tIt was a wonderful experience: watching Street Angel, while Professor Ben Model performing the score. Like he stated before the screening, if an orchestra were to perform the score in modern days, when people are not used to sound not coming out from the film per se, it would distract people’s attention from the film. Professor Model also mentions improvisation of the performers: they do not necessarily play the same score for a film all the time. Imagine movies during the silent era, people might experience a visual journey differently if they go to different theater. Music performers to silent film is another author than the director.
tTake Street Angel as an example. When I was watching the film, it actually was Frank Borzage and Professor Model, along with actors and the film crew, creating the film together. American Movies before Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night did not place the director’s name at the end of opening credits. This actually makes sense, for the director was not considered, and in essence not, the auteur of a film. Music compose is also a great part of the film. It naturally leads to a fiery debate on film scores: what purpose does film score serve?
tHans Zimmer is famous for composing Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar’s film score, and Nolan is known for using majestic musics in his film. This somehow is what Nolan inherits from Hitchcock, whose influence on the former has been admitted by Nolan himself. Hitchcock’s collaboration with Bernard Hermann in films like Psycho received nothing but compliments of the critics. The two duos mentioned above share one thing in common: they love using film score to heighten the emotional expression of films. In other words, film score is utilized to stimulate certain feelings of audiences, and sometimes the music is more provocative than images in Nolan’s films.
tOn the other hand, Nino Rota in Federico Fellini’s films is more like a commentator. Rota does not provoke a certain feeling of the audience, but comment on the images, creating a world that is independent from the visual. In this way, the audience is actually more immersed in the images, for they are not influenced emotionally by the musics. Still, the audience will get an understanding of the director’s attitude towards the story and characters. Kubrick is probably the extremist on the spectrum. The film scores of his films are hardly “synchronized” with the images. He utilizes Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in a threesome scene in A Clockwork Orange, making the scene ironic, and employs Johann Strauss II’s The Blue Danube in space travel scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, praising the imagination of human beings and making the scene transcendental.
tTherefore, film score serves either as a tool to provoke the audience’s emotions, or as director’s comment on the images. But film score’s function is different for silent films and talkies. Great films, as Hitchcock claimed, are those which tell the story and express the emotion majorly by images, and he regarded silent films as the purest form of motion pictures (it is ironic because Hitchcock himself actually uses film score to replace the function of images, though to a less extent to which Nolan uses musics). With musics played all the way through, Street Angel still expresses its feelings through images, for music is the only sound of the film; in contrast, Jacques Becker’s Le Trou (about escaping the prison) has no music to it, but involves the sound of escapers’ drilling holes, which naturally creates suspense. But the sound in Street Angel and Le Trou are functioning in the same way, for the music in Street Angel is fluid, never surprising the audience but also following the flow of the film. They are both great examples of the purest form of narrative film art: leaving the images untouched.
Space and Juxtaposition
tFocusing on Street Angel per se, the images convey emotions precisely. Borzage, in order to externalize emotions, fully exploits the space in and out of the frame, manipulates the staging (high and low) of the actors, contrasts light and shadow, and utilizes sophisticated parallel montage and close-ups.
1. Depth of the Fieldt
tThis is a great example of Borzage’s fully exploiting the space within the frame. The front and background of the shot are both occupied. At the front, we see Angela climbing down the wall to escape, but she does not know the policemen are really close to her. But we audience clearly see that at the background, the policemen are looking for her. This creates a suspense and makes us worry about whether Angela would be caught.
tThis holds true for the whole hide and chase at the beginning of the film. In this sequence, the unseen of the frame is utilized. Angela runs upstairs and hides, and we know she is hiding; and then we see the policemen looking for her downstairs. After they go away, Angela runs downstairs and goes out from the door. This long take is interesting, and we can perceive the integrity, the wholeness, of the film. Everything sticks together, and we can see the tension between two groups of people within the frame.
tHere is an example of exploiting space outside of the frame. It is basically eye-line matching, but in this film, we do not perceive it only as a cutting technique; we already know the police is waiting for her outside, and we know what Angela sees when hugging Gino. But just because we know what is going on, and we still see the police reminding Angela “it is time to go,” the feeling of despair we feel for Angela is bolstered. This eye-line matching is more congruent, connecting the space in and out the window.
tThis shot above also illustrates the central idea of space. Angela hides in the broken drum, and the cop is right standing by it. The cop is within the intimate distance between him and Angela, signaling the private space of Angela is taken up, and she could be found out at any moment. Therefore, the fully utilization of space externalizes the emotions and make the audience empathize with Angela.
tLater on, with the innovation of deep focus lens, the application of the concept of depth of the field would be more apparent in films, like Citizen Kane.
2. Staging
tAdmittedly, the blocking and facial expression of actors show the emotions of the characters, but they, after all, are not as effective as speaking dialogues in talkies. Therefore, staging helps showcase the state of mind of the characters.
tThe most eye-catching trait of staging in Street Angel is the relative height of characters. In this shot, the doctor is the highest, while Angela’s mother is the lowest, lying on the floor. Angela, however, is curling by her mother, and her height within the frame is the medium. This externalizes the dilemma Angela is in: she wants her mother cured, but she seems not have enough money, given the shabbiness of her home. t
tThere is always change of relative height between Angela and Gino, which highly depends on the shift of equilibrium of their romantic relationship. When Gino is expressing his love to Angela, Gino is lower than Angela, showing his admiration for Angela. But in scene in which they have a quarrel, mostly because of Angela’s unspoken pain, Angela is lower than Gino, from which we can feel her deep apology to him.
tThus, despite the lack of speaking dialogue, Borzage successfully allows the audience to understand the up and down in Gino and Angela’s romance. In the upper to shots, we can just know how genuinely Gino is speaking to Angela. In the lower two shots, in which Angela facing away from Gino, we feel sorry for her past and truly wish Gino would know it and understand Angela. And this leads to the next technique
3. Light and Shadow
tWhen Gino asks Angela to sit tight and tries to paint a portrait of her, the shot is in an open form, with mild wind blowing trees endowing the shot liveliness. However, when Angela is in prison, the railing and the shadow of railing surround her: she is in an inescapable situation, imprisoned by her tragic past.
tThe use of intensive shadows (often enlarge objects) in prison makes us feel how frightened Angela is. She is an innocent girl with love to her mother and husband. Just as the title indicates, she is an angel. But in a prison, she is among evil people. In the shot above, we see the gigantic shadows of prisoners, mostly men, enveloping Angela, and we know she does not belong to this place.
tAn interesting juxtaposition is offered by the foil character, Lisetta. When she encounters Angela in jail, she says that they are actually the same. Also, she tries to make Gino forget Angela by, in a way, seducing him. This reminds me of F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise, in which the man is seduced by a woman but tries to redeem his marriage.
4. D.W. Griffith: Parallel Montage and Close-Ups
tThe film also shows the tremendous influence of D.W. Griffith on film production.
tIn Street Angel, we see close-ups of face and close-ups of details. After establishing shots, details hidden in the frame is revealed by the camera.
tAlso, Borzage utilizes parallel montage, or cross-cutting, to create a tension between the police and Angela. When Angela is enjoying her time with Gino at home, the police is trying to find Angela. This not only makes us worry about whether her romance would be ruined, but also allows us to see the tragic past of hers impacting implicitly on her life.
tThese are all techniques that D.W. Griffith brings to films, making films not only a documentation of reality, but also a presentation and revelation of the unseen.
Lingering Past and Poetic Realism
tThe origin of a lot of later poetic realist films can be found in Street Angel: long takes and close-ups, externalized emotions, plot giving way to characters’ emotions, romanticized relationship between people, and other characteristics.
tThe film begins with a long take: the camera pans from the quarrel between Mascetto with another man to the scene in which people gathering outside Angela’s home, discussing. This sequence shot is poetic: it glues the exterior together, establishing the environment Angela is in; it also foreshadows the encounter of Angela and Mascetto. The camera itself binds the fate of Angela and Mascetto together by not cutting in between the long take.
tPeople are friendly. The cop is willing to wait Angela outside of her house, giving her time to say goodbye to Gino; Mascetto does not ask Angela what happens to her, but willingly helps her hide and invites her to the circus. This is an important characteristic in poetic realism. Take Jean Renoir’s The Grand Illusion as an example. Even though the French Officers are German prisoners, the German prison guards still treat them really politely. It seems that the innate kindness of characters is a commonality between all poetic realist films, which could be seen in Street Angel for the first time.
t
t
tThere is also a surprising similarity between the upper two shots. The left one is from Street Angel, while the right one is from Jean Vigo’s L’ Atalante, which is considered the monumental work of French poetic realism. Except for the difference ratio, one can easily spot the nearly identical mise-en-scène: couples hugging, fog, and the empty surrounding. The shots are poetic because the fog provides with a surreal atmosphere, while the romance between lovers is the only thing we see and concern. This offers another evidence of Street Angel pioneering the poetic realism genre.
电影课第二次screening的内容。由专门研究默片的教授亲自演奏配乐，这种体验真的很神奇。再次感慨电影创作的魅力。写这种分析一开始很起劲，但写着写着还是会累，毕竟不是作业。
Sound Track and Auteur Theoryt
tIt was a wonderful experience: watching Street Angel, while Professor Ben Model performing the score. Like he stated before the screening, if an orchestra were to perform the score in modern days, when people are not used to sound not coming out from the film per se, it would distract people’s attention from the film. Professor Model also mentions improvisation of the performers: they do not necessarily play the same score for a film all the time. Imagine movies during the silent era, people might experience a visual journey differently if they go to different theater. Music performers to silent film is another author than the director.
tTake Street Angel as an example. When I was watching the film, it actually was Frank Borzage and Professor Model, along with actors and the film crew, creating the film together. American Movies before Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night did not place the director’s name at the end of opening credits. This actually makes sense, for the director was not considered, and in essence not, the auteur of a film. Music compose is also a great part of the film. It naturally leads to a fiery debate on film scores: what purpose does film score serve?
tHans Zimmer is famous for composing Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar’s film score, and Nolan is known for using majestic musics in his film. This somehow is what Nolan inherits from Hitchcock, whose influence on the former has been admitted by Nolan himself. Hitchcock’s collaboration with Bernard Hermann in films like Psycho received nothing but compliments of the critics. The two duos mentioned above share one thing in common: they love using film score to heighten the emotional expression of films. In other words, film score is utilized to stimulate certain feelings of audiences, and sometimes the music is more provocative than images in Nolan’s films.
tOn the other hand, Nino Rota in Federico Fellini’s films is more like a commentator. Rota does not provoke a certain feeling of the audience, but comment on the images, creating a world that is independent from the visual. In this way, the audience is actually more immersed in the images, for they are not influenced emotionally by the musics. Still, the audience will get an understanding of the director’s attitude towards the story and characters. Kubrick is probably the extremist on the spectrum. The film scores of his films are hardly “synchronized” with the images. He utilizes Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in a threesome scene in A Clockwork Orange, making the scene ironic, and employs Johann Strauss II’s The Blue Danube in space travel scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, praising the imagination of human beings and making the scene transcendental.
tTherefore, film score serves either as a tool to provoke the audience’s emotions, or as director’s comment on the images. But film score’s function is different for silent films and talkies. Great films, as Hitchcock claimed, are those which tell the story and express the emotion majorly by images, and he regarded silent films as the purest form of motion pictures (it is ironic because Hitchcock himself actually uses film score to replace the function of images, though to a less extent to which Nolan uses musics). With musics played all the way through, Street Angel still expresses its feelings through images, for music is the only sound of the film; in contrast, Jacques Becker’s Le Trou (about escaping the prison) has no music to it, but involves the sound of escapers’ drilling holes, which naturally creates suspense. But the sound in Street Angel and Le Trou are functioning in the same way, for the music in Street Angel is fluid, never surprising the audience but also following the flow of the film. They are both great examples of the purest form of narrative film art: leaving the images untouched.
Space and Juxtaposition
tFocusing on Street Angel per se, the images convey emotions precisely. Borzage, in order to externalize emotions, fully exploits the space in and out of the frame, manipulates the staging (high and low) of the actors, contrasts light and shadow, and utilizes sophisticated parallel montage and close-ups.
1. Depth of the Fieldt
tThis is a great example of Borzage’s fully exploiting the space within the frame. The front and background of the shot are both occupied. At the front, we see Angela climbing down the wall to escape, but she does not know the policemen are really close to her. But we audience clearly see that at the background, the policemen are looking for her. This creates a suspense and makes us worry about whether Angela would be caught.
tThis holds true for the whole hide and chase at the beginning of the film. In this sequence, the unseen of the frame is utilized. Angela runs upstairs and hides, and we know she is hiding; and then we see the policemen looking for her downstairs. After they go away, Angela runs downstairs and goes out from the door. This long take is interesting, and we can perceive the integrity, the wholeness, of the film. Everything sticks together, and we can see the tension between two groups of people within the frame.
tHere is an example of exploiting space outside of the frame. It is basically eye-line matching, but in this film, we do not perceive it only as a cutting technique; we already know the police is waiting for her outside, and we know what Angela sees when hugging Gino. But just because we know what is going on, and we still see the police reminding Angela “it is time to go,” the feeling of despair we feel for Angela is bolstered. This eye-line matching is more congruent, connecting the space in and out the window.
tThis shot above also illustrates the central idea of space. Angela hides in the broken drum, and the cop is right standing by it. The cop is within the intimate distance between him and Angela, signaling the private space of Angela is taken up, and she could be found out at any moment. Therefore, the fully utilization of space externalizes the emotions and make the audience empathize with Angela.
tLater on, with the innovation of deep focus lens, the application of the concept of depth of the field would be more apparent in films, like Citizen Kane.
2. Staging
tAdmittedly, the blocking and facial expression of actors show the emotions of the characters, but they, after all, are not as effective as speaking dialogues in talkies. Therefore, staging helps showcase the state of mind of the characters.
tThe most eye-catching trait of staging in Street Angel is the relative height of characters. In this shot, the doctor is the highest, while Angela’s mother is the lowest, lying on the floor. Angela, however, is curling by her mother, and her height within the frame is the medium. This externalizes the dilemma Angela is in: she wants her mother cured, but she seems not have enough money, given the shabbiness of her home. t
tThere is always change of relative height between Angela and Gino, which highly depends on the shift of equilibrium of their romantic relationship. When Gino is expressing his love to Angela, Gino is lower than Angela, showing his admiration for Angela. But in scene in which they have a quarrel, mostly because of Angela’s unspoken pain, Angela is lower than Gino, from which we can feel her deep apology to him.
tThus, despite the lack of speaking dialogue, Borzage successfully allows the audience to understand the up and down in Gino and Angela’s romance. In the upper to shots, we can just know how genuinely Gino is speaking to Angela. In the lower two shots, in which Angela facing away from Gino, we feel sorry for her past and truly wish Gino would know it and understand Angela. And this leads to the next technique
3. Light and Shadow
tWhen Gino asks Angela to sit tight and tries to paint a portrait of her, the shot is in an open form, with mild wind blowing trees endowing the shot liveliness. However, when Angela is in prison, the railing and the shadow of railing surround her: she is in an inescapable situation, imprisoned by her tragic past.
tThe use of intensive shadows (often enlarge objects) in prison makes us feel how frightened Angela is. She is an innocent girl with love to her mother and husband. Just as the title indicates, she is an angel. But in a prison, she is among evil people. In the shot above, we see the gigantic shadows of prisoners, mostly men, enveloping Angela, and we know she does not belong to this place.
tAn interesting juxtaposition is offered by the foil character, Lisetta. When she encounters Angela in jail, she says that they are actually the same. Also, she tries to make Gino forget Angela by, in a way, seducing him. This reminds me of F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise, in which the man is seduced by a woman but tries to redeem his marriage.
4. D.W. Griffith: Parallel Montage and Close-Ups
tThe film also shows the tremendous influence of D.W. Griffith on film production.
tIn Street Angel, we see close-ups of face and close-ups of details. After establishing shots, details hidden in the frame is revealed by the camera.
tAlso, Borzage utilizes parallel montage, or cross-cutting, to create a tension between the police and Angela. When Angela is enjoying her time with Gino at home, the police is trying to find Angela. This not only makes us worry about whether her romance would be ruined, but also allows us to see the tragic past of hers impacting implicitly on her life.
tThese are all techniques that D.W. Griffith brings to films, making films not only a documentation of reality, but also a presentation and revelation of the unseen.
Lingering Past and Poetic Realism
tThe origin of a lot of later poetic realist films can be found in Street Angel: long takes and close-ups, externalized emotions, plot giving way to characters’ emotions, romanticized relationship between people, and other characteristics.
tThe film begins with a long take: the camera pans from the quarrel between Mascetto with another man to the scene in which people gathering outside Angela’s home, discussing. This sequence shot is poetic: it glues the exterior together, establishing the environment Angela is in; it also foreshadows the encounter of Angela and Mascetto. The camera itself binds the fate of Angela and Mascetto together by not cutting in between the long take.
tPeople are friendly. The cop is willing to wait Angela outside of her house, giving her time to say goodbye to Gino; Mascetto does not ask Angela what happens to her, but willingly helps her hide and invites her to the circus. This is an important characteristic in poetic realism. Take Jean Renoir’s The Grand Illusion as an example. Even though the French Officers are German prisoners, the German prison guards still treat them really politely. It seems that the innate kindness of characters is a commonality between all poetic realist films, which could be seen in Street Angel for the first time.
t
t
tThere is also a surprising similarity between the upper two shots. The left one is from Street Angel, while the right one is from Jean Vigo’s L’ Atalante, which is considered the monumental work of French poetic realism. Except for the difference ratio, one can easily spot the nearly identical mise-en-scène: couples hugging, fog, and the empty surrounding. The shots are poetic because the fog provides with a surreal atmosphere, while the romance between lovers is the only thing we see and concern. This offers another evidence of Street Angel pioneering the poetic realism genre.
Light and shadow
Intensive Visuality
He is an auteur who is all about the visual.
Push all story information he can into the visual plane.
Transcedent Romance
Up and down
Operatic melodrama
A close-up of a character gazing upward with light in their eyes
Emotiaonal and Poetic motifs:
window, whistle, fog
painting: a carrier of emotion
"Make the audience sentimental, not the player."
最早电影屏幕就是一张简单的床单，甚至连音乐都没有。欣赏之余，人们也在惋惜：要是。。。就更。。。了
人类的欲望推动着电影工业的技术，屏幕越来越大，3D的效果越来越逼真，音效场景震撼着我们，但也束缚了我们。
开始看Street Angel完全是因为Coursera的课程要求，起初还担心看不进去的问题。
可是不知不觉竟然看完了，而且丝毫没有出戏，也未觉冗长。（最近去电影院都有不断吐槽和出戏的情况）。
默片给了我空间，让我自己把故事完整化，Angela的眼神，动作，表情传达到我这儿的时候，我自然而然地读懂了，也感动了。
故事很简单，但我依旧想要知道结局会如何，看过太多精心铺垫的片子，大多时候我总能按编剧的路线猜到了结局，或者吐槽结局突兀狗血，不合逻辑。
Street Angel把我单纯的变成了一个观影者，电影用心的讲故事，我用心的听故事，返璞归真，真好。
看开头的时候就被吸引了，十分舍不得看，1928年的片子，用电影的方式记录下来，时隔80多年，人类文明进化的速度真是快得惊人。
影片里的点点滴滴都是历史的痕迹，马车，马戏团，画家，以及警察戴着的可爱帽子。
故事简单明了，全片都由女主支撑，放在如今来看，我可以毫不犹豫地说句，我就是看美女来的。
默片的对话就是把字幕整个地贴在屏幕上，告诉你一个大概意思，可有趣的是许多时候，他们根本没有给你贴字幕。嘴巴却呱啦呱啦地不停说话。这个时候，你就很想知道究竟他们在说些什么，然后会有一些想象的语句在空白的脑子里冒出来。
女主的表演能力很强，而且长得没话说。在那个技术简陋的年代，电影经由无声到有背景音乐，再到有对话，有色彩，一步一步的，人类把电影推向了如今的3D。
我想未来的电影还会更好，甚至可以直接给你触觉，嗅觉，味觉的全方位体验。让你彻底沉浸在一起全新的世界之中。
可那又怎样呢。
这部黑白默片让我们放弃了一味追求感官享受的机会，而把更多的注意力放到故事本身，去观察演员的一颦一笑，去体会每一句台词背后的感情。或许慢下来，简单一点，甚至简陋一点，才能更接近生活的真谛。
曲有误：
盖诺真美，男女主最后对视时的场景很棒。
子夜无人：
在苔藓处开花，在卑微中幸福，在尘世间相爱。
zzy花岗岩：
一个颇为曲折的爱情故事，珍妮·盖诺惹人怜爱。
sky：
剧作如此平庸无趣，技术也无可取之处，不知为何有人为之动容。
果树：
的确是好故事与好表演，但全片对我而言最大的问题就是调性，我看见了一个常讲常新的文本，却没有听到影片具有其独占特性的宣言。
淋酒：
鲍沙其受茂瑙影响颇深，镜头与调度都很有德国味，总的来看这个故事已经趋近于日后的好莱坞叙事了，但如果用现在的眼光来看，本片身处于无声与有声交替阶段，其劣势很明显，困于无法用台词丰富信息，只能反复强调情感，看到后面非常乏味，不过最后的画像段非常有意思。
我略知她一二：
失败者们的爱情怎样都不会看腻，患难见真情，人们都爱穷困潦倒的雪中送炭，这种爱情是互相安慰的索取，是心灵映照的想象。分别后的爱人在雾霭濛濛中重逢，误会被瓦解，前嫌被冰释，但是这段感情从这一刻开始已经不再对等，虽然依旧美丽如初。 查尔斯·法莱尔是如此的俊美而风趣，健壮而可爱，他的笑容是那么的富有魅力，让人心动的同时沉醉于他独有的文艺气息，这才是真正的画家拥有的风范，浪漫不失严谨，漂亮不失果敢，痴情却不泛滥，多情却不迷惘。 相比而言珍妮·盖诺杰出的演绎被抢去了不少风头，但是她依然美丽的不可方物，在黑白无声中熠熠生辉，闪耀着自己独特的光芒。
法罗岛岛主：
其实叙事结构和精神内核与《日出》无差，两个相爱的人受到第三者蛊惑，感情分崩离析，男方想杀害女方，却最终被感化，有情人终成眷属。男性都是鲁莽的（《日出》里面男主因为一点小争执在舞厅和人打架，《马路天使》男主离开女主后把生活过的一团糟），女性都是贤惠的（《日出》女主因为丈夫带自己去城里玩了一天而原谅了他想杀她的事，《马路天使》女主苦苦哀求男友不要离开自己），一切的问题都源于第三者挑拨（《日出》最后丈夫居然想杀了小三，《马路天使》则把第三者暗喻成魔鬼），或许也能反映当时美国人的价值观，故事中后段两人分离的戏份太冗长，镜头调度非常优秀，第一届奥斯卡影后的表演生动细腻，电影带有浓浓的宗教气息。
#FIFF8#DAY5的主竞赛场刊评分稍后会为大家释出，请大家拭目以待了。