Gunning worries that adopting an evolutionary view of cinema will categorize pre-WWI film and cinema of attractions, as he puts it, "as [a] primitive [] early stage in which later potentials are sketched out but imperfectly realized" However, Gunning's definition of cinema of attractions frees it from this imperfect characterization: By its reference to the curiosity-arousing devices of the fairground, the term denoted early cinema's fascination with novelty and its foregrounding of the new act of display. ... While the Impressionists used camerawork to achieve this effect,...

• Word Count: 2663
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In The Barkleys of Broadway, Astaire and Rogers' characters are a married couple, together performing in musicals on stage. Rogers leaves the comedic musical stage for that of theatre, only to return to musical after disastrous results in theatre lead her to desiring "nothing but fun set to music". ... 'Musical numbers can be shot from the point of view of a front-row theatrical spectator and then move into filmic space - combining the immediate contact of the theatre with the mobility of perspective of the camera (Feuer ibid.). ...

• Word Count: 2434
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

From dog-fighting in Mexico to issues of transsexuality in Cuba, contemporary Latin American cinema covers a diverse array of topics. Lauren Mulvey, British feminist film theorist, uses pyschoanaylitics to offer a feminist critique of all classical narrative cinema. She establishes that narrative ci...

• Word Count: 4301
• Approx Pages: 17
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate