Documentaries, famously, give the impression that they're simply observing reality when, in fact, they're also shaping it. This was an era when populations around the world were hard at work forging national identities. Then, in 1922, Robert Flaherty added narrative flair when he made the legendary "Nanook of the North" - and documentary film was born.īut in a closely argued essay, film theorist Bill Nichols argues that the documentary form really reached maturity in the 1920s because it was needed. Traditional histories of documentary films suggest a kind of natural evolution of the form as follows: When the Lumière brothers, who were among history's first cinematographers, started filming workers leaving their Lyon photography factory in the 1880s, they were making the first baby steps toward documenting the world as it existed around them. When it comes right down to it, everything from "Citizen Kane" to "Gangnam Style" is unthinkable without montage. Two or more images closely juxtaposed through editing could, Eisenstein theorized, create an impression beyond that which the images themselves represented. The "Odessa Steps" sequence is considered Eisenstein's most successful illustration of his theory of montage, which amounts to this: The sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Among the most famous images in the scene, Eisenstein intercuts a shot of a baby carriage careening down the steps (baby on board) with harrowing footage of the carnage taking place all around it. Tzarist soldiers massacre the assembly on the Odessa steps. Sailing into the port of Odessa, the crew goes ashore where local citizens gather to support them. It's hard to exaggerate the impact of the famed "Odessa Steps" sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's groundbreaking 1925 work, "Battleship Potemkin." Conceived as a Soviet propaganda film based on a historical event, the story begins with the mutiny of the crew of the eponymous Russian Navy warship. One hundred fifty-five shots in five minutes.
At one point, director Fred Niblo discovered that some of the Italian extras were planning to bring unwanted authenticity to a battle scene, having organized themselves into pro- and anti- fascist camps and sharpened the prop swords. Labor disputes, possibly fomented by Mussolini himself, delayed filming considerably. They didn't count on the country's new leader, Benito Mussolini, who was in a virulently anti-American mood when production began.
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It was going to be a big, lavish production from the start, but to up the ante, MGM decided to film the entire movie on location in Italy. Set in the time of Christ, "Ben-Hur" is the story of a wealthy young Jewish man who is enslaved by the Romans, crosses paths with Jesus and becomes a rockstar charioteer. The new studio of Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) wanted to make its mark and chose to do so with a cinematic version of a hugely successful stage play that was itself an adaptation of a best-selling novel. "Ben-Hur " was an epic in every way possible. John Kobal Foundation/Moviepix/Getty Images