant heads of cabbage.

575
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: It's pretty creepy. There is something I think captivating about it.

576
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: I mean it's it doesn't have much of a plot,

577
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: but I couldn't take my eyes off it. Yeah. I

578
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: watched this as well that he and this was definitely

579
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and uh yeah, it's it's pretty captivating and

580
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: kind of predicts the popularity of cabbage patrick kids later on. Oh,

581
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought about that. So this is sometimes

582
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: cited as the first fictional film. I do think that's

583
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: debatable because why doesn't the Sprinkler sprinkled from eight count

584
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: I think, and he doesn't. That doesn't contain a specative element, right,

585
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: that's true, Whereas you know, babies coming out of Cabbage.

586
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: That's clearly that is exactly what I was about to say.

587
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: Whatever one comes down to on that question whether it's

588
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: the first fictional film, it did occur to me. Is

589
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 1: this the first ever fantasy film? It's possible I'm missing something,

590
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:17,719
Speaker 1: but I can't find an earlier example. Uh, And the

591
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: films you see most often cited as the earliest fantasy

592
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: films are films by a filmmaker we're about to talk

593
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: about named George milliais from like nineteen o two. So

594
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: this is much earlier than that. Unless somebody can provide

595
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: a counter example, I'm going to say that this is

596
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: the first fantasy film ever made. The Cabbage Ferry. Now,

597
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: what was the date on Edison's um Frankenstein adaptation, nineteen ten? Alright,

598
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: so she's still beat him way after Yeah, that's way

599
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 1: after Milliers though. That is worth a look, especially looking

600
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: Frankenstein monster there, especially given what you know about Edison.

601
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: It's almost like a metaphor um. But so anyway, Alice

602
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: Ky the Cabbage Ferry. Based on her success in directing

603
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: The Cabach Ferry, g went on to direct and produce

604
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: more films, and she was eventually made the head of

605
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: production when Gomant's company transitioned from being a technical camera

606
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: and equipment business into a full fledged film studio. And

607
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 1: it's interesting how you see this transition happening over and

608
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: over again with like with Edison, with Lumierer, with Gomant,

609
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 1: you know, like people get into the film business and

610
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: then they're like, I don't want to be just on

611
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: the technical side. I want to be making movies. So

612
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: he directed hundreds of films, and she oversaw the production

613
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: of hundreds more. Perhaps her most famous film, and the

614
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 1: best remembered one, is one from nineteen o six called

615
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: The Life of Christ. Of course, it is a silent

616
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: retelling of the life of Jesus. It's a little over

617
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: thirty minutes long. And I watched some scenes from it,

618
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: for example, the scene where Mary Magdalen watches the feet

619
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: of Christ, and I watched the crucifixion scene, and it's

620
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 1: beautiful film in any ways, like the sets and the

621
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 1: costumes and the staging are wonderful for nineteen o six.

622
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: In nineteen o seven, she married a Gauman camera operator

623
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: named Herbert Blache, and she became Alice G. Blache, And

624
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: after that the two of them traveled to the United States,

625
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: where Alice founded a new film production company of her

626
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: own in New York called the Soulas Company, and so

627
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: g Blache was prolific over the course of for her career,

628
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: she wrote, directed, and produced more than a thousand movies,

629
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 1: sometimes like three movies a week. The last movie she

630
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: made was in nineteen twenty. She died in New Jersey

631
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight. Unfortunately, most of her films, like

632
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: many films of this era, have been lost, so we

633
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: can't go back now and watch them. For a long time,

634
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: it seems g Blache was left out of many film histories,

635
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: like we were talking about there, so there'd be histories

636
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: of the period that just didn't really mention her some did.

637
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: I want to say that there have been some people

638
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: I've read saying that she was like completely forgotten until

639
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 1: recent years, and that's not entirely true, but it does

640
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 1: seem that her role in the history of film has

641
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 1: been grossly under emphasized, and it does seem now that

642
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: there's sort of a revival in attention to her story

643
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: in the past few years, including I was looking. There

644
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: was a documentary film about her that came out in

645
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: teen called be Natural narrated by Jodie Foster, and I

646
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: haven't seen the movie, but I like the title because

647
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: I think the title comes from another thing I've read

648
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 1: about her, which is that in her studio she hung

649
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:25,880
Speaker 1: up a sign urging actors to be natural, which is

650
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 1: kind of hilarious if you think about the other staged

651
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: films from this time, such as those of the great

652
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: George Milliers, with all these wild exaggerated gestures and movements

653
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,960
Speaker 1: in them, you know, which, which really I think was

654
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 1: a benefit to those films, because I mean, you're dealing

655
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 1: with you're so far far removed from from capturing a

656
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 1: natural performance. Yeah, there's no sound, right, there's no sound,

657
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: So yes, like scream and contort your face as much

658
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:56,320
Speaker 1: as possible because you're you really almost have to shout

659
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 1: through the limitations of the medium. Yeah. So, to quote

660
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 1: again from Wheeler Winston Dixon, the scholar who called her

661
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 1: the foremost pioneer of cinema. UH. Dixon also argues, quote,

662
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:09,239
Speaker 1: she's basically the first person to make a film with

663
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: the plot, the first person to use color, and this

664
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 1: wasn't color photography, this would mean hand tinted films. Uh.

665
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,240
Speaker 1: And also the first person to use the chronophone process,

666
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 1: which was an early sound on film method that, like

667
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 1: the other one we mentioned earlier, it did not commercially

668
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: take off for a while. Again, sound on film didn't

669
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:29,720
Speaker 1: become mainstream until the late nineteen twenties. Yeah, but she's

670
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:32,840
Speaker 1: she's looking ahead though, she kind of sees the future

671
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: and ultimately the whole idea of asking the actors to

672
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: be natural. I mean that's the same thing nowadays. Um.

673
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: You know, well a lot of movies, certainly in your

674
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: more um, you know, serious dramatic pieces like that's where

675
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: the focus is. You want to capture all the emotional

676
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 1: nuance of her performance, and she saw that when others

677
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: did not. Yeah, these early films were very well, again,

678
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: they were still it was still the spirit of spectacle

679
00:35:57,719 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: in a way. They were very stagy, you know, these

680
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 1: huge motions, not to capture any kind of nuance of

681
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 1: the characters, but but more in the spirit of vaudeville,

682
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: exaggerated motions to to really draw the eye and engage

683
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:14,280
Speaker 1: people and not ask them to to like very boldly

684
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:18,400
Speaker 1: telegraph everything to avoid subtlety. Right, Because another thing to

685
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 1: keep in mind is that the medium is ultimately going

686
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,919
Speaker 1: to change the way that you can. You can bring

687
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: an actor's performance alive, like it's gonna make those really

688
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: close tense, studied the scenes of an actor's facial expressions

689
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:36,280
Speaker 1: possible in ways that a stage production never would. Yeah,

690
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,360
Speaker 1: and these these earlier films were generally more like stage productions.

691
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,400
Speaker 1: They I mean, they usually didn't have things like close ups.

692
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:45,879
Speaker 1: Right now, I think maybe we should take another break,

693
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:47,760
Speaker 1: and then when we come back we will discuss another

694
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 1: better known but also genuinely amazing and influential early film pioneer. Alright,

695
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: we're back, So let's let's go to the moon. Oh,

696
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 1: I think we should. Uh so. One of the most

697
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:08,440
Speaker 1: important people in the transition from film as straightforward recording

698
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: of documentary spectacle to longer narrative form is George Milliers,

699
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:16,399
Speaker 1: who lived eighteen sixty one to nineteen thirty eight. And

700
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:19,280
Speaker 1: even if you don't know much about early film history,

701
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: you are probably still a little bit familiar with Maliais

702
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,760
Speaker 1: through his nineteen o two film The Voyage Don Laloon,

703
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: or A Trip to the Moon, in which some learned

704
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: astronomers dressed like goobery wizards fly to the Moon in

705
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: a giant artillery shell. They land there, they meet some

706
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 1: moon men, they smash them with umbrellas and make them explode,

707
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: They capture a moon being, and then they travel back home. Yeah,

708
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 1: that's the plot. Yeah, and yeah, I think everyone out

709
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 1: there either you have seen this in its entirety, then

710
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:52,799
Speaker 1: you have seen allusions to it, right, or you've seen

711
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:55,280
Speaker 1: did the Smashing Pumpkins I think, had a music video

712
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 1: that that they utilize a lot of the visuals from

713
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: this picture. Well, the most famous image from it is

714
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: something you've probably seen this, the one where the ship

715
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: lands on the Moon and there's a close up of

716
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 1: the moon which has a human face and the so

717
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,720
Speaker 1: there are special effects that do a do a cut

718
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:14,399
Speaker 1: to make the ship smash into the face and then

719
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 1: the face looks very displeased. And so A Trip to

720
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 1: the Moon is just still excellent to watch today. Yeah,

721
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: it's just really kind of whack a doodle to watch

722
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 1: because it's it's not quite it's certainly not a film

723
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: of play, but there is a sense of it's kind

724
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:31,839
Speaker 1: of like a film, a film spectacle, like there are

725
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:35,879
Speaker 1: these these scenes on but that you're presented with where

726
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: you're just there's there's something fantasmagoric about it. Oh yeah,

727
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 1: and only thirteen minutes long, very short time. Now it's

728
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:46,479
Speaker 1: like it's really the perfect film for today's attention span.

729
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: And it wasn't Malia's only film, of course. I mean

730
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: he made all kinds of stuff. He was another great

731
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: pioneer in early film production. And I like that you

732
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 1: say that it does incorporate more of that tradition of spectacle,

733
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 1: because there are some things about him that I think

734
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: will explain that now. Like Ghi Blache, he was one

735
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: of the first to see the storytelling potential of film

736
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,799
Speaker 1: as a medium. In the mid eight nineties, Maliais was

737
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 1: a stage magician and a theater director in Paris. And also,

738
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: like Gi Blush, he was present for the earliest demonstrations

739
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 1: of the Loumier Brothers. So when they're showing this thing

740
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: on the wall, Loomier Brothers are like, check out our cinematograph,

741
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: and multiple members are the of the audience are like,

742
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: I can do this. I can make a career at this,

743
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: or or he's probably thinking I could do better that.

744
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 1: You're just filming people leaving a factory. I could build

745
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: you a set, I could perform you for you an illusion,

746
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: I can make you a cabbage ferry, and you know,

747
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: I can take you to the moon and so Yeah.

748
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: So when Mallier saw what the Loumier's camera and projector

749
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: could do, he pretty much immediately imagined the potential of

750
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: the medium. He acquired a camera of his own, He

751
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 1: founded a film studio which I've seen described as like

752
00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: a giant glass house to let in as much light

753
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 1: as possible bowl for filming, and he started making movies

754
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: and millias. In a way brought the spirit of a

755
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 1: stage magician to the technology of the movie camera. He

756
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,920
Speaker 1: employed trickery, and that is one thing that he really

757
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: revolutionized about early film. He pioneered many kinds of editing

758
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: techniques and in camera special effects that are inspired by

759
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 1: the tricks that stage magicians would use. Yeah, the trickery

760
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: is so essential to the filmmaking process. We we lose

761
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: sight of it, Like I I really had, I lose

762
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: sight of that aspect until I'm find myself explaining films

763
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: to my son who asked, like, how did they do that?

764
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: How did this? You know, how the skexies disappear in

765
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 1: this scene? Or you know, how did this happen? How

766
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: did that the special effect occur? And then I have

767
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 1: to stop and break it down a little bit like, well,

768
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a trick. They stopped filming and then

769
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 1: they move things around and then they start filming. Uh,

770
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: you know, explanations of that manner. But yeah, they are

771
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:03,640
Speaker 1: all essentially based in tricking the audience into thinking something

772
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: happened that didn't happen. Well, I'm sorry, I've forgotten the

773
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 1: source on this because I this is a story I

774
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,279
Speaker 1: remember from years ago. But I think there is a

775
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 1: story that Malia's told that, you know, that he discovered

776
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 1: the possibilities of for special effects when one day, like

777
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,279
Speaker 1: he was filming something and then he just stopped while

778
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 1: he was and then he started filming again, and then

779
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: when he watched it played back, there was a jump cut,

780
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: and he you know, that was like, oh, oh, I

781
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:32,759
Speaker 1: can just transition from one thing immediately to another if

782
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: I stopped working the camera and then started up with

783
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:37,840
Speaker 1: something different in place, and it's like magic. It's like

784
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: something disappears and appears somewhere else. That's so obvious to us. Now,

785
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: who you know, we're familiar with movie special effects. It's

786
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: hard for us to appreciate how revolutionary of an insight

787
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: that was, right, and it would make sense that a

788
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: magician would see it like who's whose trade depends on misdirection?

789
00:41:56,920 --> 00:42:00,439
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, and and also playing with expectations. Yeah,

790
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: and so Malias was the first great special effects wizard.

791
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: He used all kinds of tricks. He pioneered a double exposures,

792
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: you know, where you would run the film through the

793
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:12,319
Speaker 1: camera twice and the second time it would also pick

794
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 1: up a trace of an image. One would be like

795
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 1: would come through stronger on the film than the other.

796
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:19,240
Speaker 1: But you know, you could do all kinds of interesting

797
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: special effects like that. He used jump cut editing like

798
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: we were just talking about. And his movies are generally

799
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: still pretty wonderful to behold. There was a nineteen o

800
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:30,720
Speaker 1: one film he did called The Man with the Rubber

801
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 1: Head that I watched earlier today. And in this film,

802
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:37,319
Speaker 1: Maliais uses special effects to make duplicates of his own

803
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,479
Speaker 1: severed head, which he then inflates with the furnace pump

804
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:44,759
Speaker 1: until it explodes. And I believe from reading about his

805
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: films he also put an emphasis on music. Yes, like

806
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: having like like having some form of live music present

807
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: to fully bring the production alive. But this was still

808
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: the silent film era, so there was no sound on film.

809
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 1: The film would not have a dead catered soundtrack that

810
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 1: went along with it, unless like you know, you had

811
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:06,720
Speaker 1: like a score written out and had to say, okay,

812
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: give this to the piano player in the theater or something,

813
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 1: or in some cases I believe there would be like

814
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 1: recommendations like here, here's a song you can play for

815
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: this particular this particular short film. Uh. And it's the

816
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: case of a trip to the Moon. Makes me think

817
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: about an interesting modern phenomenon with early film, which is

818
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 1: this thing I've encountered several times of rescoring old silent

819
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:31,439
Speaker 1: films or films that were made with older soundtracks by

820
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: modern musicians. And I really am interested in this phenomenon

821
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 1: and I like it. I want more bands to create,

822
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:42,799
Speaker 1: you know, a track synchronized to a voyage to the Moon. Yeah,

823
00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 1: not enough of them do it. Um. Of course that

824
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: Air did a soundtrack to a Voyage of the Moon

825
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: two thousand twelves le Voyage downs La Luna, which I

826
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:56,919
Speaker 1: remember when it came out, And because because I love Air,

827
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 1: air terrific act Um and I remember liking it at

828
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 1: the time. I haven't listened to it a lot. I

829
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: haven't heard it. It's a good um that. But that

830
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 1: being said, I have not listened to the album synced

831
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: with the movie itself. I see. I know people have

832
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,799
Speaker 1: done this with In fact, I've watched more than one

833
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: modern rescoring of Metropolis, the Fritz Long movie, which is

834
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,280
Speaker 1: of course you know, it doesn't have its own sound

835
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 1: and it's this, but it's different because it's like a

836
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 1: long uh science fiction feature for it is a full

837
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: full feature. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Marouder the French electronic artiste,

838
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:42,840
Speaker 1: which I remember like getting into. I was like, all right,

839
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch Metropolis. I'm gonna use this score. And

840
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 1: I really wanted to like it more than I did,

841
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: so I ended up just playing a bunch of Kraft

842
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: Work over it instead of anything that had been you know,

843
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 1: there was a dedicated composition for Metropolis, and I have

844
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 1: to say kraftworked worked really well. I think Auto Bond

845
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: did a good one too. Um. But various folks have

846
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: covered Metropolis over the years. I found one that was

847
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: really interesting by a group called the New Pollutants, and uh,

848
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: they did a pretty cool rescore of it that's as

849
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:17,319
Speaker 1: of this recording fully available on YouTube is from Like,

850
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: I think I may have actually watched it with this

851
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: soundtrack before I've watched it with multiple soundtracks. Another one

852
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 1: that comes to mind that you you brought this one

853
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: up Dracula, which was not a silent film, but it

854
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:33,320
Speaker 1: has been rescored. Yeah. Uh, this one was by Philip

855
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: Glass and the most famous performance was by the Chronos Quartet.

856
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: And then uh. Of some other silent films that have

857
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 1: been rescored many times include The Passion of Joan of

858
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 1: arc From and of course nineteen twenties the Cabinet of

859
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: Dr Caligari. And I think that that one great creepy felt,

860
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 1: great creepy film with some wonderful like you know, surreal

861
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: German sets and the German expression this period. The sets

862
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:02,400
Speaker 1: are not designed to be realistic, you know they they

863
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 1: they are all these bizarre sharp angles. I remember a scene,

864
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm imagining this. I remember a scene where

865
00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: somebody sits on the stool is just way too tall

866
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,320
Speaker 1: to be a stool. But yeah, I would love to

867
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 1: see more of this sort of exercise with films. Yeah,

868
00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 1: So if you're an electronic artist or any kind of

869
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: musician out there, and you like these old films as well,

870
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,439
Speaker 1: score some George Melia's yes, and then tell us about

871
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 1: it and we will we will promote it on the show.

872
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 1: Or score some Alice sky Blache. That would be cool too, Yeah,

873
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: but that's probably gonna be just like part of a track,

874
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 1: right for most of this, well, for the early ones

875
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 1: it well, I mean, like so the Cabbage Ferry is

876
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 1: less than a minute long, but of course along her career,

877
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:41,240
Speaker 1: films got longer. In the films she made got longer.

878
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 1: But I could see that could also be a worthwhile experiment,

879
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 1: like what can you do with a really short film,

880
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: like what you know, what can you apply to it

881
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 1: musically to really bring it to life? Especially for modern viewers.

882
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: All Right, so we've talked a little bit about, you know,

883
00:46:55,719 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: how just how effective films are and manipulating our cognitive functions,

884
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 1: because because that's ultimately the thing about it, right, when

885
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: you watch certainly a great film or even a good

886
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: film or even a bad film that has something captivating

887
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: about it, like it is captivating, it takes over your mind.

888
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:17,760
Speaker 1: It takes over your thought processes, like it it becomes

889
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:23,439
Speaker 1: your new site. It uh, it becomes reality for your brain. Well, yeah,

890
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: we have the expression that you can become lost in

891
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 1: a film and lost in a narrative, and of course

892
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 1: that's a metaphor, but to some degree it's kind of

893
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 1: a little bit literally correct. I mean, at least in

894
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:38,280
Speaker 1: the mental sense that, Uh, there's often while you're watching

895
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 1: a film some degree of distance where you're sort of

896
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: going in and out of being there with the characters

897
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: and then having a thought that's disconnected. But there are

898
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 1: times when you just disappear. You just become the narrative.

899
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 1: You just become a part of it. Your whole consciousness

900
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: is the character within the narrative. And films do this

901
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: in a way that I think, uh, it's even more seamless,

902
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:04,319
Speaker 1: and it's easier for it to happen with films than

903
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:07,360
Speaker 1: it is with something that that requires more cognitive effort,

904
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: like like reading a text. Narrative. Yeah, I mean, well, also,

905
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,399
Speaker 1: the film, a really good film, certainly a modern film

906
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,839
Speaker 1: is going to employ music, it's going to employ visuals.

907
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:22,240
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's it's really using our most powerful

908
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 1: senses and uh, and and and changing the way you know,

909
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 1: the way we're viewing the world, at least for a

910
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: short period of time. So I was looking into this

911
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: little bit and I was reading the Science of Cinematic

912
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: Perception on the OSCARS website. They the OSCARS website has

913
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: a wonderful um overview of a series of of lectures

914
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:47,359
Speaker 1: that they that they hosted. I didn't even though they

915
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 1: did features and stuff. Yeah, yeah, and this one was

916
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: a pretty cool and this one, UM, this one involved

917
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 1: a series like basically you had professional researchers in in

918
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 1: film and cognition and then they were paired on stage

919
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: with various directors and filmmakers and sort of film world experts,

920
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,760
Speaker 1: and they talked about you know what what the evidence

921
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 1: uh you know said about the psychological the neurological effects

922
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,280
Speaker 1: of film. Um. For instance, that some of the lectures

923
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:18,239
Speaker 1: included Tim J. Smith, a senior lecturer and psychological sciences

924
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 1: at Brokeback University of London who specializes in the study

925
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 1: of visual cognition, as well as your Ree Hassan Oh, Yeah,

926
00:49:26,160 --> 00:49:29,760
Speaker 1: an associate professor of psychology and Neurosciences at Princeton University

927
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: who used f m R I to look at how

928
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:35,080
Speaker 1: we view films. We've talked about Rehassen before on Stuff

929
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. I think we discussed him in

930
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:42,280
Speaker 1: part two of our episode about about against narratives. So Hassen,

931
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 1: for instance, they pointed out observed that showing uh, the

932
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: movie Dog Day Afternoon from engaged sixty three to seventy

933
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:54,000
Speaker 1: three of a viewer's brain, well, that's a good one

934
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,919
Speaker 1: to use. Dog Day Afternoon will engage seventy three percent

935
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 1: of my entire body. Well, and it's it's a it's

936
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:02,400
Speaker 1: a it's a very well made movie with you know,

937
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 1: a great pacing to it. But but yeah, it just

938
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 1: shows like how you know, how well it captivates this up.

939
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 1: You know, some other things that came up in this,

940
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:14,239
Speaker 1: in this article and in these lectures that there's some

941
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 1: connection between blinks and cuts, and between our blinks and

942
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:21,160
Speaker 1: the character's blinks. James Cutting, chair of the Department of

943
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 1: Psychology at Cornell University, has tracked the downward trajectory in

944
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: average shot duration, which he says has been quote consistent

945
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: and uninterrupted since the silent era. Oh yeah, this is

946
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 1: so films used to have longer uninterrupted shots. You just

947
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 1: have the camera trained on something without cutting away and

948
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:42,439
Speaker 1: the cuts are getting faster and faster on the whole.

949
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:45,400
Speaker 1: Now you still sign plenty of you know, smaller films

950
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:47,839
Speaker 1: are art art films especially that will really go for

951
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: those long, uh drawn out scenes. But for the most part, yeah,

952
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: everything gets flashier and flashier. I mean, if you've seen

953
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,839
Speaker 1: like a battle scene in Game of Thrones, you'll you'll

954
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:01,839
Speaker 1: know what we're talking about. Yeah, or heck, I feel

955
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 1: like everything is more laid back there. If you watch

956
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 1: something like a Transformers movie or a modern teage Mutant

957
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 1: Ninja Turtles movie, it's like, I don't even know what's happening.

958
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:12,319
Speaker 1: It's just a million things happening a second. It's just

959
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:18,360
Speaker 1: bombarding the eyes and the brain, constant changes. Um. Some

960
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 1: more findings, this one, according to Jeffrey M. Zach's, a

961
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 1: psychologist and neuroscientists, found that scenes from the film's step

962
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:30,239
Speaker 1: Mom Sophie's Choice and oddly enough The Ring to The

963
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 1: Ring too. I don't know why the Ring too, and

964
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:33,840
Speaker 1: not that I mean the Ring. The first Ring, the

965
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 1: first American Ring film, is terrific and probably one of

966
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:41,120
Speaker 1: my favorite horror films. Second One is a sequel to

967
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 1: a great film. The Second One takes everything that's scary

968
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:47,400
Speaker 1: in the first one and makes it funny. So I

969
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 1: don't know, that's sort of interesting. I remember, I mainly

970
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 1: just remember being kind of boring and at times wet,

971
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:54,799
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of water and interest. Yeah, it's

972
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: pretty wet, I mean. But but anyway, he's got that,

973
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 1: he's got that creepy girl scamper like a cockroach all

974
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 1: over the place. Yeah. Well, that in and of itself

975
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:05,839
Speaker 1: is good, I guess. But at any rate, scenes from

976
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:08,359
Speaker 1: these films were shown to individuals in FM or I,

977
00:52:08,640 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 1: and it was found to produce quote complex responses deep

978
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: within the brain and generated activity beyond normal cognitive levels. So,

979
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:19,800
Speaker 1: as much as we might harp on the ring to

980
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: the the idea is that when you're watching it, it

981
00:52:23,560 --> 00:52:27,760
Speaker 1: can engage your mind more than most things in life.

982
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 1: And then another one that is no, I mean, we

983
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:35,680
Speaker 1: are profoundly familiar with having deep thoughts about bad movies.

984
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:38,719
Speaker 1: We talk about this all the time. Absolutely, Yeah, I

985
00:52:38,719 --> 00:52:40,799
Speaker 1: I'm probably I feel like I'm more engaged with a

986
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 1: with a good bad film with a you know, It's

987
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:46,640
Speaker 1: part of it is like is the movie doing the

988
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:49,400
Speaker 1: thinking for me? Or am I left to do the thinking?

989
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:53,120
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's the latter example that produces the most

990
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 1: brain activity. I think you're right about that. And then

991
00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 1: one more bit from this UH from this article, in

992
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: this UH this lecture series, Talma Hendler, founder and director

993
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:06,000
Speaker 1: of the Functional Brain Center at Tel Aviv Saurowski Medical Center,

994
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: has found that certain scenes from Black Swan this is

995
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:14,359
Speaker 1: of course the surreal kind of horror movie about Ballerina's

996
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 1: is it during Aronofsky starring Natalie Portman, right, Yeah, kind

997
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:23,360
Speaker 1: of a kind of a Susperia feel to it. Anyway,

998
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 1: the Hindler found UH that watching certain scenes from this

999
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 1: UH would produce quote results that Hindler compared to a

1000
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: schizophrenia like state with the cognitive and emotional centers of

1001
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:40,080
Speaker 1: the brain operating dramatically in and out of sync. Well

1002
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,239
Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting. I mean, so one thing I

1003
00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:46,120
Speaker 1: think we could say from this that movies do is

1004
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:50,080
Speaker 1: in a way, they produce a slightly altered state of consciousness,

1005
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:53,799
Speaker 1: which also, of course some drugs do. I mean, there's

1006
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,520
Speaker 1: a whole thing about like people taking a psychoactive or

1007
00:53:56,560 --> 00:54:02,360
Speaker 1: psychogenic drugs to produce some effects. It's somewhat mirror aspects

1008
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 1: of psychosis in many cases, people you know, like intentionally

1009
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 1: do things to their brains that they wouldn't want to

1010
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:10,719
Speaker 1: be like stuck with or unable to turn off, but

1011
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 1: like they'll experiment with them in a in a controlled setting.

1012
00:54:14,600 --> 00:54:19,240
Speaker 1: And I wonder if visual storytelling like film can also

1013
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:22,520
Speaker 1: be considered a form of that. Yeah, I mean yeah,

1014
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:24,280
Speaker 1: I think you think of like, for instance, just really

1015
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 1: interesting examples of psychedelic cinema. You know how some examples

1016
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:30,919
Speaker 1: of psychedelic cinema are just you know, bad movies trying

1017
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 1: to cash you on on whatever the psychedelic craze was

1018
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:36,480
Speaker 1: at the time, certainly like in the sixties or or

1019
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:39,000
Speaker 1: or even in the seventies. But but then you have

1020
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:43,400
Speaker 1: those examples where they're really like playing with your perceptions

1021
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 1: of reality in a way that feels more authentic and

1022
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:51,160
Speaker 1: is ultimately more upsetting. Um and and you can you

1023
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: point to various examples of this. I mean even two

1024
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:57,120
Speaker 1: thousand and one A Space Odyssey. You know that that's

1025
00:54:57,160 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 1: a film that really kind of messes with your perception

1026
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:03,320
Speaker 1: of reality, not in terms of like thinking about the

1027
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 1: nature of reality, but just like purely the way that

1028
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:09,799
Speaker 1: you're experiencing the film. One of my favorites, definitely, And

1029
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:11,719
Speaker 1: if you'd like to hear Robert and I talk more

1030
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:13,600
Speaker 1: about two thousand one of Space. Obviously, we have a

1031
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 1: whole episode of stuff to blow your mind about it,

1032
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:18,759
Speaker 1: you can go look up. I want to come back

1033
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:21,200
Speaker 1: just briefly though, too. You know we're talking earlier about

1034
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: how all the tools of filmmaking were not developed at once,

1035
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 1: so they would develop gradually over time. I wanted to

1036
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:30,879
Speaker 1: just run through one quick example of this and that.

1037
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 1: For that, I want to talk about the jump scare.

1038
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 1: Oh boy, so one of the best. Joe Joe, describe

1039
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 1: a good jump scare to to our listeners in case

1040
00:55:39,160 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 1: they're not familiar. Okay, So a little bit of tension

1041
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:46,520
Speaker 1: building goes on. This is usually aided by a character

1042
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: being a I mean, it can be anything, but I'll

1043
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:50,560
Speaker 1: paint one for you. A character is left alone in

1044
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 1: a horror movie. Nothing all that dangerous has happened in

1045
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 1: a while, so the audience is guard is up. They

1046
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:59,280
Speaker 1: think maybe something's about to happen. A character is alone

1047
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 1: in a house, wandering around, asking is anybody there? Hello? Hello.

1048
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:07,719
Speaker 1: The music is not in full force, maybe it's tinkling

1049
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 1: a little bit on the little you know, and then

1050
00:56:10,719 --> 00:56:13,520
Speaker 1: the character opens the closet and a cat jumps out,

1051
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:17,400
Speaker 1: not only a jump scare, but a cat scare. The

1052
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 1: cat scare is the classic jump scare because it's because

1053
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:23,840
Speaker 1: something suddenly happens. There's a blast of music, something flies

1054
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 1: at the camera and h and then oh, it's just

1055
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 1: just a cat. So I mean, it's it's wonderful because

1056
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:32,880
Speaker 1: that we've talked about on on some of our shows before,

1057
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:35,520
Speaker 1: that that when you're scared in a film and then

1058
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:38,279
Speaker 1: that that that scare is deflated, like you realize it's

1059
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:40,640
Speaker 1: not a threat after all. Like that is that that

1060
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 1: that is one of the pivotal um, you know, emotional

1061
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: roller coaster experiences that you have in watching a film.

1062
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:49,799
Speaker 1: But but when we look at the history of the

1063
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:52,920
Speaker 1: jump scare, I was looking around and it seems like

1064
00:56:53,200 --> 00:56:57,040
Speaker 1: the first jump scare that we really have was probably

1065
00:56:57,200 --> 00:57:00,680
Speaker 1: the luten Bus scene in Cat People from ninety forty two.

1066
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 1: This okay, so this is just very similar to what

1067
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:07,239
Speaker 1: you just described actually except no, no, no, not no,

1068
00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: not completely. But basically you have a female character walking

1069
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 1: down this this superbly darkly lit street. Like the use

1070
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 1: of shadows in this movie is phenomenal, especially for the time.

1071
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 1: And uh, and you're just getting a little more tense,

1072
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:24,280
Speaker 1: a little more tense, and then a bus pulls up

1073
00:57:24,600 --> 00:57:27,480
Speaker 1: and it just scares the hell out of you. Like

1074
00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:30,040
Speaker 1: I watched it on YouTube, you can kind of find

1075
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:32,440
Speaker 1: the scene isolated on YouTube. I watched it before I

1076
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:35,240
Speaker 1: came in here, and it got me. It It legitimately

1077
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:38,000
Speaker 1: gave me a fright, even though it's just a bus.

1078
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 1: It doesn't hit her or anything. It just comes out

1079
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:42,520
Speaker 1: of nowhere and it's a surprise. And then she, you know,

1080
00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:45,400
Speaker 1: she boards it or whatever, just sudden and loud. Yeah,

1081
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a famous scene for this purpose.

1082
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:51,800
Speaker 1: But after this film, you see other jump scare sprinkled

1083
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:55,880
Speaker 1: across the decades that followed. But jump scare mania doesn't

1084
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:58,640
Speaker 1: really kick into the nineteen eighties. It's almost as if

1085
00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 1: it's not till the eighties that you have enough filmmakers

1086
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:05,200
Speaker 1: who realize, oh, this is this is some potent magic.

1087
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:08,040
Speaker 1: Let's let's just overuse the hell out of this. And

1088
00:58:08,040 --> 00:58:10,760
Speaker 1: then of course it becomes a cliche and then becomes

1089
00:58:10,760 --> 00:58:13,120
Speaker 1: a hated cliche. Can I tell you one of my

1090
00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 1: favorite examples of the hated cliche jump scare. It's the

1091
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:21,000
Speaker 1: mirror scare. How many movies is this in? Some horror

1092
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 1: directors picked up on it, I think sometime in the

1093
00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:26,640
Speaker 1: like nineties to two thousands. They're like, Oh, wouldn't it

1094
00:58:26,640 --> 00:58:29,440
Speaker 1: be great to have something suddenly appear behind somebody in

1095
00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:33,360
Speaker 1: a mirror? Or of course they or it's the medical

1096
00:58:33,400 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 1: cabinet exactly, Yeah, the medicine cabinet, mirror of somebody looks

1097
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 1: inside the medicine cabinet. If you you're in a horror movie,

1098
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:42,840
Speaker 1: somebody looks inside, sees what pills are in there or whatever,

1099
00:58:43,120 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: and then they close the medicine cabinet, you've got a

1100
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:49,280
Speaker 1: nine nine percent chance that when it closes there's something

1101
00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:52,320
Speaker 1: creepy in the mirror. Either the person's face looking back

1102
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 1: at them isn't really their face and it's all distorted

1103
00:58:54,680 --> 00:58:56,800
Speaker 1: and scary, or there's somebody looking at them over their

1104
00:58:56,840 --> 00:58:58,960
Speaker 1: shoulder or something like that, and then you're throw in

1105
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:02,600
Speaker 1: a nice pearl the sound effect, and and just to

1106
00:59:02,760 --> 00:59:05,680
Speaker 1: drive at home. Yeah, I mean, at the same time,

1107
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:07,840
Speaker 1: if we start really thinking and there are these other

1108
00:59:07,880 --> 00:59:10,520
Speaker 1: sort of counter examples of jump scares done really well,

1109
00:59:11,040 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 1: I mean Alfred Hitchcock, he has jumped scares. Um. John

1110
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:17,960
Speaker 1: Carpenter has some really nice jump scares that shot to

1111
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:20,200
Speaker 1: show up a time or two, such as Prints of Darkness.

1112
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:22,880
Speaker 1: It has a wonderful jump scare with a mirror that

1113
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:27,200
Speaker 1: kind of plays with the format of b oh Man,

1114
00:59:27,240 --> 00:59:31,600
Speaker 1: I Love Friends of Darkness. It's an unpopular opinion. That's

1115
00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:36,440
Speaker 1: that's in my top three John Carpenter movies. Yeah, but

1116
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:38,520
Speaker 1: but but again. Yeah, the jump scare is just one

1117
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 1: of so many examples of cinematic techniques tricks, and it's

1118
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:47,640
Speaker 1: it's probably ultimately more of like a a an obnoxious

1119
00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 1: one to bring out because there's so many other tricks

1120
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:51,760
Speaker 1: that we don't even think of is being tricks. We

1121
00:59:51,800 --> 00:59:53,960
Speaker 1: don't say it's only because it's gotten to the point

1122
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:55,680
Speaker 1: where it kind of irritates its at times that we

1123
00:59:55,720 --> 00:59:58,720
Speaker 1: can even single it out. But every film we watch

1124
00:59:59,160 --> 01:00:02,920
Speaker 1: is just a non stop barrage of tricks. One of

1125
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:05,560
Speaker 1: the things that bugs me the most about myself is

1126
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:08,440
Speaker 1: when I catch myself using cliches, and I know I

1127
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:12,040
Speaker 1: use them all the time. Everybody does. Everybody talks in cliches.

1128
01:00:12,080 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 1: It's just it happens effortlessly, automatically they just come out

1129
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:18,760
Speaker 1: of you and you don't know where they came from. Uh.

1130
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:21,000
Speaker 1: And I try to cut them out. When I catch

1131
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:23,760
Speaker 1: myself using a cliche and speech, I always kind of

1132
01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 1: WinCE and I'm like, I'll try not to do that again,

1133
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:30,440
Speaker 1: but there's no way to stop it. And in films

1134
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:33,480
Speaker 1: there are also they're they're like visual cliches, like the

1135
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:36,840
Speaker 1: mirror scare, but there's a zillion of them, you know there,

1136
01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:40,560
Speaker 1: You see them, and they're invisible to you because they're

1137
01:00:40,600 --> 01:00:43,120
Speaker 1: so common, but they just pass right over you. You

1138
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:47,120
Speaker 1: don't stop to notice how frequently you've been exposed to one. Yeah,

1139
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:50,840
Speaker 1: I mean, it's fool me once. Shame on, you fool

1140
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 1: me for three hours straight. Well, I guess it's my fault.

1141
01:00:54,240 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: But if I enjoyed the picture, I'm happy being fooled.

1142
01:00:56,880 --> 01:00:59,680
Speaker 1: But I do think it's interesting that these like film cliches,

1143
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:03,480
Speaker 1: are not they're not just artistic laziness. A lot of

1144
01:01:03,480 --> 01:01:07,600
Speaker 1: them also come out of the material realities of making

1145
01:01:07,600 --> 01:01:12,160
Speaker 1: a film, Like, Uh, film cliches happened because of what

1146
01:01:12,280 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 1: filmmakers can do with the techniques they have, and like

1147
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 1: what's cheap to do and that kind of thing. The

1148
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:23,280
Speaker 1: same way that I think often verbal cliches come out

1149
01:01:23,280 --> 01:01:26,280
Speaker 1: of our mouths because we might suddenly find ourselves limited

1150
01:01:26,400 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 1: to have limited in vocabulary. Right. But to come back

1151
01:01:29,680 --> 01:01:33,160
Speaker 1: to the jump scare, Yes, it's overused in films these days,

1152
01:01:33,400 --> 01:01:36,480
Speaker 1: but a good jump scare still works, and there's nothing

1153
01:01:36,560 --> 01:01:40,120
Speaker 1: like it for getting a viewer that's watching it by

1154
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:44,960
Speaker 1: themselves on their iPhone at work, or an entire audience,

1155
01:01:45,240 --> 01:01:49,120
Speaker 1: an entire theaters audience, uh, they're watching it together. And

1156
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:51,520
Speaker 1: so I mean you might say it's good as gold. Yeah,

1157
01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:54,840
Speaker 1: I mean you're it's almost foolish to resist at least

1158
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:57,160
Speaker 1: one good jumps here. I'm not saying, you know, back

1159
01:01:57,200 --> 01:01:59,840
Speaker 1: to back, but you kind of you kind of gotta

1160
01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:03,520
Speaker 1: one in there, I feel. Look, I don't begrudge that

1161
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 1: horror horror filmmaker one or two good jump scares. You

1162
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 1: just can't build a whole film out of them. Well

1163
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:12,960
Speaker 1: that's what we say, but I think the box office

1164
01:02:13,280 --> 01:02:16,720
Speaker 1: probably probably says otherwise. And I would say, also, if

1165
01:02:16,720 --> 01:02:18,600
Speaker 1: you're a horror filmmaker and you want to put a

1166
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:23,920
Speaker 1: cat scare in your film, don't make it an orangutang scare. Instead,

1167
01:02:24,360 --> 01:02:26,840
Speaker 1: just hav an orangutang jump out of the closet and

1168
01:02:26,840 --> 01:02:28,919
Speaker 1: then like scampered down the hallway and have it never

1169
01:02:28,960 --> 01:02:35,480
Speaker 1: addressed again like that. Okay, I guess this must this

1170
01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:38,760
Speaker 1: must mean we're done. I think so yeah, so yeah,

1171
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: we have not. We've not given you an exhaustive history

1172
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:45,320
Speaker 1: of of cinema here. That was, of course, but we've

1173
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:48,840
Speaker 1: but hopefully we've given you like a grounding in where

1174
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:51,800
Speaker 1: the motion picture came from, how it emerges from these

1175
01:02:51,840 --> 01:02:57,800
Speaker 1: other visual technological UM traditions that came before it, and

1176
01:02:57,800 --> 01:03:00,600
Speaker 1: in a sense of just why it is so pervasive,

1177
01:03:00,640 --> 01:03:03,960
Speaker 1: why it is so potent, and why we we continue

1178
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:07,360
Speaker 1: to worship at the theater. Do you have early favorite

1179
01:03:07,440 --> 01:03:10,880
Speaker 1: films or early favorite filmmakers that we didn't talk about

1180
01:03:10,920 --> 01:03:13,360
Speaker 1: in today's episode. If so, let us know. I want

1181
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 1: to hear what else is out there. Absolutely, your thoughts

1182
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:19,040
Speaker 1: on jump scares, your thoughts on pairing um, you know,

1183
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:22,440
Speaker 1: new scores with old films. Anything we discussed in here

1184
01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:25,320
Speaker 1: is fair game. In the meantime, if you want more

1185
01:03:25,520 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 1: episodes of Invention while you can find us wherever you

1186
01:03:28,920 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. We also have a website. It is

1187
01:03:32,120 --> 01:03:34,600
Speaker 1: invention pod dot com. You can go there and see

1188
01:03:35,120 --> 01:03:37,960
Speaker 1: the various topics we've been discussing. As always, the best

1189
01:03:38,000 --> 01:03:40,160
Speaker 1: way to support the show is to make sure you

1190
01:03:40,160 --> 01:03:42,280
Speaker 1: have subscribed to it and then write and review it

1191
01:03:42,360 --> 01:03:44,720
Speaker 1: wherever you have the power to do so. Huge thanks

1192
01:03:44,800 --> 01:03:48,400
Speaker 1: to our friends Scott Benjamin for research assistance on this podcast,

1193
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:52,200
Speaker 1: and thanks to our excellent audio producer Torry Harrison. If

1194
01:03:52,200 --> 01:03:53,680
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

1195
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:56,240
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1196
01:03:56,320 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1197
01:03:58,240 --> 01:04:07,360
Speaker 1: can email us at cont act at invention pod dot com.

1198
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:10,520
Speaker 1: Invention is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

1199
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:13,400
Speaker 1: for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1200
01:04:13,440 --> 01:04:20,000
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H