Named after S. A. Gerasimov, the film school began in 1919 and is the first and oldest film school in the world. During the period of the Soviet Union, it was a requirement of the state to attend VGIK in order to be allowed to direct a film. The institute has an impressive alumni, with renowned filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky and Alexander Sokurov all studying there.

Its work in the early years was restrained by the shortage of film stock, forcing classes to be taught around the art of montage; the institute would import random film rolls for the students of the school to cut and edit back together, forming new meanings through montage. Nowadays, the campus is still functioning, teaching classes in directing, screenwriting and cinematography. However, its renowned reputation has kept up with itself, with an acceptance rate of below 10%.

How has the psychological horror genre evolved in recent times? With reference the films The Shining (1980) and The Lighthouse (2019) using social, cultural and historical contexts.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining and Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse (2019) are both distinctive and iconic psychological horror films. They both explore concepts of isolation and paranoia as their central characters descend into madness. From the menacing use of liminal space in The Shining, to the overwhelming atmosphere of claustrophobia and doubt in The Lighthouse, these two films were selected for comparison due to their plot similarities and the fact that they were produced in contrasting eras of filmmaking. Kubrick’s film follows a family of three as their patriarch, played by Jack Nicholson, works as a caretaker for a grandiose hotel with an ominous history, slowly losing his sanity and breaking into a murderous rage by the end of the film. In The Lighthouse has a similar plotline, following two men working as lighthouse keepers, completely cut off from the rest of the world – and it takes its toll as they begin to hallucinate, drink, and fight, ending with one man killing the other.

Billy Wilder’s 1950 film Sunset Boulevard and Dan Gilroy’s 2014 film Nightcrawler distinctively utilise the film noir subgenre’s stylistic and narrative conventions. Both are incredibly cynical and gritty in tone, with Nightcrawler exploring the violent underbelly of urban America, whereas Sunset Boulevard delves into the destructive nature of fame and Hollywood. These films have been chosen for comparison due to the contrasting contexts in which they were made, Sunset Boulevard being a classic 1950s Hollywood noir film and Nightcrawler being a modern-day neo-noir, both emphasising differing social issues of the time. Wilder’s film follows an aging silent film queen that refuses to accept that her stardom has ended. She hires a young screenwriter to help set up her movie comeback, however his ambivalence about their relationship and her unwillingness to let go leads to a situation of violence, madness, and death. Nightcrawler follows low life thief, Louis Bloom, as he discovers a new way to earn money, by capturing photographs of crime scenes. Resorting to extreme measures to get them that results in violence and destruction. 

Truffaut’s 1959 film The 400 Blows and Gerwig’s 2017 film Ladybird are distinctive coming of age films, with both narratives centring around a singular protagonist as they navigate growing up and authentically “come of age”.  Despite sharing similarities within the narrative storyline, such as rebellious teens longing to break free from the confinements and rules of society, the context of production, and evolution in the genre cycle, creates an interesting element of difference. The 400 Blows takes place during post WW2 era of Paris, depicting the realistic story of a troubled teen, Antoine Doinel, who’s unhappy at home and resistant to the rules of society, evident through his acts of rebellion leading to his incarceration before ultimately escaping during the movies closing sequence. Gerwig’s solo, 2017, directorial debut Ladybird, however, is set in Sacramento, California in the early 2000’s, following a teenage girl Christine or Ladybird, navigating her senior year of high school with the clear goal of going to out-of-state colleges into cities with “culture”. However, Ladybirds dilemmas are clearly portrayed through her disillusionment with California, struggle with her social class and relationship with her mother. 

Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon and Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz are two distinct takes on the buddy cop subgenre of the crime film. Both feature two police officers with contrasting personalities who are forced to work together, including dramatic action sequences such as gun fights and chase scenes. The films were chosen due to their highly contrasting contexts, so the differences caused by the change in context can be clearly seen. Lethal Weapon being an American studio film, produced in 1987, and Hot Fuzz, a British film produced by Edgar Wright, an auteur, in 2007.  While Hot Fuzz is a parody of the genre, Lethal Weapon is considered a classic example of the buddy cop film. Hot Fuzz features Nicholas Angel, an efficient by-the-book police officer, and inexperienced and enthusiastic Danny Butterman as they work together to solve a series of murders in a small town, using comedy to comment on the cliches of the genre. Lethal Weapon has a more serious tone, following reckless and unpredictable Martin Riggs and family-man Roger Murtaugh, both veterans, attempting to stop a drug cartel.

‘Photography is truth. Cinema is truth 24 frames per second.’¹ Godard’s influence on the French new Wave movement was vast, with films such as ‘Vivre Sa Vie’, (1962), and ‘A Woman is a Woman’, (1961): films that explore the more underground and bleak backstories of characters, applying this to audience’s real lives. His most memorable piece, however, came out in 1960 and started this trend of his films embodying more dark-sided crime stories- this film was called ‘Breathless’, and detailed the goofy, crime accompanied romance between a criminal and his American lover. Its influence on cinema spread vastly, and this study will examine its influence on later 90s French Cinema, where much of French New Wave’s techniques and conventions were replicated. The 1990s ‘young realists’ movement took from French New Wave immensely, especially its reference of crime and normalisation of darker themes such as drug use which though rarely appeared in French New Wave films, carried the same effects as a character casually carrying a gun around Paris as Patricia does.² This study will compare the conventions of French New Wave between the classic ‘Breathless’ by Godard, and the young realist film ‘La Haine’, (1995), by director Kassovitz. The two films compare mainly in 3 distinct attributes that will be addressed: Cinematography and Style, Themes and Narrative and finally sound and editing.  

How has German Expressionism impacted on the themes and style of Neo Noir Films?  

I will be using the films The Cabinet of Dr a Caligari and Batman Returns

topic area is German expressionism and Neo Noir

Key narrative and technical conventions of the French New Wave approach to film making

• Shot on location (authentic backgrounds and natural lighting)
• Non-professional actors
• Innovative camera techniques e.g. hand-held camera for intimate shots
• Jump cuts/fast paced editing
• Close ups on face
• Often focused on topics such as: religion, class struggle, sexuality, and youth culture.
• Improvisations
• Improvisation during shooting
• Breaking the forth wall
• Broke traditional narrative structures/reject “Old Hollywood” style
• Auteur theory

What’s the difference between the Left and Right Bank approach?

“Left bank” older and less tightly linked one of the major left bank film makers was Agnes Varda and Chris Marker, arguable the most experimentative with his 1962 film La Jetée consisting of only still images. Whereas, the “Right Bank”/Cahiers du cinéma consisted of directors such as Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. However the groups were not in opposition and instead praised one another.

The Soviet Constructivism art movement is known as originating from a position of anti-art, where Russian artists began to reject the conventional frameworks of elite-art. Constructivists used stripped down, geometric forms and used practical instruments, such as rulers and compasses, to achieve this style. Sans-serif fonts and the dominance of red and black also stick out as clear conventions of this movement.

Constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban life. The movement rejected the abstract and over-stylisation of art, in favour of the industrial and symmetrical appearance of real life architecture in Russia.

“Of all the arts, for us cinema is the most important.”

-Lenin (founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924)

The Soviet Union had its origins in the Russian Revolution of 1917 after leftist revolutionists overthrew Russia’s Czar Nicholas II. However, the Soviet Union was only instated after the defeat of the White Army during the Russian Civil War in 1922.

Soon after the rise of the Soviet Union, cinema was utilised as a propaganda machine to achieve and maintain power over the public. It also allowed the political ideologies of the party to resonate with the the workers of Russia, as the general public would have watched the movies for entertainment purposes; this allowed many of the underlying themes of the propaganda films to be unconsciously idealised.