Early Cinema Techniques: Méliès and Griffith’s Innovations
Early Cinema Techniques: Méliès and Griffith
Makeup: Méliès’ films use language as an expressive, imaginative resource. He developed personal techniques to bring his ideas to life.
Female orchestra’s 57th minute: Méliès used film negatives to create special effects, such as duplicating people, a resource often used in horror and fantasy films.
Man heads 3.37 minutes: Méliès again uses cinematic techniques to enhance his imaginative ideas. The tricks used (head appearing and disappearing) are precursors to many tricks used in contemporary film techniques.
In this film, we see the use of music (piano) as an emotional appeal, helping the viewer participate in Méliès’ magical world. The audiophile minute 20 (the lover of the Chibcha) Méliès used the language of music as an expressive element, the piano. The piano sound heard while his films is part of the audiovisual language. Méliès pays homage to music and shows the importance of sound in film.
The Man with the rubber head (minute 24): Méliès uses techniques to shape his ideas. In this movie, a head swells to bursting, a trick used in contemporary horror and fantasy genres, like Avengers of the Future.
Trip to the Moon. Minute 6: Méliès uses various tricks to create his own film language, propelling the science fiction genre.
Blue Beard: In this 50 minute film, Méliès uses gestural expressiveness to help the characters convey the narrative. Blue Beard, played by Méliès, uses many gestures to tell what will happen. Silent film requires resources that music does not provide, so gestures are used as a means of expression. The key to this action film is the use of an object (the key), which propels the story, a technique used extensively in film history, e.g., Lord of the Rings.
Men fighting. 57 minutes: Méliès uses new cinematographic technology and imaginative ideas for the scene where a body is recomposed, a resource widely used in horror and fantasy films. A mutilated body returns to normalidad. Méliès again uses cinematic techniques to bring his ideas to the screen. The use of music (piano with oriental sounds) accompanies the visual message.
D.W. Griffith’s Innovations
The Birth of a Nation
8.4 Minute 1915: A fight between a cat and dog is used as a prelude to the American Civil War, representing the hostility between the North and South.
12.52 Minute valley of love: A detailed map of the cotton flower is shown. Griffith uses these detailed shots throughout the film.
Minute 45.39: Griffith uses large-scale scenes with many soldiers (extras), which was novel for the time.
Minute death 47.59 (1h 45min 21 s): A flashback shows an old couple remembering their dead brother. This inserts a level crossing when the brother dies.
1h 21min. Murder: A scene at the Gala Theater (Abraham Lincoln) uses long shots interspersed with close-ups (gun).
2h 6 minutes 46s: A forest scene shows the attempted rape of Kaweron’s younger sister. Griffith uses parallel editing, interweaving three different stories: the brother of Kaweron, the younger sister of Kaweron, and Captain Black (Gus). These three stories come together in the forest scene.
2h 55minu 36s traveling: The camera follows the horse, a technical display for its time, using a long tracking shot.